Happy Palm weekend!
In time for Palm weekend, I'm going to share with you what I've been telling everyone who'll listen to me for the past year: The Catholic tradition of Lent/Easter is the Next Big Thing.

It's going to be more than the seasonal sale of Peeps or Cadbury Eggs at Safeway. I'm talking about popularity on the scale of yoga, tai chi, Christmas, Kabbalah.

Many cities have already adopted Mardi Gras. Why not extend it to the next logical level? Mark my words -- by next year there will be articles in the paper and shows on TV about how Catholics give up stuff for Lent for centuries, and how you at home can also give up stuff for the six weeks before Easter. Pre-teens will walk around next March on Ash Wednesday with smudges on their foreheads, just like President Kerry.

I think there are two reasons for this surge in popularity for Lent. One: Mel Gibson. I find it interesting that Protestant church-goers have flocked to his "The Passion of the Christ," even though it's basically a big-budget version of the Passion Play, in which young students in Catholic grade schools everywhere perform each week in bathrobes in churches throughout the country. Am I the only person who finds it ironic that one of the more essentially Catholic traditions should be embraced wholeheartedly by Protestants?

Two: the deprival factor of Lent fits in so neatly with the American obsession with restrictions. No meat for six weeks! No potato chips/swearing/coffee/TV for six weeks! We as Americans love to purposely deprive ourselves of our beloved food, fat, carbs, tobacco, coffee, etc. I don't go through a day where lo-carbs, lo-fat, lo-emissions, lo-whatever doesn't come up in my office. It's simultaneously self-indulgent and good for you. (I, myself, am going through a self-imposed caffeine restriction, and I tell you, it's one-day-at-a-time.) People are just now finding out that for centuries the Catholics have been systematically restricting their comforts for six weeks at a time each year. There's also the attraction of the lack of long-term commitment.

So, I suggest you all jump on the bandwagon before Britney Spears does, and Madonna and J. Lo and Christina Aguilera rediscover their Catholicism. Pick up some Palm leaves this Sunday, braid them and hang them from your doorway. You'll be ahead of the curve, trust me!

Sincerely,
bitterspice, ex-Catholic