Lenten Fare...

Have you missed me?

Of course you have! A Lenten posting to the frozen North - a fine Minster city you'll immediately guess - robs me of Internet access during the week. Much good no doubt comes of this abstinence, not least as it was not on the self-selected list of not-to-dos this fasting season.

Dear Robin would always say that it was the unexpected - unwished for - trial that would put one to the test and not the "I'll do without the malt for a spell. Save some money, shed a bit of weight and lose the morning hangover" type of essentially selfish approach.

I'm not actually accusing the Bearded Bard of taking his revenge for some overheard remarks of mine concerning the central idiocy of the man, by sending me North to cover some 'much needed' (his words and no one else's!) administrative function for the duration. But if ripping a man away from his post and place in order to complete an audit of clerical equalities training needs for the coming decade is his idea of a 'vital role', then it is not mine!

There is some blessing in leaving the dear Curate in charge of said Woldean post and place at present, for it is not the least of the irritants of the job, as lived where one is, that one has to endure the perennial 'Grumpier Than Thou' faces of the penitential parishioners, too many of whom seem to see Lenten observance as nothing but an Olympic event: faster (more fasting than her), higher (more holy than him) and stronger (more rank from less personal hygiene).

I admit that I too have had my days in youth, when the endurance angle of Lent was to the fore; when thoughts of the early desert Fathers - saints on stilts some of them truly - atop their stylites and seeming to exist on nothing but fresh air and piety - did capture the imagination of the burgeoning cleric.

One has though - and not over-setting the significance of commitment to self-denial seen through to an end or rather to a purpose - largely let slip this 'No pain no gain' view of pre-Easter training of the soul.

'Tis even about the only occasion on which one has welcomed a change to the Liturgy. The old 'Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return' for Ash Wednesday has been replaced with the more positive spin 'Repent and believe in the Gospel'.

Yes indeed, the motif of dust was apt for the day, but one can become a bit too fixated on the bitter gloom of death - a form of self-indulgence really and no more - and not enough minded of the truly awful - as in awe-inspiring - glory of the Easter to come.

What was it Saint Paul said when asked by one of his numerous correspondents what was one to do whilst waiting on the Lord? "Rejoice and be glad" was his simple, startling and wonderful reply.

So on with the Lenten 'glad rags'. Let sinners all not mourn their shame by sanctimonious show of sadness, but let their delight shine forth rather in the great redemptive feast hoving into view.