My son absconded with my laptop tonight to write a book analysis of Steven Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. I tried to make it easy for him. “Civil War. Coward. Runs from battle. Man vs. self.” That’s all I had for him except that the author was from my hometown of Newark, NJ and everyone there knew of him. Just like we all knew about Seth Boyden – the inventor of patent leather, celluloid film, and malleable iron. But you knew that, right? Sidenote: bit Crane and Boyden (along with Christopher Columbus and Archbishop Thomas Walsh) had housing projects named after them)
Anyway, where was I? Yes, disciplines. Our priests have been preaching extensively for the past few weeks about the need to go beyond our normal penances this Lent. As one priest said, “We are literally under attack from about twelve different fronts. Giving up candies isn’t going to cut it this time.”
If you read yesterday’s post you know about the Prince Albert. I went the whole day today without a cigarette. I only hit the pipe about a dozen times but believe it or not, that’s still much less than I would have smoked otherwise. Keep me in your prayers that this goes well. I’m asking my guardian angel to help make this easier. Otherwise the really big disciplines pertaining to food and drink aren’t going to be so easy.
Mary Help of Christians, pray for us!
*Correction: After writing and publishing this, I have been informed that I inadvertently combined Seth Boyden and yet another famous Newarker, Hannibal Goodwin. It is he (Goodwin) and not Boyden who invented celluloid film.
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 