Lent, plant-based burgers, and the real world

There is a discussion in the US Catholic Church about eating plant-based burgers during Lent. There have even been statements from church authorities, like the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Perhaps the problem is not the burger but the discussion.

I am a vegetarian and I like veggie-burger once in a while. Most of them are okay but nothing to brag about, though the black-bean burger at an Ames, Iowa, restaurant is outstanding.

Ash Wednesday, after morning Mass in which we sent forth more than thirty persons with ashes for their communities, I went to visit the sick in two communities, bringing ashes and communion.

How was I supposed to talk to them about fasting? I did explain to some the three disciplines of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But fasting and abstinence. Every day is a fast day for most of the people I know. And abstinence? Most people in the countryside here in Honduras might have meat once a week – or once a month! My guess is that most of the world is in the same situation or worse.

I am sorry, but the discussion about plant-based burgers is what we need to abstain from. Try beans and rice and tortillas, what I ate today at a workshop with members of our parish.

Parce, Domine,parce populo tuo.

Saint Oscar Romero put it well in a September 3, 1978 homily:

When Pope Paul VI modified the meaning of penance for the Christian people, he said that there are different ways to understand the meaning of penance in the Christian life.  

Fasting is done in one way in developed countries, where people eat well, and another way in underdeveloped countries, where life is almost always lived in a fast. In this situation, he said, penance means to put austerity where there is much well-being and to put courage and solidarity with the suffering and efforts for a better world where life is almost a perpetual fast. 

This is penance, this is God’s will.