Edwin Soto's Blog

Oh hey there, Ash Wednesday… I didn’t even see you coming!  What do you mean it was on the calendar? Wow, I didn’t even notice. Sorry.

I became Catholic on my own accord at 15 years old. I went to church religiously [ha!], and joined RCIA and did my communion shortly after.  Since then I go through spells of dedication and then spells of laziness.  Before the age of 15, I was plenty versed on the Christian Bible and Jesus’ trials throughout Lent.  When I became Catholic, it was the first time that I started to understand Jesus’ role in my life and my religious beliefs, and for once, Lent.

I apologize if I start to offend either non-Catholics, or heck, practicing Catholics for that matter – but I feel like I’ve needed to say this for a long time: giving up chocolate is not Lenten sacrifice.  At least, not for an adult. If I were 11, I could see how that would be a big deal. Don’t get me wrong, there are bigger fish to fry and I don’t sit here and pretend like I’m perfect by any means – until today I hadn’t gone to church in 3 months. I just somehow doubt that when Jesus was going through the most difficult times in His life, he was thinking “I hope when they remember this moment, they’ll give up eating candy for 40 days”.

From wikipedia: Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial.

So for me, this is Lent. The self sacrificing, loving, repenting, and preparation of Easter. So before you decide that giving up chocolate is enough… I hope that there’s some self reflection involved.

I’m not perfect, and this Lenten season, I’ll be ensuring that I talk to God for (at least) 40 days. I’ve been self sacrificing and repenting since I became a Vegan – I need to continue to let it drive me to be thankful for the life I have, my health, my family, His love, and all the things He created. At first it was giving up meat and dairy as a sacrifice, but He has shown me through abstaining from these things, I was giving back to Him. Giving love back to His world. It becomes a bit clearer every day what my role is on His Earth. I want to become a better person and “giving up” meat and dairy is a good way to start to give back. It’s made me remember that deep down inside I want to be a better Dad, husband, colleague, supervisor, but mostly a better human being.

I pray that I can learn how to strive to do that over the next 40 days.

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