Lent always amuses me. People go to great lengths to show sacrifice, embody abstinence, and personify suffering.Nagueños have this yearly tradition of walking on foot. They would walk 15 kilometers from Naga City to Hinulid, Calabanga just to kiss at the feet of the Hinulid. My officemate quipped that people also flock to Hinulid to buy this miraculous oil which can heal all kinds of body aches. Talk about irony. People walk for 2 hours, some without and shoes or slippers to buy some oil which can cure body aches!
And of course, we all know about the no-meat on holy week and the fasting during Fridays. Can't people sacrifice something more valuabe than meat? Say, alcohol, or cigarettes, or women, or excessive shopping, or sex? Wouldn't that be a better trade off and sacrifice than starving yourself to death, only to eat like a rescued plane crash victim after sixty days of isolation on an island in the Carribeans?
On a similar trajectory, Moslems during Ramadan, I am told (correct me if I am wrong) fast from 6 to 6 (am to pm). After 6, it is an all out smorgasbord party? Tell me there is nothing wrong with that. Tell me! Tell me! Tell meh!
On a final note, see the picture above. Mexico, Pampanga is a yearly tourist spot during these times of the day due to real persons carrying real crosses plunging in real nails on their real hands. Are they not supposed to know that infliction of pain towards oneself is a sin to the body?
It is murder to some degree when we abuse ourselves. Yes, I am no saint. I drink lotsa lotsa alcohol, intake second hand smoke, tried a few herbal miracles, and some other graphical details I'd rather not mention.
Jesus Christ did not volunteer for the crown of thorns and the nails and the dying on the crucifix, he was persecuted to be put in all those tribulations. In essence, dying for the sins of man. Volunteering for all that stuff for a personal cause or for the forgiveness of personal sins, I just do not get. I don't get at all. Why not trying to change instead? Or being good for once, that may just work.
Oh, well that's just me, the pastor that may friends label once in every while and every passing outs.
1 comments:
Actually, the way i understand it - based on officemates' explanation - is that during Lent, one deprives him/herself not of meat literally, but of all pleasures, which includes alcohol, women, etc. that might distract him from successfully thinking overand repenting past sins.
Similarly, for vegetarians, the sacrifice is for him/her to abstain from veg and all others that he/she finds pleasurable.
i don't know though if these are being practiced religiously. but that should be the idea.
Nuarin kita mainom and swimming? wahehe
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