Lent - Fish Sticks and Cheese

"If only my people would hear me,

and Israel walk in my ways,

I would feed them with the best of wheat,

and with honey from the rock, I would fill them."

Let's travel once again back in time to that bastion of learning, Saint Joseph and Saint Ann School deep in the heart of Brighton Park in the City of Chicago.  Lent at SJSA was a test of strength.  We all, kids and sisters alike, had to "give up something for Lent."  For kids, what could you give up?  Adults could give up cigarettes, I am not saying that the nuns smoked, but who knows? Us kids, almost everyone, boy or girl, gave up candy.  I hated the idea of giving up candy for forty whole days.  What I wanted to give up were the fish sticks and the lump of cheese that they fed us on Fridays in the SJSA Lunch Room.  Friday fare was the same the whole year round because we as Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Friday, it was a church law.  So every week at lunch the fish sticks would be cooked up. If I were a fish and I tasted like these fish sticks, I would certainly be embarrassed.  I mean really to live my whole life as a fish, to fulfill my destiny and end up tasting like bait?  Oh, the shame of it.  To round out the platter we got a dollop of mashed potatoes and a lump of official US of A Government cheese which we called "The Rock."  This cheese was so dry that you had to use most of your half a pint of milk to get it to go down.  I thought it would be better if I gave up lunch on Friday.  Sister Emerita said that we could not give up something we hated.  So I gave up candy just like everyone else. 

Lent is the time when we are to turn back to the Lord.  "Giving up" is a good discipline.  It is good to say "no" to you body once in a while but perhaps a review of how we are living our life, where we are missing the mark would be better.  Then, once we see ourselves as we really are, we can view our lives more realistically, more like God sees us.  We can use this self-knowledge to turn around, to repent, to being anew.  Lent is a word that simply means spring.  Spring is a time when nature awakes from the sleep of winter. Lent, for us, can be a time when we do the same.