Lenten Season and the Playoffs

From Young Fogeys, Fr. Jay Toborowsky's blog:

If you're a sports fan, or if you've ever played organized sports on any level, you know that there's the regular season and there's the playoffs. The regular season is when every single team plays the same amount of games. Some teams win a lot, some teams lose more than they win, but everyone plays the whole season. Playoffs are when teams compete for a championship. During the playoffs teams play until they are defeated, and then they stop playing.

Many Catholics, I think, treat Lent more like the playoffs than a regular season. On Ash Wednesday, everyone has visions of glory and make all kinds of Lenten sacrificial intentions (I'm going to give up chocolate, I'm going to pray every day, I'm going to go to Stations of the Cross on Fridays, etc.). But one failure within those intentions (one "bad game", if you will), and we act like our Lent is over and we can resume everything we gave up and discontinue everything we added to our lives. Pass me the Reese's peanut butter eggs and the black jelly beans; Easter has arrived!

Read the rest of it here.