Shrove Tuesday

I liked today's Facebook status from the nuns who live near here at East Hendred. They are looking forward to Lent (which starts tomorrow) so positively. Their mention of confession reminded me that the word Shrove is the past tense of the old word "shrive", which means to seek forgiveness through confession. "Today, Shrove Tuesday, we pray for all who will be keeping Carnival, all who will be making their pre-Lenten confession, and all who have not yet thought about Lent. Lent is such a time a grace - we don't want to waste a minute of it!" 


I don't know the origin of Carnival - or Mardi Gras - as today is also celebrated. Maybe it's the celebration of the assurance of forgivenness, or maybe it's the final blow-out before six weeks of fasting - which, by the way, I discovered last week, has proven physical as well as spiritual benefits (Fasting protects your brain). Maybe it's an unrestrained version of our very reserved Pancake Day, using up the goodies in the larder before Lent.

A friend of mine is taking up "exercise" for Lent. Her friends are intrigued by which dimension she's going to exercise in. I suspect she means simply physical, but its point will be to focus more on God. Which is what the nuns mean by Lent being a time of grace - a time when we can make extra time to be more aware of His presence in our daily lives, whether by giving something up or by doing something different. And the great thing is that as we do that for 40-odd days, it becomes part of our lives that sticks. You may not succeed 100% in your good intentions, if you're human! And that's why today is such a good preparation for Lent, as it reassures us that we are normal when we fail, but God is extraordinary in his faithfulness:
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1.8-10).


Here's praying we all find Lent a time of grace.

You're not junk!

This is a post that appeared in today's iBenedictine Nuns' blog. I think it's so good I'm just going to paste it here. I love the sentence, "that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn't make junk and sees something wonderful in each one of us, even me." Amen, sister! 


That's such an important truth in a society which still rejects people with disabilities (even to the extent of aborting them before they see the light of day. I was moved to read Peter Saunders' piece about a mum's bitter regrets at being persuaded to have her Down's baby aborted). God doesn't make junk. We may feel over-the-hill and useless - and yet, think about it, if I were merely a car, I'd be a valuable veteran, getting on for vintage, by now. And visitors would be brought to the garage where I was kept and would say, admiringly, "I must say he looks well, considering." The fact I could only be taken out on a trailer wouldn't matter. Of how much more value are even the most decrepit human crocks! Surely our Heavenly Father cares for us!

On Being Oneself

by Digitalnun on November 12, 2011

A few weeks ago, when I posted some thoughts about online engagement, my friend Tim Hutchings very sensibly asked whether some of my suggestions didn’t cancel themselves out, making us less ‘ourselves’ online than we are offline. I think the specific question he raised was addressed in the comments, but there is a bigger question that concerns all of us, whether we go online or not. How can we be ourselves in a world that, by and large, is always pressuring us to be something other than we are? The world of advertising wants us to be thinner, richer, more ‘stylish’ than most of us could ever dream of being (i.e to buy what it is selling). The world of Church wants us to be . . . what exactly?

I often ask myself what the homilist thinks he is doing (in the Catholic Church, the sermon is always preached by a priest or deacon, who must be male). Do the admonitions to be more prayerful, more generous, more this or that really affect us? When I’m exhorted to act in a certain way ‘because you are a nun’, does it ever change me? I have to say that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn’t make junk and sees something incomparably wonderful in each one of us, even me. That isn’t a pretext for not trying to be more prayerful, generous, etc (see above), I think it is to recognize a fundamental truth: we go to heaven, if we go at all, as ourselves — smudged with sin, only half-understanding, full of contradictions, the person God created and redeemed. Being oneself is ultimately the only way in which to give God glory.

"If you believe in God, all bets are off!"

Today I learned a new word. I like to think I've got a good vocabulary, but I'd never come across accidie before - I think. I had to look it up. It's pronounced aksidi, and comes from the Latin "acedia". Its meaning is "spiritual or mental sloth; apathy" (Oxford On-line Dictionary). It's one of the seven deadly sins. I suppose I ought to have known it in the light of my last job, but no one ever came to me with the confession, "Father, I've been guilty of accidie." A good thing too. It wouldn't have been helpful to have responded, "You what?"

Accidie Sloth

I don't know why we use obscure language so much in the church, but in this case it made me stop and look. I came across it in the service sheet which we picked up at our parish church on Sunday. I think the comment bit is edited or even written by Jane Williams, who teaches at St Mellitus' College in London. (She also happens to be married to the Archbishop.) This week the article was about the two sins, avarice and accidie. "Avarice, or greed, is an active, dominating, forceful passion, while accidie or sloth is utterly passive, exhausted, and uninterested." "Avarice despises the generous self-giving of God... Accidie on the other hand, is indifferent. It can look on God's exuberant vitality and overflowing love and feel nothing but weariness. Accidie despairs of life, holding it cheap, worthless. It cannot bear to see joy or pleasure in others, but creates dull, deliberate sadness all around it. It has none of the honest depth found in genuine pain or despair. Instead, accidie hugs its dreariness to itself, with a kind of quietly destructive self-satisfaction. Nothing can ever penetrate this mood: not love, not laughter, not pain, not suffering, not triumph or despair. Accidie is cynically determined that nothing is worth the effort; God's life is just too much effort" (Live the Word, 18th September, Redemptorist Press).

When I first read it, I thought, "That's harsh." And then I thought, "It must be serious to feel like that." And next I thought, "Actually, I've met people like that, people who hug dreariness to themselves," and they are desperately unhappy. What, I wondered, is their remedy if nothing can penetrate that mood? I suppose the answer is recognising when one's in that place and recognising that it's a sin, a deliberately (even if understandably) chosen and cherished state of mind. A recognition which requires expressing and confessing - and being absolved, forgiven. We weren't meant to live in the grip of accidie - so world-weary - and we don't have to.

Quite the opposite from world-weary, I derived much enjoyment from listening to a conversation between the stand-up comic, Frank Skinner, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Frank Skinner is a cheerful Catholic with a lot of pithy observations about life and the spiritual journey. One of the parts I most enjoyed was his account of the eleven years he spent in "the wilderness" from the age of 17 until he had returned "home". What was refreshing was to hear two men not ashamed of the Gospel which had changed their lives. Rowan Williams & Frank Skinner in conversation. At one point, near the end, Frank has a go at people who water down the truth, to make it more palatable for others, including atheists. It's too big for that, he says. "There's been too much apologising for the 'magic' in religion. Don't give in to 'em . If you believe in God, all bets are off. There can be angels. The Red Sea can part. There's a temptation to 'Let's be a little bit reasonable, let's be a little bit atheist.' I don't want to do that. I want to feel that absolute mystery in the air."

Frankly, Amen to that, Brother!