Original Sin

     Today is the first Sunday of Lent. As is becoming my usual practice, attending Mass in a language that mostly goes over my head, I spent the homily in my own meditation on the Scripture readings. This time, just the first reading, which is Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7. The first sin, the sin of Adam and Eve in partaking of the only fruit that had been forbidden to them in the whole Garden of Eden: the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The sin is disobedience, or presumption, or trying to usurp God's place and be (as the serpent said) "like gods." 

    But why does God forbid them to eat of that fruit? I mean, leaving aside the question of why God would plant that tree there, right in the center of the garden, why wave temptation in their faces and then forbid them to touch it. Leaving that aside, why would God not want them to have the knowledge of good and evil? It seems so baffling, so counter-intuitive. Isn't that basic human formation, what parents try to teach their children and religious leaders their congregations? What is this allegory really all about?

The Hungry Month

     Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. What are you giving up for Lent? Maybe that's the wrong question. Why are you giving up anything for Lent? What's it all about? 

    This might be a somewhat unconventional answer, but it's the one that occurred to me this morning as I was, once again, zoning out on a homily delivered in a language I don't yet understand very well. What will happen when I get more fluent in French? Gee, I might have to deliberately take time to meditate on the Scriptures ... would that be a terrible thing? Probably not. Meanwhile.... 

    What I was thinking about was how back in the old days, before supermarkets, refrigeration, or pressure canning, there wasn't really very much choice about whether or not to fast toward the end of winter.

It's not about being a doormat

    Hello, readers ... I'm back! I know, I haven't posted for a month and a half, since Epiphany. Well, in that time, I moved from Spain to France, and am still very far from settled in here. And I have a big, wide, deep blog post in progress, which will be out soon, I promise. But in the meantime, I was struck by something during Mass today, as I was zoning out on only halfway understanding the homily (because I only halfway understand French!). So I thought I'd sketch the idea out here without over-complicating it, so it can come out today, since it's related to today's Mass readings.