Diary Of An Italian That Gave Up Pasta For Lent

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What the hell was I thinking?

Seriously, what the HELL was I thinking?

I grew up Catholic. I have received four, almost five of the Holy Sacraments so far:

  • Baptism
  • Reconciliation
  • Eucharist
  • Confirmation
  • Marriage....Well, not really, I was not married in the church or by a priest. Gary & Shannon's Gary Hoffmann married my husband and I.

I spent an hour, two days a week the majority of elementary and middle school years in the basement of St. Matthews Catholic Church in Dix Hills, Long Island, with about 30 other Catholic kids in catechism class, 'religion class' or Bible study, whatever you wish to call it.

I've been to confession, hearing an occasional "oh my" after confessing my sins, and being assigned 10-20 Hail Mary's and a few Our Father's to cleanse my soul....Or, if it was a particularly long confession session (an hour or more, there have been a few), a few FULL rosaries to say in order to cleanse my soul.

While I don't have a regular church I attend anymore, because I have some issues with the church and how they have handled MANY things over the years, I don't believe that's necessary to believe in and be good with God. So when Lent came calling this year, I thought, 'you know, I haven't really taken Lent very seriously in the last several years, so let's give it a shot!' and I decided to give up something I would really miss for the 40 days of Lent.... Pasta.

Now, I'm Italian and German, I relate more to the Italian side because growing up I had all my maternal relatives. My father is German, and by the time I was born, everyone in his family with the exception of his aunt, who lived far away from us, were gone. So the Italian side was really represented in terms of tradition and food, so it's not a shock that I really love Italian food. I mean REALLY love it. Plus, I'm really good at cooking it, learning everything I know about cooking from my grandmother, who came over from Italy when she was a young girl.

Lent about replicating Jesus' sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. Starting on Ash Wednesday (2/28), and ending 40 days later on Holy Saturday (4/11), we reflect and prepare for the Easter celebration by fasting from food and festivities. The idea is to give up something significant, not something easy, because it's supposed to be hard. So instead of giving up something like chocolate, which I rarely eat, I decided to give up something I really love....pasta. I probably eat entirely too much pasta, within any given week I likely have it as a meal or side dish at least 5 days out of the week, and it doesn't help that I probably eat too much of it when I do...IT'S JUST SO DELICIOUS!

Now, some have approached me reminding me there are a few loopholes, that the Sundays during the Lent period are not counted as 'fast days,' so you CAN, in fact, eat what you gave up, but that's not what I remember from catechism class. Some have insisted that and that officially Lent ends 3 days before Easter, but I don't remember that either, so I'm going the distance and giving up pasta from Feb 26 through April 11th....and OMG THIS IS FREAKING HARD!

I've been chronicling my journey on social media, and will continue to do so until April 11th, so if you get a chance and would like to be entertained by my journey on a daily basis, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.


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