Lent       Next Wednesday, February 17th, is Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent.       “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church , 540) – to his fasting, prayer and overcoming the devil’s temptations.       There is evidence back to the Second Century that since the time of the Apostles some form of Lenten observance was followed by the Church in different forms in different locations, always including prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The observance probably had become standardized by the Fourth Century because the Council of Nicea in 325 refers to “the 40 days of Lent,” indicating it was universal by then.       Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-640 AD) is credited with giving us the Ash Wednesday ceremony where the priest or other minister (typically, but not this year) marks the penitent’s forehead with ashes to remind us of the Biblical symbol of repentance (sackcloth

Only Two Choices: Good or Evil          C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), an Anglican Christian, wrote many allegories as a marvelous and entertaining story teller. Our last article discussed his book, The Last Battle  as an allegory on the end of the world, and which gave us lessons about waking up to discover that we had held mistaken, untrue beliefs for quite a while.       Lewis also wrote an imaginative allegory about Heaven and Hell called, The Great Divorce . In this story, a group of people in Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, complaining all the way. They so disliked the place that they all re-board the bus to go back to Hell, which they greatly prefer. The entertaining story underscores that we each do have free will to choose, and it portrays the truth that our perceptions and our thinking are affected by our basic orientation toward either the good or evil.       Some people try to avoid this reality: the either / or choice. They want to believe that in the end it is all the same.