A Regular Lent...

...do you recall that preamble to the Easter liturgy that goes more or less thus: "We now having faithfully completed our Lenten observances...etc, etc"?

I do so always love that line gazing out, as one does, over the sea of faithful faces gathered in whilst they collectively wince at the painful reflection on all the things they so earnestly promised, strove or intended to do - or not - as signs and portents of preparation and reparation, yet now acknowledging to themselves that to have been so much straw in the wind.

Of course, had any of the flock the foresight or gall to glance my way at that moment they would note the most solemn of wincing as I - ever thus - can in no way pretend or aver that I have stuck one iota to the fast.

Just the one iota - if such a thing can be singular - perhaps, and that in being so, so sorry for having taken one's hand from the Gospel plough as ever one did.

Lent, of course, is not a marathon endurance race of self-restraint or denial. There are no heroic garlands for managing a bare forty days withot a drink or a raised temper.

This we know, but is it not a mark of the feeble soul who cannot abstain from meat or drink or whatever a mere month and a bit? All right, a tee-total vegetarian is not the sort of clerical image I would wish to push on the world, yet such was my intent this year. No beef, no beer. Seemed simple enough at the time. But 'twas never thus.

Three things comfort me here. Our beloved Saint Peter for starters, keeper of the keys and so forth, was the most abject exemplar of failure to sustain in times of trial: "Me know the Lord? Get out of it!"

Then there is the remembrance of one Lenten time when coffee was forsaken utterly. Did I turn to God in my time of temptation? Did I heck. All I could think of was that first caffeine hit after the Vigil. It was the only - the only - thing on my mind the entire season. Not entirely helpful to anyone or for anything.

Finally, blessed above all, was dear Robin - late Prior of Q - who once confided that he always took a bite of chocolate on Good Friday of all days to remind himself what a hopeless soul he was.

But he wasn't of course. He was a veritable saint. Patron saint of Lent in my book and a regular guy.