Ash Wednesday

It's that time of the year again when Catholics and Anglican's (Church of England) go through a period of uhmm.. fasting and stuff and prayer and just basically minimising the self indulgence that life tempts us with everyday (Make that Friday night for me).

I'm a Roman Catholic who went to only Catholic schools exclusively from the age of 4 to the age of 18. Even nursery school was Catholic. So I'm one of those people whose morals are based on guilt. The authority figures in the schools would indoctrinate us in what's right and what's wrong and lead us to a point where we thought our conscience was a separate entity that would whisper in our ear at night if we stole something or lied, telling us to own up and preventing us from getting some sleep. And when we were good, our conscience would be the monster in the closet waiting for us to do something wrong so the whispering could continue, basically reminding us to be "good". (The same conscience that terrorises me if I eat something fattening). I'm also from a strongly Catholic family who would take over from the nuns when I got home.

As a result of all that, I would feel bad if I didn't adhere to all the Catholic traditions such as not eating meat (except fish) on a Friday and if I skip church on a Sunday I beat myself up over it all week. And since it's Ash Wednesday, Lent begins today. For Catholics (and Anglicans too) that means giving something up for 40 days and 40 nights in memory of the time Jesus spend fasting in the wild.. desert.. place. It would not feel right if I didn't give something up for Lent and so I have decided to give up chocolate and cheese (and anything that contains them) and just generally not eat indulgence foods and subsidised lunches from work. I kinda feel guilty though coz I'm also aware of the fact that I'll benefit from this by losing weight over Lent. Last year I gave up sugar in my tea and coffee and stuff and ended up giving it up forever after I calculated how many teaspoons of sugar I had escaped over the 40 day period. But then again I chose to give these things up in a fasting way before I realised that I'll lose weight while I'm at it so I reckon it still counts a great deal. And I'll try to do some soul searching and cleansing while I'm at it just to make sure I'm "good" and that my conscience doesn't whisper at me at night.