week 11/23

Abstinence and Dispensation

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Ballintoy Harbor. Northern Ireland. (c)2018

St. Patrick’s Day has long been one of my favorite holidays. Long before I met and married my husband with Irish roots, and well before I set foot on the Emerald Isle. I have always been fascinated by the Celts, their people, their land, their culture, especially in relation to ancient and medieval culture. I have also been a questioner. Why? Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? As a young child being told that I couldn’t write during Rosh Hashanah, I was devastated. But writing isn’t work; it’s writing, I whined to no avail. Becoming Catholic has not broken me of that – is it really a – failing.

And so, I question – why?

Why can’t we eat meat on Friday? Is it because Peter was a fisherman? Will there be a dispensation for today? It is a saint’s feast day after all. I waited for Pope Francis, and then was told that it’s up to the local bishops. I still couldn’t find it, so I texted my godmother and she okayed the corned beef which made my husband happy (as if he wasn’t going to indulge on his holiday).

But I still wondered: Why?

In googling and asking my questions of the internet, I discovered the controversy that is North Dakota. Apparently, they have three dioceses, and two have them have allowed meat today, and one has not. The idea that North Dakota has three dioceses makes little sense to me, but I found no less than twenty-five separate links about St. Patrick’s Day in North Dakota. Amazing.

Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia popped up as did Cardinal Dolan in New York City’s Diocese. I didn’t see Boston, but I came to the logical conclusion that there would be dispensation for Boston Catholics. What holy hell would be raised if even one of those cities banned meat on St. Patrick’s Day? I hope we never find out.

During Pope Nicholas I in 866 CE, Friday abstinence became a universal rule. Fasting also on Fridays was common by the twelfth century. It was expected for everyone, including those as young as twelve with very few exceptions.

It also used to be that you couldn’t eat any animal products on Fridays, not just during Lent, but ALL YEAR. I learned that Fat Tuesday began as a way to use up all of the animal products that you couldn’t eat – butter, cheese, eggs, lard, and of course, meat.

Pope Paul VI changed things in 1966 in his Paenitemini. His object wasn’t to end abstinence and fasting but for Catholics to choose to abstain and fast as part of their own penance practices; let their conscience be their guide.

With Sunday being a weekly Easter, shouldn’t every Friday be a Good Friday? This was asked by the US Bishops in 1966 and I tilt my head wondering the same thing.

Lent is an opportunity to lend mutual support on our spiritual and faith journey. We are in it together and have a shared experience through Christ’s death and resurrection.

So why the exception for St. Patrick’s Day?

Filled Soda. Randalstown, NI. (c)2023

I mean, look at this filled soda from Northern Ireland! Resistance is futile. This was a breakfast sandwich shared between my husband and myself (and after twenty-three years of marriage he still had to take it under consideration).

But also, according to Mental Floss, it’s complicated.

I can imagine that they might have thought they’d lose all the Irish American Catholics if they said no corned beef on Friday of St. Pat’s Day, although this quandary occurs once or twice a decade, so it isn’t exactly a pressing issue.

I would also note that the traditional St. Patrick’s Day celebration food in Ireland is different from the traditional food eaten in the US. In Ireland, sausage is usually eaten, and not your teeny-tiny frozen breakfast sausage, but a lovely, large, grilled bit of deliciousness. Bangers and mash. In the US, we serve corned beef and cabbage with mashed potatoes and carrots. Yesterday, I had cabbage with leeks, and it really boosted the flavor.

What are you to do?

It becomes a crisis of conscience.

Well, as I mentioned, dispensations are local, so check with your diocese.

Is it a pass? Not really. You’re expected to abstain from meat on a different day during the week.

Usually, you’re expected to give up meat on a day before the next Friday after St. Patrick’s Day and (or) perform acts of charity and good deeds to atone or call it even with the meat eating.

We’ll be having corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes (possibly champ), carrots, and Irish Soda bread with Kerrygold butter.

My mouth is watering in anticipation.

Travel Thursday – Hostels

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When I was in college, my friend was in England student teaching. When she invited me to fly over and meet her and travel the United Kingdom, I thought there was no way I could afford it. She told me we’d be staying in hostels.

I had never heard of hostels before. I had to join the association (for an annual membership) and then I could pay a small fee and spend the night in a safe, clean, dormitory. The Youth Hostel Association was for young adults, between the ages of 16 (without a parent) and 25. This is less common now. At the time, they also suggested that before you stay at a foreign hostel you should have a dry-run at a local, American run one. I did not do this, and it worked out fine for me. Of course, I haven’t gone hosteling in a couple of decades, so I can only imagine how much has changed. Part of that was because of my friend, who was the expert in my opinion, having been in England and traveled about quite a bit during her days off from teaching.

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Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

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We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.

Frances Harper, We Are All Bound Up Together, 1866
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
Public Domain

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a voice of Black Suffragists. She was born in 1825 in Maryland to free African American parents. Her parents died when she was young, and she was raised by her aunt and uncle. By the age of 21, she had written her first small book of poetry, Forest Leaves and ultimately published 80 poems. More than a decade later she became the first African American woman to have published a short story, The Two Offers. She co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s clubs.

While working as a teacher in Pennsylvania, a law was passed that free African Americans in the North were no longer allowed into Maryland, her home state. They would be imprisoned and enslaved.

She refused to give up her seat on the trolley, and only got up when she reached her destination as chronicled in The Liberator, page 3 as seen below.

