(Following on from yesterday's party food thread) to be irritated by this?

[KTeePee]

Our school discos are on soon and one mother has put a note at the botom of the ticket order form expressing concern that we are selling sweets at this event even though it is during Lent.....

I know it is a church school but I'm a bit about it - surely if she doesn't want her darlings to partake she can just send them without any pocket money?

in my head she's the owner of the GWA, pann. it's just something about the name...

madamez as I said we do emphasize the positive much mroe than the giving up sweets - which as dd only has sweets on a Friday anyway is hardly making her live a life of misery.

I think it is because you want to see me as making my child's life a misery that you arefocussing on the no sweets bit.

I can't see why the school doesn't sell crisps instead? Or indeed why you 'can' eat crisps in Lent but not sweets. Or fish on Good Friday but not a sausage which contains very little meat. But I'm not Catholic, only Irish.

You can eat a suasgae on good friday and could ever since vatican II which is almost half a century ago!

Many catholics choose to keep Fridays for fish just out of tradition, as we do here. It is on no way a hardship but a tradition thatwe enjoy, makes Fridays special.

There is no church law that says,

thou shalt not eat sweets over Lent but crisps are OK!

It is a personal choice whatyou give up if anything, most priests now tend to focus on doing something positive TBH. As I ahve said repeatedly on this thread the giving up sweets is a very small part of lent that other people are focussing on as they are choosing to see religious people as making their children's lives grim.

what you can eat meat on Good Friday?
since when?
wait til i tell my mum

My inlaws only eat fish on Good Friday and whine non stop. I'm vegetarian as well as Protestant and would like to slap them. FIL will happily eat fish at other times, Friday or not. We do have a fresh fish van selling in our town on Friday, so it seems to be still done here (Cork), as a tradition at least.

Crisps are only OK if you're Irish, StLeger, eaten solemnly in memory of the famine dead.

We had complicated rules as kids, all self-imposed, whereby sweets were out, but biscuits were OK, with much debate about what a kit-kat was ....

Aitch, just satisfy my curiosity and then I'll depart from this thread... what on earth is a GWA????

the infamous and distinctly marvellous Great White Arse, of course...

Cork is the home of the famous Connie dodger, named after a strict bishop. It was some kind of glorified bread with cake overtones (I am thinking toasted teacake), which was bready enough to satisfy some complex rule. I sometimes feel the spirit of Lent has been lacking for quite a while.

Are you SURE meat was ok'd for Good Friday in Vatican II? I seem to remember that in the 60s meat was allowed on ordinary Fridays (a new development then as most adults could remember the no-meat Fridays of previous years) but Good Friday was still a fasting day. You didn't have to eat fish, just had to abstain from meat.

I'm sure there is an interesting debate to be had about the difference between belief, superstition and even tradition. But you certainly gave Madamez what for, Aitch.

all I can say is that my kids have been told to say
'oh no, we are jewish, we don't give up ANYTHING for lent' VVloudly if they get asked

I am trying to get hem to convert ther little frinds by telling them jewish holidays are all about food and chocolate and at Chanukkah they get 8 days of pressents

I think and I may be wrong that the ban on eating meat on friday was lifted and instead we are encouraged to give something up and donate the money that we would have spent to the poor.

taken from the penny catechism

237. What are the Friday forms of Penance?

On Fridays other than Solemnities we are to abstain from meat or some other food, drink or amusement or undertake one of the other works of penance stipulated by the Bishops' Conference. (Abstinence is binding from the age of 14).

Is that Catechism current, Twinset? When was it published?

to be honest I didn't check and my copy of the catechism is in the loft

TBH though we don't update our teaching that often!

You KNOW the catechism without LOOKING? Wow.!

I am sure that since the 1960's it has been voluntary, so in true catholic style you can eat meat if you want to on a Friday but you will feel guilty

In an (again) honest spirit of enquiry, am I supposed to be utterly confounded by any suggestion that my arse is a)caucasian and b) not small? Whether either assertin is accurate or not is something it's pointless to debate on line as I'm not about to start mooning at a webcam without considerable financial inducement.
Or is this perhaps some particularly arcane superstition that I've missed?

I have a theology degree, have studied the history of the catholic church and teach RE it comes with the territory! I am the Dot Cotton of the north!

madamez what are you going on about??

What id Mr Opadopalous like? I don't follow the GWA thing madamez.

Sorry, Twinset and Stleger, was referrring back to a post Aitch made. Should have addressed my post to her.