I’m abstaining
from eating meat for the Lenten season. As much as I am doing this for
sacrifice, of course I want to get something from God by this as well. But my
Catholic and/or Christian obligation and the ‘reward’ are just my selfish
motivation. Those two are merely the secondary reasons; my real purpose is
discipline.
I want to train
myself not to always give in to temptations, and that starts with my weakness:
food. Whatever I do, I always chose food as my inspiration--which is not
exactly bad since I have to gain weight. But since I do not, I better not make
eating a hobby because I am being greedy and I should not over spend for food.
However, this
‘conditioning’ seems like a challenge I accepted than a custom I have to learn.
I guess I just wanted to try something new and I’m using the
”follow-the-Church” thing to make way for my interest. So I decided that I
won’t push myself to much and I’ll just do this for as long as I could.
Thank God I made
it through a week. Meal after meal, meat by meat, I’m still not running out of
fruits, vegetables, fishes and other sea foods to eat. Actually, the only
matter that makes it hard is that nobody at home seems to empathize.
Day 1, Ash
Wednesday: I attended the mass at school, had breakfast and lunch there (some
canteens in UP serve edible vegetable meals and sea foods). Though, as soon as
I got home, tocino was for dinner. I ate fried egg.
Day 2, my
brother’s birthday: Soup for breakfast; lunch at school. As my family was
having a ‘special and decent’ supper, I was consuming ginisang na repolyo (sautéed cabbage).
Day 3: Soup for
breakfast; lunch at school. Just as I thought that I would get away with this
day without worrying about my meal, I was put to a test. My groupmates and I
won a 20 inch pizza for a game we won in one of my afternoon classes.
I’ve always loved Italian cuisine—pasta, cheese, PIZZAAAA!!! And it was very
big for that matter (there are only seven of us in the group)! In order not to
get myself deprived, I took two slices—with ALL the toppings removed. I had
fried eggplant and daing for dinner.
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| Jugno's at class |
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| pizza party!!! (apologies for the blurred photos) |
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| (not the exact pizza we had that afternoon but Jugno's is this big) me w/ the pizza during the sem break 2011 |
Day 4, weekend: My bestfriends came over. They had lechong paksiw with my family for lunch when all I had was paksiw na tilapia. Not bad though; only that I had that dish until dinner as the rest enjoyed pork barbeque.
Day 5: Sundays
have always been “beef day” at home. My mum prepared sinigang na baka and I was seriously convinced that she’s really
trying my self-control. Well, I was sincere with my ‘oath’ (for at least 40
days); thus I didn’t even feel enticed at all. But I got nothing else to eat
plus I didn’t want my grandma to think that I’ve begun to be a picky eater. I
just ate all the veggies and its soup with rice. I made fried egg at night.
Day 6: Soup in
the morning, fried fish for lunch and salted egg for dinner.
Day 7: Soup in
the morning, some bread before lunch, French fries after lunch, and fried fish
for supper.
Just in my first
week and I cannot recognize the fish species I’m eating anymore. I also feel
like my preference for vegetable lately causes deforestation. But for the past
few days I’ve become more grateful to God for everything. He’s as if tolerating
me with my pride as I was never starved.
*no offense meant to the Catholic Church and to the Christians
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