A Sense of the Season First, we kept the forty days, with praying, fasting and giving alms. Then we celebrated the three days of Christ’s passion, dying and rising. Now we delight in the fifty days, with rejoicing, feasting and giving witness! The season of Easter is fifty days long. It is a time of unbridled joy, of exuberant rejoicing. The church tells us, “The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one ‘great Sunday.’…

The Sacrament of Penance, popularly called “confession” and recently redubbed the “Rite of Reconciliation,” seems to have undergone a sea change in the last generation. But the difference is form, not substance. The name “Penance” focuses on what we must do to reform our lives. “Confession” emphasizes the need to be honest about what makes such change necessary. “Reconciliation” underscores the purpose of the sacrament: to restore our friendship with God. All of these names point to the same sacramental…

Why do I only stumble upon that lost and forgotten candy bar on Ash Wednesday?  I feel like those old cartoons of the man on the desert island who starts to see his friends like a pot roast.  Even my key chain looks yummy.  We have entered into Lent, our communal retreat in preparation for Easter.  Fasting and abstinence mark Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  No-meat Fridays, Stations of the Cross and a parish-wide faith renewal are upon us. Why…