February 27, 2013

Already Slipping

I hit the jackpot when it came to student teaching.  Not only am I around for the Ancient Egypt unit (which is notoriously taught in the spring), but I get to teach the Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome units (my bread and butter, the Roman and Greek gods/goddesses stories is initially what got me interested in theology), and I get to be around for the Middle Ages unit complete with trip to Medieval Times.  Everything was going swimmingly...until today.

Someone pointed out that we were going on a Friday and for those of you who don't know, they serve chicken as the dinner portion of the "dinner and tournamet".  Being as it's Lent, I'm not technically supposed to eat meat.  Was it wrong that my first reaction was "I can always go to confession"?

The whole not eating meat on Fridays thing always struck me as a little odd when I was growing up.  Now that I understand the reason for it, I still think it's a little odd.  People used to give up much more than meat on Fridays.  Lent was supposed to be a time for fasting.  People would give up fats and sweets, sometimes even more for the entire 40 days of Lent.  I've always wanted to try doing this, but every year Lent comes around and it begins and then my brain says "Hey...weren't we going to do that traditional thing this year?" and the rest of my brain goes "Shhhhhhh...yeah...oh well."  I wonder how this period of fasting got started.  I also wonder when it transitioned from giving up so much to just not eating meat on Fridays.  That's a pretty significant transition!

These are things I should probably be asking about while I'm in RCIA...or I could use the internet to try to answer my own questions.  Chances are, I'll probably forget again, but maybe now that I wrote a blog about it, there's a chance I may remember and write a complimentary update one of these days.

Will these questions ever be answered?

Will something of more significance be posted?

Will we ever find out whether I break Lent and eat meat or if I keep true?

Stay tuned to find out!

1 comment:

  1. Kris... its Medieval times. God will understand. Just don't eat meat Thursday.

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