Another Friday Night in Lent

It's another Friday night in Lent; a later than normal Lent meaning warmer days and more daylight.  Across the Catholic footprint a Friday night means thousands of services of The Stations of the Cross and probably just as many church or KC or men's club sponsored fish fry's.  Almost every Friday night in Lent for 11 years you could find me at the KC Hall in Abita Springs having something to do with the local council fish fry.  For most of those years I helped collect the money.  I loved it.  I always enjoyed visiting with the masses who flocked to St. Jane's to purchase some good fried catfish and shrimp.  After I was ordained, I always took a turn at presiding at the Stations, although this usually required only 1 Friday since we had ample clergy assigned to St. Jane's.

Lent 2011 finds me at Most Holy Trinity and I have been presiding at the evening Stations for the last 3 weeks.  We have Stations twice on Fridays with the Pastor handling the morning and the Deacons the evening.  After Stations are over, I am always able to visit with my KC brothers from MHT who also conduct a fish fry, but are limited to a drive up only situation as our current facility has no place to host a large dine-in crowd.

I recently overheard a discussion of our tradition of fish fry's and if this really is in the full spirit of the Lenten season.  As many of you know, a meatless Friday in southeast Louisiana is not that big of a deal.  And our two local KC Councils mentioned here in this post do make some darn good fish.  Do you think having a church fish fry is appropriate?  Do you see anything wrong in gathering as community to eat a little fish?  I would love to have your thoughts.

Two things to consider.  Many years ago in Abita, the KC Council specifically agreed to start the fish fry's with an eye toward increasing the evening attendance at Stations of the Cross.  Since Stations are usually held in early evening, the fish fry was a convenient way to feed the family before or after Stations.  Point two: every KC Council I know uses the proceeds from the fish fry to do many works of charity throuhout the year.

But I'm still interested in what you think.  For now, I will continue my faithful practice of Stations and I probably will down a good piece of fried catfish too!