Losing Mayorships During Lent

I spent last weekend in Philadelphia at a friend’s house, where a group of my old friends and I convened to catch up on each others’ lives. It was a very 21st century sort of gathering: eight of us live across four states, and the weekend was organized through a combination of text messaging, emails, and Facebook. Somehow, despite confusion of train times and places, we all arrived at my friend’s apartment with enough spare blankets and more than enough food to go around.

The subject of Lent came up when, after a friendly reminder that it was Saturday, there was a sigh of relief that we could all eat chicken and pasta with prosciutto. A few of us in the group are Catholic, to varying degrees, and everyone tries to be adaptable.