Keep Lent Weird
Roman fresco from Herculaneum, depicting the Cult of Isis. First century AD Lections: Ash Wednesday , AD 2026 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Lent is a season of divine mysteries. And Romans loved a good mystery religion. In the time of the New Testament, people held a far broader understanding of religion than we tend to hold today. Everything was religious for them to one degree or another, because everything that people do, deals with what we value. Whatever you value most in life, that thing is your god. And however you structure your life around it, that is your religion. Thus there is no truly irreligious species of humanity. The historian Varro, living in the century before Christ, spoke of three sorts of religion in which everyone participates: the civil, the natural, and the mythic. Now, civil religion has to do with public ...
