“Wish I had somebody to go skating with,” said Billy one winter
afternoon.
“Where’s Bob White?” asked Big Sister looking up from her book.
“It’s Ash-Wednesday, and his folks are Catholics,” said the
boy named Billy, “and they have after school services. What is
Ash-Wednesday and what does it mean, any way?”
“Ash-Wednesday,” said Somebody, “is the beginning of Lent, which
lasts forty days and ends with the Saturday before Easter Sunday.
It is supposed to commemorate the forty days fasting Christ did
before His Crucifixion.”
“My,” said the boy named Billy, “I never could fast forty hours
let alone forty days! How is it supposed to help a person to go
without food for so long?”
“Fasting,” said Somebody, “is to teach the lesson of self
restraint, and self control, and to help us endure discomforts
without complaining, how to refrain from all unkind thoughts
of others, to control our tempers and make us better people
generally.
“It’s a very good idea for each one of us to give up something
during Lent; something that we like very much indeed, and to give
the money that it would have cost to some one who really needs
food and comforts.”
“Do you do that?” asked the boy named Billy.
“I try to,” said Somebody.
“Oh, I see!” said the boy named Billy.