Lent
Very good homily from a visiting priest this weekend. He started the sermon by approvingly quoting Ben Franklin's line, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." That got my attention! And then he described the phenomenon of "comfort" food and how odd a notion that is. He asked why we eat when we are not hungry, suggesting that we are looking for something from food that cannot be had.
The purpose of fasting, he says, to focus us on what it is we are really hungry for. He reminded how one cannot simply apply fasting over our old wineskin - how we have to be willing to be remade and be flexible enough to expand. The hope for our hopelessness is supplied by the First Reading today from the book Hosea, where God promises us to "lead us to the desert" and forgive and remake us.
Prayer, alms and fasting - the cure for what ails for twenty centuries.
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