Fast break: Stop eating the world for Lent

By Bryan Cones| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Life
Lent is a good time to call time-out on our First World feeding frenzy.

"Eat the world” is the slogan of the food court at a high-end Magnificent Mile mall in Chicago—and it delivers. From sushi to stir fry, pasta to pancakes, all that stands between an eater and a defenseless world is the cash to pay for it. Since the slogan was once plastered all over Chicago’s buses, it was hard to escape. I still notice it most often during Lent, when I am supposed to be curtailing my own consumption of the goods of creation, though rarely with much success.

Bryan Cones is a writer living in Boston. See more posts by Bryan Cones

How I almost missed Good Friday

By James Philipps| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church

It must have been about the time I was chopping up the melon for my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter's breakfast that the angst set in. Here it was Good Friday, and I hadn't done a single liturgical or sacramental thing during the entire expanse of Lent despite the best of intentions that I had at the beginning of the season.

James Philipps is a freelance writer and teacher of theology living in Syosset, New York . See more posts by James Philipps

If Lent is 40 days, why are there 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter?

By David Philippart| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church Glad You Asked

"The 40 days of Lent" has always been more of a metaphor than a literal count. Over the course of history the season of preparation for Easter Sunday has ranged from one day (in the first century) to 44 (today in the Roman church). Officially since 1970, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sunset on Holy Thursday.

David Philippart is a catechist and liturgist who lives in Chicago.

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Why does Easter seem to go on forever?

By David Philippart| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church Glad You Asked

At the heart of our faith is the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. We celebrate this mystery—this Paschal Mystery—every Sunday, in every Eucharist. Yet since the first century we have set aside one Sunday a year, in conjunction with the full moon of spring and the Jewish Passover, to celebrate the Paschal Mystery in a most solemn way.

David Philippart is a catechist and liturgist who lives in Chicago.

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Lean into Lent

By Tom McGrath| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church Life
The point of lent is to change. We alter behaviors in order to jumpstart a conversion process. But what is it we're supposed to change? How does change occur?
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