Project BLACK MAMBA

'Tis Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the penitential season of Lent: Ashes-link & Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Quoth the bulletin:

Christians are invited to the altar to receive the imposition of ashes, prior to receiving the holy Supper. The Pastor applies ashes in the shape of a cross on the forehead of each, while speaking the words, "For dust you are & to dust you shall return" (Genesis, 3:19). This is of course what God spoke to Adam & Eve after they (had) eaten of the forbidden fruit & fallen into sin. These words indicated to our first parents the bitterest fruit of their sin, namely death."

Scripture of the Day
Personal Reading
The Letter to the Hebrews, chapter six.
The Gospel according to Luke, chapter twenty-two, verses fourteen thru sixteen.

Mass Readings
The Book of Joel, chapter two, verses twelve thru eighteen;
Psalm Fifty-one, verses three thru six(A,B), twelve thru fourteen, seventeen;
The Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter five, verse twenty thru chapter six, verse two;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter six, verses one thru six, sixteen thru eighteen.

Lies, Damned Lies, & the News
The following doesn't pertain to broadcast journalism per se, which is the usual subject of "Lies, Damned Lies, & the News," but this is the only title we have for tirades about broadcasting, so it shall have to suffice.

I listen to Christian radio. I don't always enjoy this, but for close to two decades now I've been unable to stomach Top 40 commercial radio (both current & "Oldies," the Top 40 of yesteryear), I derive increasingly little satisfaction from the bleating of National Propaganda Radio, & the A.M. Catholic station is subject to quite a bit of interference, all too often being essentially unavailable. The contemporary Christian music these stations play is often, in the word of Father John Riccardo, "vapid" & theologically unsophisticated, but I enjoy much of it & upon occasion it is how I am best able to hear His Voice. By & large, these stations identify themselves only as "Christian," which could be a nod to ecumenism, to broad-based Christian unity, sure, but is also the code by which "non-denominational" Evangelical Protestants refer to their denomination.

Yesterday, two of the D.J.s were discussing the imminent beginning of Lent. I was on a verge of screaming at my radio, "Where in the Bible is the procedure for Lent laid out, you Sola Scriptura frauds? You Pharisees!" The discussion then drifted into farce when one of them, in a pompous, learned manner, intoned, "I used to think Lent was forty days, but it's really forty-six!" The shortest verse in Scripture, the Gospel according to John, 11:35, seems appropriate: "And Jesus wept." Lent is forty days long, from Ash Wednesday 'til the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, excluding Sundays & the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. This is the absurdity & danger of Protestantism, the notion that there is no Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Church), that each Christian can come to know & understand the faith herself, all by her lonesome. If there is no one to teach you that Sundays, still & always the feasts of the Lord, are not counted in the forty days of Lent (forty being a sacred number with an impressive Biblical provenance), then you spread falsehoods, such as the claim that Lent is "actually" forty-six days long. During the Flood, it rained for forty days & forty nights, not forty-six; Moses was on Mount Sinai (thrice) for forty days, not forty-six; the Christ fasted & was tempted in the desert, in preparation for His ministry, for forty days & forty nights, not forty-six. Then again, since "Christians" have cut themselves off from much grace through their denial & refusal of the sacraments, we should not be surprised when their reasoning & conclusions are pudding-minded.

Sola Scriptura is itself refuted explicitly in Scripture, so I suppose none of the resultant heresies should surprise me. I'm not the right guy to push ecumenism; I take too much joy in calling heretics heretics.