Each Friday till Easter, the Rev. Francis de Rosa, a Roman Catholic priest who oversees two parishes within the Arlington Diocese will pray and eat soup and bread with parishioners on the church in Colonial Seashore, on Virginia’s Northern Neck.
However it received’t be a easy prayer, nor will the soup comprise any rooster, beef, or pork merchandise.
Like Catholics, Jap Orthodox Christians and a few Protestants, Father de Rosa will omit these objects from his weight loss program that at some point every week. The communal meal of soup will observe a vigil referred to as the “Stations of the Cross,” prayers marking 14 factors the place Jesus did one thing of significance en path to his crucifixion.
The custom “comes from what the observe was within the Holy Land. After which it kind of unfold into the church buildings outdoors of the Holy Land, so you may kind of expertise it,” he stated.
As to abstaining from meat, the priest stated this derives from the assumption Jesus was “crucified on a Friday. And he gave up his flesh for our salvation, so it’s becoming for us, too,” to abstain.
He stated, “We’ve got a self-discipline of giving up meat on Fridays. It’s not a press release in regards to the intrinsic worth of meat, and we eat meat on a regular basis. It’s simply it’s a sacrifice: Christ’s sacrificed his flesh for us, so we sacrifice flesh.”
Father de Rosa stated the meal follows the prayer service, and the mixture helps construct neighborhood in a church the place seven lots are celebrated every weekend between the 2 church buildings he oversees. Not everybody sees their fellow congregants every week, he defined, so the “Soups and Stations” pairing brings individuals collectively.
“We pray earlier than we eat, after which individuals eat and hang around,” he stated. “It’s good for constructing neighborhood so that folks get to know one another and the friendships get stronger and it’s a superb factor.”
Making methods for parishioners to attach is vital after three years of pandemic-related restrictions. Father de Rosa stated 2022 wasn’t as troublesome in his parishes, which aren’t in massive cities, and that fears of COVID-19 “didn’t grip the individuals right here the best way it did somewhere else.”
In Falls Church, Virginia, the Rev. Paul Scalia of Saint James Catholic Church stated the communal Friday barbecue meals throughout Lent assist most of the 2,000 households within the parish make new connections and friendships.
“That is one factor that simply brings a complete nice cross-section of individuals collectively from the parish,” Father Scalia, a son of the late Supreme Courtroom Justice Antonin Scalia, stated in a phone interview.
He stated the meals draw “not solely [people from] the parish, we get individuals simply from the neighborhood coming and being with us. … There’s only a nice neighborhood there and other people simply assembly each other, being with household, being with associates, making new associates. That’s certainly one of [its] nice strengths.”
Father Scalia stated the meals — fried fish, french fries, macaroni and cheese and hushpuppies — are on a donation foundation, permitting of us “to feed the entire household on a budget. It’s a extremely whole lot.”
He stated the meal at Saint James’ is adopted by the Stations of the Cross prayer service, which he stated makes for a great mix of the temporal and the religious.
