Not in keeping with the season

At the start of the 40 weekdays of Lent, one recalls the timely homily of an elderly priest then celebrating a Saturday anticipated mass that the family attended.

The good man of the cloth, as expected, stressed on the need for abstinence or fasting in memory of the 40 days' fast of Jesus Christ in the desert. But while zeroing in first on food fasting for Christians not to gorge on food with gluttony, or splurge luxuriously on similar material needs, he expounded more lengthily on fasting in all other aspects and affairs of the parishioners.

Perhaps, it's a tall order or nigh impossible nowadays even for apostolic believers to sup solids only once a day - on supper that is - or to avoid touching meat even once during the whole Lenten period. But, the heart of fasting or abstinence simply obliges the faithful to refrain from over-indulgence or over-doing in whatever aspects of behavior and actuations.

By way of emphasis, the priestly homily aptly reminded the parishioners that the very essence of fasting goes beyond victuals. It has deeper meaning and extensive spiritual sphere to include self-abnegation and self-discipline from sins and vices, like, drinking, gambling, womanizing or sexual excesses, or too much pleasure-seeking to include drugs abuse to the point of hedonism, or even too much "politicking" for its own sake, wasteful partying that offends the sensibilities of the hungry poor, commission of crimes, and even acts of terrorism and war.

The season of Lent is for meditation with a large measure of self-accounting of one's actuations. Man being a sinner as he sails through life, now is the time that matters come to a head for him to own up and confess his wrongs and shortcomings in sincere penitence and true contrition, as an act of soul cleansing. This is the least that mortals can do to redeem themselves before Jesus Christ who died in sacrifice on the cross to redeem mankind's sins.

And this Holy Week is supposed to cap and highlight the essence and true message of Lent. But, the pertinent query is: Has Christendom faithfully followed and obsequiously observed the letter and spirit of true abstinence in keeping with the season of Lent?

As the old saw says, action speaks louder than words and, the events around us and yonder speak with eloquence, that mankind hasn't even been just abstemious or temperate; thus, far from being abstinent. Take the principal matter of victuals or food, to include splurging in drinks Demographic stats reveal more than 6 billion world population with 1.1 billion in extreme poverty - or "the poverty that kills" - and 8 million die yearly because they are too poor to stay alive. Flying in the face of such dire stats, is the reality that the scandalously rich waste away millions in fashions and soirees, or in "bacchanalia" of extravagance.

In fact, this Holy Week is, to many of the affluent, their vacation time in faraway exotic places, in plush beaches and tourist spots here and abroad. The sanctity and religiosity of the season is laid aside in the backburner while the indulgers get the hang of it, as in a social blast! And so un-Lenten in mood, while they banter and splash in pools and sandy waters, and feast on food and drown in drinks. No call for the recitation of the rosary at all

Other societal happenings are far from self-abnegating in outcome, say, in incessant political turmoil and street demos sensationalized by ABS-CBN, who else; vigilantes on the rampage almost daily; prosties or harlots being raided and splashed skimpily-clad in TV; killings and other crimes on a daily fare nationwide; drinking and gambling without let-up, with cock-fighting also on daily routine, ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

And so, as Easter Sunday comes to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, have we observed, or even tried to observe, the abstinence in keeping with the season?