In practice, this means a return to “no meat on Fridays” for British Catholics.

From the resolution:

The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this should be fulfilled by abstaining from meat. Those who cannot or choose not to eat meat as part of their normal diet should abstain from some other food of which they regularly partake.

Nice nod to vegetarianism. As a long time vegan, I always fret about what “some other food” I should give up Fridays in Lent. Soy seems an obvious one, but has tended to be more annoying than helpful. I’m curious to see if UK veg Catholics develop any traditions and practices around “some other food.”

I’m having a hard time at the moment (as I sometimes do, just worse), and I’m drawn to the idea of re-establishing weekly penance in my life. Prayer and fasting are always my last resort when I’m having a hard time, despite the fact that they most always work. One of the great blessings of going to mass with the late Father Bernie every Friday was that every week he’d encourage us to pray, and every week I’d think “Oh yeah, forgot about that,” and then I’d pray for a day or two, and many issues would be resolved. And then by the next Friday I’d already be out of the habit and in need of another reminder.

We started the day with most folks attending mass, then went to the White House. We finished the day at Union Station with a children’s “Peace Train” mini-parade hoping to meet Obama at the station. (I think the kids had to leave before he arrived.)

Today, as we marched to the National Press Club dressed as detainees, we learned that our photo was on page B1 of the Washington Post, illustrating an article about how activist groups are choosing to engage with Obama. The photo was taken during the very short time we were at Obama HQ.

At the Press Club there was a summit/press conference of “Major Human Rights Groups” discussing their proposed agendas for Obama’s first 100 days. We took part, with Matt Daloisio giving a couple short speeches. (Witness Against Torture is by no means a major human rights group, but I guess it’s clunky to title your press release “Major Human Rights Groups (And A Small Group Of Troublemakers) Meet in D.C.”)

Beth Brockman, at the beginning of todays’ public vigil:

So how am I holding up? I am still dog tired, and I think I’m getting sick. Let’s hope it’s just a touch of dehydration or something. I’m dreaming of eight hours’ sleep and a solid meal.

At this point more than 100 people are part of a nine-day liquid-only fast to call for the closing of Guantanamo and speedy justice for the detainees. Today, those of us in DC demonstrated (very briefly) at Obama HQ. David Meieran shot this clip.

Spending several hours wearing a hood, walking and standing quietly amidst dozens of identical figures, was a big change from running around dealing with internet and multimedia stuff. Very prayerful.

I am doing pretty good on day 2 of the fast, and so are my fellow fasters. There are now more than 100 people fasting; we’ve posted some of their bios.

Four cups of fancy protein drink daily are not cutting it–this afternoon I felt like crap. A few cups of fruit juice fixed the problem. I’ll probably start mixing the protein drink with juice instead of water, and add a quart of juice daily on top of that. We’ll see how it goes. You’re going to have moments of lethargy while fasting, but if your regimen is causing problems on day 2, you’re not going to make it to day 9 without adjustments.

Video of yesterday’s kickoff event made it to several foreign news channels and was shown at least once on CNN. This Al Jazeera clip with Bud Courtney is a pretty good representation of what was going on:

One of my tasks is gathering video and blog posts from the fasters. There’s a large crowd, and a real diversity of thoughts on this thing. Anna Brown’s reflection is worth reading and touches on a spiritual/mystical angle of the fast. Maybe if energy and talent allow, tomorrow I’ll post something thoughtful myself.

At DuPont Circle Park in Washington, DC, at 12:45 pm, leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and 9-11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, will call for an end to the Bush policies, justice for the detainees, and accountability for US crimes. 100-200 demonstrators wearing orange jumpsuits and hoods will have a prisoner procession to dramatize the plight of the detainees still at Guantanamo.

The fast ends on Inauguration Day, when we begin a 100 day campaign to close the prison.

This will be my longest fast to date. I’m skeptical about “detoxification” and other health claims made for fasting, but fasting has always cured my spiritual malaise and helped me refocus my life.

What will my fast be like? I have this goofy super-health-food protein drink, vegan but not raw. My plan is to have 2 servings a day (440 calories) of this for the first week or so, then re-evaluate. I think most of the other fasters will stick to juice. (8 ounces of unsweetened orange juice is 112 calories, and apple juice is 117 calories.) I’m also going to avoid caffeine and alcohol.

If you’ll be fasting, in DC or elsewhere, let me know and we’ll link to your account on the 100 Days website.

