Lent and Protestants

[tparsons]

Why do protetstants ask me what I’m giving up during lent? Isn’t Ash Wed. about alms, penance, fasting, turning away from sin? It would seem to me if you just give something up like an addiction to coca cola or watching basketball games on tv and that’s all you do that that would not be enough. When the preist traces a cross on your forehead he doesn’t ask you what you’re going to give up, he says turn away from sin and to me that’s what it’s all about and I hardly see watching a sporting event on tv as a sin unless of course tha’s all you did and nothing else.

Thanks

 

[tyson]

Why do protetstants ask me what I’m giving up during lent? Isn’t Ash Wed. about alms, penance, fasting, turning away from sin? It would seem to me if you just give something up like an addiction to coca cola or watching basketball games on tv and that’s all you do that that would not be enough. When the preist traces a cross on your forehead he doesn’t ask you what you’re going to give up, he says turn away from sin and to me that’s what it’s all about and I hardly see watching a sporting event on tv as a sin unless of course tha’s all you did and nothing else.

Thanks

your exactly right, its all about penance and fasting as well as making yourself better for the Lord. The giving up thing is best put by Jimmy Aiken:

Why is giving up something for Lent such a salutary custom?

By denying ourselves something we enjoy, we discipline our wills so that we are not slaves to our pleasures. Just as over-indulging in the pleasure of eating leads to physical flabbiness, over-indulging in pleasure in general leads to spiritual flabbiness. When the demands of morality require us to sacrifice something pleasurable (such as sex outside marriage) or endure hardship (such as being scorned for the faith), spiritual flabbiness may well make us fail.