From The Liberator, Page 3
1858
Public Domain

Her famous speech, We Are All Bound Up Together, read in 1866 at the Eleventh Women’s Rights Convention held in New York City, can be read here.

She spoke at the National Woman’s Rights Convention in New York, held in 1866. The organization split over the suffrage of African American women and were opposed to supporting the fifteenth amendment. Harper left the group, and with Frederick Douglass and others supporting the amendment joined together to form the American Woman Suffrage Association. She was often the only Black woman at the women’s conferences. Through her life, she continued her advocacy for intersectionality (see- it’s not a new idea) in suffrage.

She spent the remainder of her life teaching and encouraging equal rights and education for African American women and founded and/or directed several clubs and organizations for African American women, including the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the Pennsylvania Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Some of her writings include:

  • Forest Leaves, poetry, 1845
  • Bury Me in a Free Land, poetry, 1858
  • Moses: A Story of the Nile, 1869
  • Light Beyond the Darkness, 1890
  • In Memoriam, Wm. McKinley, 1901
  • Trial and Triumph was one of three novels originally published between 1868-1888 as a serial.

Her first novel, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted was published in 1892. It was thought sentimental, but it also highlighted several serious social issues at the time, some of which remain today.

As a writer, I am always drawn to the writing lives of the people I choose to profile, and I was pleased to see that Harper was a mentor to other African American writers, including Mary Shadd Cary, Ida B. Wells, Victoria Earle Matthews, and Kate D. Chapman.

More information on Frances Harper can be found: National Women’s History Museum and Lift Every Voice, African-American Poetry

National Write Down Your Story Day!

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It’s late, but it’s not too late to share your stories with yourself, your families, your friends, and/or with the world!

This website is filled with my own stories that I have loved sharing with you, my readers, and I plan on sharing more with you.

Take a few minutes and jot down your story.

Choose one of your stories, and add to it. Embellish it even.

We’re having a snow day here in the Northeast and I’ve been sitting at this keyboard, clickity-clacking for today and tomorrow, classes, planners.

I have given myself a six week goal to put a dent in my Labyrinth prayer book. I plan to share one or two excerpts after Easter.

What goals can you give yourself to get your story going? What motivation do you need?

Let me know – I want to help.

Happy Snow Day.

Now write your story!

*Feel free to link in the comments!

Celebrating 10 Years of Pope Francis

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My parish priest was my parish priest before my parish was my parish. There were rest stops on the journey my life was on that were not on the brochure. Detours I guess might be the right word. Every time I had my path laid out, circumstances created change and change created opportunities. Not all of those opportunities were fruitful. Surprise children, unplanned moves, family deaths, loss of self and missed chances.

It’s important to recognize the changes within us. Eventually we can no longer hide them and they burst without. Better to be prepared when that happens.

When the calling came to join the Catholic faith, it wasn’t that I wanted to delay my official, sacramental entry, but I didn’t want to come in cold. For myself, I wanted to attend to join the fall group of RCIA* in 2013. I also felt as though I was already Catholic. I wasn’t receiving communion, but in every other way. I had faith, I believed, and I was content in a way.

My massaversary as I like to call it happened on that Holy Week of 2013. In one year, I would be attending my own Easter Vigil. Despite not starting RCIA until the fall months, I was excited for this Holy Week.

At the same time, or near enough, Pope Benedict retired and Jorge Bergoglio was elected to be the next Pope, the 265th successor to St. Peter. Jorge was a bishop in Argentina and a Jesuit. He chose Francis for his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi whose model for caring for the poor he wanted the church to emulate.
I don’t know why I was excited to be joining the church when Francis became Pope but being drawn to him also drew me to one of his favorite devotions of Mary, which very quickly became one of my favorite devotions. It is Mary, Untier or Undoer of Knots.

She appealed to me so much and she has stayed with me as this decade has passed.

Unlike Pope Francis, I have not seen the original painting in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany, but I have managed to find medals, coins, and prayer cards. I am too intimidated to sketch something for this Mary, but perhaps one day.

Pope Francis’ humility and inclusivity to all is one of the reasons I am so fond of him. He walks the walk, exhibited in one way by his living, not in the Papal Residence but in the Vatican guesthouse.

He influenced the change in US policy towards Cuba and diplomatic relations and he supports the causes of refugees across the world.

He is clearly interested in evangelization, the environment, the poor, and real religious persecution.

He is the first Pope from the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas as well as the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and he is the first Pope outside of Europe since Gregory III of Syria in the 700s. He is the first to choose the name Francis.

He speaks seven languages.

He has a common touch, which I think made me like him more. He is of the people, something as an American I can relate to.

He is quoted as choosing St. Francis of Assisi because “the man gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man, …how I would like a poor church, and for the poor.”

From William Bole’s 2018 article at jesuits.org, he states (and I paraphrase), that it’s not so much about rule following but about discerning what G-d is calling them to do. He purports an ethic of service. This truly speaks to me. I am in constant discernment as to what I’m being called to do. It has given me a new confidence in making decisions when I’m asked to do something and I try to be of service or to offer resources that can be of service to others. It is said that giving feels better than receiving, and when you are the one giving, it is a palpable sensation that remains long after the gift or the day has passed.

Pope Francis is who a leader of the church should be – putting the poor and the earth first and foremost, reminding us of our invitation to be humble and merciful, not only to the people we meet, but to ourselves as well.

Happy 10th Anniversary, Pope Francis. I pray for many more years under your guidance and wisdom.

*RCIA – Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which is the process of joining in full communion with the Church.