Food for thought: Lenten recipes can provide lessons in faith

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (CNS) - The education of 5-year-old Charlie Egger is something to behold for a Catholic who grew up in a generation when Fridays in Lent were usually marked by meals of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, fish sticks from a woman named Mrs. Paul and fillet-of-fish sandwiches from the drive-in window of a fast-food restaurant.

Jenni Egger wants her son to be comfortable in the kitchen, even involving him in cooking creative alternatives to traditional meatless Friday dinners - which explains why Charlie helps his mother prepare a meal called "veggie-filled frittata." Yet she also sees those Lenten Friday cooking sessions as a meaty way to teach Charlie about his Catholic faith. "Lent is an important time to have family conversations about why we don't eat meat on Friday, or why we carry on any of our special Lenten traditions," said Egger, 36, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis. "Prep time or meal time is the perfect opportunity for those conversations. We will talk about Jesus and the sacrifices he made for us, and the things we can do during Lent," she told The Criterion, newspaper of the Indianapolis Archdiocese. Barbara Brinkman said her two sons - Robbie, 13, and Steven, 11 - "just don't like fish. "It comes up every Lent." She said they look at a calendar and she points out to them "the number of days we are sacrificing meat." "I tell them this is what the church chose for us to do in order to remember what sacrifices Jesus Christ made for us by giving up his life on Good Friday," said Brinkman, a member of St. Luke Parish in Indianapolis. The message usually gets through as she serves her family meatless lasagna roll-ups. "I point out that what we do is such a small thing for what Jesus Christ did for us. They accept it," said Brinkman, who is a senior advertising account executive for The Criterion. Meatless Fridays are "part of the three-pronged approach of prayer, penance and almsgiving" that Catholics are called to follow in Lent, according to William Bruns, a member of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis who makes a variety of less-traditional Lenten Friday meals, including shrimp salad and a fisherman's soup. "As far as the meaning of Lent goes, I look at it as our annual opportunity to recharge our spiritual lives and redirect our thoughts and energies to living as disciples of Jesus," Bruns said. "And discipleship, as the word implies, requires discipline." Bruns, who retired last year as executive director of the archdiocesan communications secretariat, remembers when the church required Catholics to adhere to meatless Fridays year-round. "Interestingly enough, the church has never said to stop observing meatless Fridays. They are just not obligatory anymore," Bruns said. "In fact, the U. S. bishops have explicitly encouraged American Catholics to continue to observe Friday as a day of penance." He also encourages Catholics to consider other forms of sacrifice during Lent. "Since we have only two days in the year - Ash Wednesday and Good Friday - that are obligatory days of fast and abstinence, it seems to me that maybe we ought to be choosing to fast from things that are really important to us, things that perhaps have become too important -television, movies, sports - or even the more traditional - candy, desserts, tobacco, alcohol," he said. "And while we're fasting, let's not forget the other two legs of the tripod - prayer and almsgiving/works of charity." Prayer is always part of the faith program for the Egger family, especially at meal time. "Sitting down with my family always helps my faith, said Jenni Egger, who has been married for 13 years to her husband, Howard. "It's where we regroup as a family and where we pray."

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