Category: Lent

Lent 2008

What are Pie and Coffee readers and contributors doing for Lent?

Among other things, I’ll be participating in the Worcester Lenten fast and prayer for an end to the Iraq War. I’m not sure yet what form my fasting will take.

Feel free to post your thoughts below, or link to a blog post. Contributors, feel free to add resources to this post.

From the pope’s Lenten message:

The Gospel highlights a typical feature of Christian almsgiving: it must be hidden: “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” Jesus asserts, “so that your alms may be done in secret” (Mt 6,3-4). . . . If, in accomplishing a good deed, we do not have as our goal God’s glory and the real well being of our brothers and sisters, looking rather for a return of personal interest or simply of applause, we place ourselves outside of the Gospel vision.

So I assume everybody is giving alms, and you don’t have to mention that.

Worcester Lenten Prayer and Fast for an End to the Iraq War

As Roman Catholics who love the Church, we listened closely to Pope John Paul II who called the 2003 Iraq War “a defeat for humanity” and to Pope Benedict XVI who said, “There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq,” and went on to say, “We should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a just war.”

We remember that, despite the Vatican’s clear opposition to the Iraq War, only one American Bishop, Most Rev. John Michael Botean, condemned it. In a 2003 Lenten Pastoral Letter, Bishop Botean called the Iraq War “objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin.”

On March 19, the Iraq War will enter its fifth year. More than 150,000 Iraqi civilians and nearly 4,000 American soldiers have perished. Hundreds of thousands of our sisters and brothers have been injured, orphaned, or left homeless.

We cannot help but wonder if this war could have been prevented with a stronger voice of opposition from all of us in the American Catholic Church. We admit our own complicity by our failure to raise our own voices more forcefully. But, even now, we believe that the voice of our Church can help end the bloodshed.

jagerstatter.jpgTherefore, inspired by the witness of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, we join concerned Catholics in twelve other dioceses around the United States to call for a Lenten prayer and fast for peace. Like Jagerstatter, the only known Roman Catholic to refuse service in Hitler’s military during World War II, we believe that the Church must not stay “silent in the face of what is happening.” Starting on Ash Wednesday, we invite all people of conscience to join us at Saint Paul’s Cathedral for midday Mass each weekday, followed by a peace vigil outside the church and, shortly thereafter, at the nearby United States Federal Building. We will conclude our prayer and fasting during Holy Week on March 19th with a special Catholic peace witness at the Federal Building.

We hope and pray that this witness in Worcester and other dioceses around the country will draw the Church closer to the nonviolent Christ and help our nation to end the Iraq War and Occupation.

Good Friday, Worcester

Way of the CrossSeveral groups walked the “Way of the Cross” in Worcester today. Among them was a group of eighteen Catholics who observed the annual “Contemporary Way of the Cross.” (T&G report of another group.)

Photo essay.

In Roman-occupied Palestine, executions were not merely public events, but often times were preceded by a public scourging and parade, in which the condemned person was forced to carry the instrument of their own death. Jesus did not suffer in some far away place, but in the streets of the city of Jerusalem, where He was seen by many.

For Christians, the suffering of Jesus represents the greatest testimony to His love. For centuries, Roman Catholics have reenacted Christ’s agony on the last Friday of Lent by carrying a replica of His cross through the streets of their own communities. This “Way of the Cross” has been seen both an aid to understanding Jesus’ experience and as a public proclaimation of His love.

In recent years, socially concerned Worcester Catholics have tried to carry on this tradition with a special emphasis on how His suffering still continues in our city and world. Jesus preached that He would remain with us in a special way incarnated in the poor and oppressed. The reflections we are making today in Worcester are a small attempt to seek out the still-suffering Christ and to pray for the grace to respond as God wills.

Midwest Catholic Worker retreat ends in protest, one arrest at Notre Dame

South Bend (Indiana) Tribune:

A few dozen members of the Catholic Worker movement staged a protest in front of the University of Notre Dame’s administration building today, saying the university’s ROTC program contradicts Catholic teaching.

“It saddens us that one of the preeminent universities is training warriors,” said the Rev. Ben Jimenez, a Catholic priest from Cleveland.

An appropriate quotation from the pope (Feb 18, 2007):

Why does Jesus ask us to love our very enemies, that is, ask a love that exceeds human capacities? What is certain is that Christ’s proposal is realistic, because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and that this situation cannot be overcome without positing more love, more kindness. This “more” comes from God: It is his mercy that has become flesh in Jesus and that alone can redress the balance of the world from evil to good, beginning from that small and decisive “world” which is man’s heart.

