yes, yes, yes:<\/p>\n
What I find so attractive, therefore, about Catholicism is the fact that many\u2013though certainly not all\u2013of the practices within the church are grounded in something beyond fad and the opinion of a single pastor or leader. Put another way, I think a huge part of me would actually like it if my pastor said, \u201cFor the next 40 days, you\u2019re fasting.\u201d I wouldn\u2019t like it if he was just making a power-play, trying to bind my conscience and create a new means through which to shame me. But if he could say, \u201cYou are fasting for the next 40 days because it is a practice that Christians have done in different ways for centuries and it has proven a helpful tool for spiritual formation,\u201d then I would\u00a0love\u00a0<\/em>to be told to do something like that. And that seems a much easier thing for a Catholic or Orthodox believer to say than a Protestant.<\/p>\n
I say all that because this is why I really like and appreciate Lent. If someone just tells me, \u201cYou need to die with Christ,\u201d I\u2019ll look at them and say, \u201cOK. It\u2019s in the Bible, so you\u2019re right. But I don\u2019t know how to do that.\u201d But with Lent, I have something of an answer\u2013Lent teaches Christians how to die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
more<\/a> (and I loved Rod\u2019s comments as well; I wrote about related stuff here<\/a>)<\/p>\n
ETA: Comments-box also totally worth your time! It\u2019s a Western Lenten miracle!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
yes, yes, yes: What I find so attractive, therefore, about Catholicism is the fact that many\u2013though certainly not all\u2013of the practices within the church are grounded in something beyond fad and the opinion of a single pastor or leader. Put another way, I think a huge part of me would actually like it if my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[129,30,19,123],"class_list":["post-6825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-lent","tag-mackerel-snapping-2","tag-suspicion-of-traditions-so-new-wave","tag-we-make-an-idol-of-our-fear-and-call-it-choice"],"yoast_head":"\n
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