Lent
“WISH I had somebody to go skating with,” said Billy one winter afternoon.
“Where’s Bob White?” asked Big Sister looking up from her book.
“It’s Ash-Wednesday, and his folks are Catholics,” said the boy named Billy, “and they have after school services. What is Ash-Wednesday and what does it mean, any way?”
“Ash-Wednesday,” said Somebody, “is the beginning of Lent, which lasts forty days and ends with the Saturday before Easter Sunday. It is supposed to commemorate the forty days fasting Christ did before His Crucifixion.”
“My,” said the boy named Billy, “I never could fast forty hours let alone forty days! How is it supposed to help a person to go without food for so long?”
“Fasting,” said Somebody, “is to teach the lesson of self restraint, and self control, and to help us endure discomforts without complaining, how to refrain from all unkind thoughts of others, to control our tempers and make us better people generally.
“It’s a very good idea for each one of us to give up something during Lent; something that we like very much indeed, and to give the money that it would have cost to some one who really needs food and comforts.”
“Do you do that?” asked the boy named Billy.
“I try to,” said Somebody.
“Oh, I see!” said the boy named Billy.