The monthly letter from Fr Yenda.

March 2010

My dear people of S Mary’s.

Well we are right in the heart of Lent now, and I was thinking about the idea of Lenten sacrifies, and giving things up and even taking extra things on. Funnily enough I remember at theological college one year, one student (not me, I hasten to add) decided to over-do it over Lent.

It was a rare thing in the college to have vegetarian students…I remember about only one or two, and their food wasn’t exactly interesting! It was the case, however, that if you were a meat eater, you were not allowed to pick and choose that you might on some occasion prefer a vegetarian option. So on the days that liver was served (yuk!) I merely had to make do with onions, gravy and mash!

Anyway, one student was adamant that during Lent that year he was going to go vegetarian…not so much as a rind of bacon would cross his lips. Fair enough, but at that time the college was adamant that it would not permit a student to change his diet or get any kind of preferential treatment (this, I hasten to add was not in the 1920s, this around 1998!!)

After a few weeks, the lad was not as well has he might have been, and I remember one evening he knocked my door in college, and said he didn’t feel at all well – that I could see with the evidence of my own eyes, given the state of him. I asked the acting principal to look at him, and he telephoned the doctor. What happened next was perhaps a bit dramatic, but also went down in college history.

Up the fire escape came a team of ambulance men, and duly carted the lad off to the local hospital; seated and carried on what looked very much like an NHS equivalent of a sedan chair.

A short time later – an hour or two – he returned in much better condition than he had been when he left – he was perhaps a bit embarrassed about the drama of having had to be lifted down the fire escape, but probably not as embarrassed as he was at the amusement amidst the rest of us students!

But there is an important thing here with Lent, and it pertains really to all of us regardless of what we give up. And that is to be sensible. Because the purpose of Lent is not to make ourselves ill, or to make ourselves so miserable that no one wants us near them – it is simply that we have an opportunity to grow closer to God through some kind of personal sacrifice, or some kind of effort.

Doing a good turn for a neighbour, attempting to leave out the sugar in tea, may not sound like massive things, but if they are done with a good heart, and in the knowledge that we do them for God and neighbour, then that is every bit as good – if not better – than making ourselves ill by trying to do too much!

As always it is my very great joy and privilege to serve as your parish priest.

With all good wishes
Fr Yenda.