According to Cardinal Mahony
According to the calendar, Ash Wednesday occurs this week and we begin another Lent.
Except for this year.
Lent actually began in 2007 for many thousands of families all across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and we have been in a long and protracted season of Lent ever since. In what sense? The annual Lenten season calls us to reflect more deeply into our lives with God, to re-order our personal priorities according to the Gospel, and to live out increased personal sacrifice in our daily living.
Now no doubt for many families the downturn of the economy has lead to sacrifice and part of the Cardinal Message is to take that suffering and to unite it with Christ. Bishop Fulton Sheen said “the biggest waste in the world is wasted suffering” and that is certainly true. Though if we are going to mark the start of Lent as when suffering began I say Lent for L.A. started in 1985 when he was appointed Cardinal. He had a birthday yesterday so for L.A. Lent will only be another 2 years. Now that is pretty snarky for Lent or for anytime of the year really, but considering the state of the seminary and the lack of authentic Catholic teaching in the diocese I think appropriate.
7 comments
As an LA resident, I can confirm those thoughts. For that reason alone is why the retirement calender’s on my blog
Does his eminence explain why 2007?
Oh yeah! January 2007: sub-mongoloid, cretins Pelosi and Reid, and the world’s least qualified, most immoral demagogues took over congress.
I think Mahony was trying to make it sound like what these people are going through is a horrible thing. I don’t think he was really enouraging them to take Archbishop Sheen’s suggestion to heart. Yet, by his very words he was suggesting that it is a positive, just the opposite of what he intended.
I see him trying to use them to promote his political agenda. I doubt that he thinks that reflecting “more deeply into our lives with God, to re-order our personal priorities according to the Gospel, and to live out increased personal sacrifice in our daily living.” should be the result of what they are going through. I suspect it is his way of saying bigger government handouts instead of seriously challenging people to grow in their Catholic faith.
Really? The economy is so bad that it overshadows the joy of Easter?
Such hyperbole is dangerously close to despair, good Cardinal, and that’s a sin.
Monsignor Tim at my parish has made a point of saying that (contrary to popular belief), Lent begins today rather than on Ash Wednesday. Do the math, he says: 40 days from today is the Wednesday of Holy Week, so between now and then is Lent.
Patrick,
You’re Monsignor is mistaken. “Lent runs from Ash Wednesday until the Mass of the Lord’s Supper exclusive [General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar 28].
Though it is understandable since in our present system Lent runs 44 or 43 days and part of Holy Thursday up to the start of the Triduum.
See Jimmy Akin’s piece on this. http://www.jimmyakin.org/2004/03/the_length_of_l.html
Or, like, you could say Lent begins in Berkeley the moment you, like, give up eating meat and begin a Vegan lifestyle. So if you’re an old Vegan, it’d be, like, 40 years of Lent. That’d be like, totally groovy, dude.