This page of the Gospel is rightly considered the “magna carta” of Christian nonviolence; it does not consist in surrendering to evil — as claims a false interpretation of “turn the other cheek” (Luke 6:29) — but in responding to evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21), and thus breaking the chain of injustice. It is thus understood that nonviolence, for Christians, is not mere tactical behavior but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is convinced of God’s love and power, who is not afraid to confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone. Loving the enemy is the nucleus of the “Christian revolution,” a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power. The revolution of love, a love that does not base itself definitively in human resources, but in the gift of God, that is obtained only and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Herein lies the novelty of the Gospel, which changes the world without making noise. Herein lies the heroism of the “little ones,” who believe in the love of God and spread it even at the cost of life.

Emphasis added.

See also: Father Michael Bafaro’s address to the Worcester March 24 antiwar rally.

Mason Street Musings

Reprinted from The Catholic Radical, April/May 2007

“You people make me sick!” our guest screamed. “You call yourselves Christians! You’re a bunch of hypocrites! I’ll sue you for throwing me out on the street!”

Although it’s our preference to feature heartwarming stories of guests who are grateful for our hospitality and leave us for a better future, it’s not honest to sugarcoat Catholic Worker reality. Some of those who stay with us have life-long problems which we hardly understand, much less resolve. Some are prevented by addiction or mental illness from making healthy choices. Some steal from each other or from us. A very small number, thanks be to God, fly off the handle.

We had just about every type of challenging guest in February. Several got drunk and lied to us about it. One got up in the middle of the night to smoke in the bathroom. Another relapsed on drugs. An alcoholic former guest tried to sneak into the house at five in the morning to “use the bathroom.” During a previous restroom stop, he stole a guest’s leather jacket. Several guests lied to us about their income and housing plans. One of them told a story so ridiculous that I felt like saying, “Do yourself a favor. Before you tell me another lie, run it by someone else to see if they would believe you.” It’s disrespectful enough that someone lies to me without treating me as a complete idiot.
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The long, dark sickday of the soul

I’ve felt spiritually derailed this year, and the Lenten season just makes it that much more obvious. A day or two of prayer and fasting usually gets me back on track–in fact, I’ve never known it to fail. But I’ve been sick for a week and a half, and in no mood to take on any more spiritual disciplines till I’m feeling better.

Part of the trouble is that I haven’t lived in a Catholic Worker community for six months. For all the drawbacks of the Catholic Worker lifestyle, it does make it easy to integrate spirituality into the flow of your life.

When my life isn’t spiritually grounded, my activism isn’t grounded, either. When the rest of my life is going well, activism is a joy, or at least fun in a quixotic way. But these days, my projects have been a real chore.

Many radicals of vastly more experience than myself refer to their work as “resistance,” which is a word I don’t really like. As a Christian, I think that Truth and Love are the background of reality. I don’t want to stand up to Evil like a wall, I want my life to be sharp like a pin, so that when confronted with Evil I can make little pinpricks in it, letting Truth and Love seep through, eventually eroding it. But at the moment, my work feels like “resistance,” as though I’m standing against evil alone, rather than being a tool of God’s love.

Ash Wednesday, 2007

Last year’s Pie and Coffee “Lent” articles were an eclectic bunch.

Most Catholics either give up something, or take on a new responsibility, for Lent. They also stop eating meat on Fridays (except fish). Since becoming a vegan, I’ve been wondering what I should do. Last year, I gave up soy on Fridays, which was a pain in the neck and not very productive. This year, I think I’ll just observe a juice fast on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, since the combination of prayer and fasting always does me good, and I should try it more often.

Chinese New Year: Indymedia has an article and movie about the celebration in Worcester, courtesy Matt Feinstein. Are there Chinese Christians who feel a conflict between celebrating these first weeks of their New Year, and observing Lent?

Television: You can submit your questions about prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other topics to Worcester’s Mayor and City Manager via Soapbox.

Catholic Worker: Houston Indymedia reports that the Houston CW is being harrassed by the Klan.

Good Friday, Worcester

This afternoon seventeen of my friends and I observed the Stations of the Cross, walking around downtown Worcester, praying and visiting landmarks that remind us of the suffering we impose on others.

As we walked between some of the stations, we chanted in Latin: Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas Deus ibi est.

We crossed paths with Father John Madden and some St. John’s parishioners. Last year, we ran into them while both groups were walking the stations; this year, it looked like they’d already finished when we passed them.

Stations of the Cross, Worcester, Good Friday 2006
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First annual Passion Play, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Worcester

Passion Play 2006, Blessed Sacrament Church, Worcester, Massachusetts

This week Blessed Sacrament Parish began what they hope will be an annual tradition of staging a free, wordless passion play the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week.

Based on the capacity of the church, I’d say they had well over 200 people there for the week’s second performance.


Gerard L’Esperance played Matthew. I talked with him briefly after his performance. [WMV, 1.3MB]

2006 Passion Play, Blessed Sacrament Church, Worcester MA2006 Passion Play, Blessed Sacrament Church, Worcester MA
Picture: Judas prepares to hang himself.