Sacrifice this season of Lent should not only connote fasting from meat, especially every Fridays. It should also mean abstaining from non-meat food that one loves to eat, vices that only affect one’s health, and the leisure and luxury that one indulge to pamper oneself.
Apart from meat, one’s favorite fast food, junk food, sweets, and softdrinks are what the Catholic faithful are urged to forego this season of Lent to make one’s sacrifice a heart-felt one.
According to Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon, abstinence is not just about foregoing eating meat. He said it is also fasting from one’s favorite food and drinks or lessening the proportion of one’s normal intake to find more meaning in the sacrifice.
“If health-conscious people undergo a diet and refuse a lot of food to get slim and fit to maintain external beauty, why can’t we impose the same discipline to make ourselves beautiful inside too?” he said.
Baylon, who chairs the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth, also said cutting down one’s excessive texting, internet surfing, smoking, drinking alcohol or even going on vacation this summer are other ways to make sincere sacrifice this Lent.
“The point of abstinence is depriving ourselves of the things that give us comfort and luxury. It is imposing discipline on our body so that we may free up our souls,” he added.
The very ashes that are imposed on one’s forehead during Ash Wednesday, the prelate said, reminds the Catholic faithful to care for their souls, not only about their earthly bodies.
“As we are reminded that we will return to ashes when we die, let us also be aware that there is one aspect of our life that will stay: our soul. We should not get preoccupied mainly on what we do on earth during our lifetime, but also what these deeds may usher us into the afterlife,” he added. (YouthPinoy)
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