100 Days co-organizer Matt Daloisio talks about the campaign:

We remember that, despite the Vatican’s clear opposition to the Iraq War, only one American Bishop, Most Rev. John Michael Botean, condemned it. In a 2003 Lenten Pastoral Letter, Bishop Botean called the Iraq War “objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin.”

On March 19, the Iraq War will enter its fifth year. More than 150,000 Iraqi civilians and nearly 4,000 American soldiers have perished. Hundreds of thousands of our sisters and brothers have been injured, orphaned, or left homeless.

We cannot help but wonder if this war could have been prevented with a stronger voice of opposition from all of us in the American Catholic Church. We admit our own complicity by our failure to raise our own voices more forcefully. But, even now, we believe that the voice of our Church can help end the bloodshed.

Therefore, inspired by the witness of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, we join concerned Catholics in twelve other dioceses around the United States to call for a Lenten prayer and fast for peace. Like Jagerstatter, the only known Roman Catholic to refuse service in Hitler’s military during World War II, we believe that the Church must not stay “silent in the face of what is happening.” Starting on Ash Wednesday, we invite all people of conscience to join us at Saint Paul’s Cathedral for midday Mass each weekday, followed by a peace vigil outside the church and, shortly thereafter, at the nearby United States Federal Building. We will conclude our prayer and fasting during Holy Week on March 19th with a special Catholic peace witness at the Federal Building.

We hope and pray that this witness in Worcester and other dioceses around the country will draw the Church closer to the nonviolent Christ and help our nation to end the Iraq War and Occupation.

Part of the trouble is that I haven’t lived in a Catholic Worker community for six months. For all the drawbacks of the Catholic Worker lifestyle, it does make it easy to integrate spirituality into the flow of your life.

When my life isn’t spiritually grounded, my activism isn’t grounded, either. When the rest of my life is going well, activism is a joy, or at least fun in a quixotic way. But these days, my projects have been a real chore.

Many radicals of vastly more experience than myself refer to their work as “resistance,” which is a word I don’t really like. As a Christian, I think that Truth and Love are the background of reality. I don’t want to stand up to Evil like a wall, I want my life to be sharp like a pin, so that when confronted with Evil I can make little pinpricks in it, letting Truth and Love seep through, eventually eroding it. But at the moment, my work feels like “resistance,” as though I’m standing against evil alone, rather than being a tool of God’s love.

Most Catholics either give up something, or take on a new responsibility, for Lent. They also stop eating meat on Fridays (except fish). Since becoming a vegan, I’ve been wondering what I should do. Last year, I gave up soy on Fridays, which was a pain in the neck and not very productive. This year, I think I’ll just observe a juice fast on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, since the combination of prayer and fasting always does me good, and I should try it more often.

Chinese New Year: Indymedia has an article and movie about the celebration in Worcester, courtesy Matt Feinstein. Are there Chinese Christians who feel a conflict between celebrating these first weeks of their New Year, and observing Lent?

Television: You can submit your questions about prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other topics to Worcester’s Mayor and City Manager via Soapbox.

Catholic Worker: Houston Indymedia reports that the Houston CW is being harrassed by the Klan.

Yesterday was the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Worcester. I’d heard of “prayer breakfasts,” but I’d never been to one, so I did a little research and found the Prayer Breakfast Network. Their website does not feature symbols of religion (Christian cross, Jewish star, Muslim crescent, Buddhist wheel) or breakfast (Northern bagel, Southern grits, Western omelette), just a bunch of American flags. Their spiritual heritage page is entirely about Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.

Maybe some towns could have a monocultural prayer breakfast like that, but not Worcester. The breakfast emcee was a rabbi, the opening prayer was by a Catholic bishop, the opening speech was by a city employee identified as a Unitarian, the keynote speaker was Bernard Lafayette (Baptist minister, among other things), and the closing prayer was by representatives from Hillel and the Islamic Society.

Then an Indian man who’d known Gandhi read a poem!

Stuff like that, and the City Council’s choosing religious tolerance over mosque wiretapping, makes me happy to be in Worcester.

Here’s another story that makes me happy to be in Worcester. It’s about some folks who decided to meet their new neighbors instead of fearing them. As told in Worcester’s Catholic Free Press:

THE CATHOLIC FREE PRESS
October 7, 2005

St. Joan of Arc has a new neighbor

By Tanya Connor

WORCESTER–The new mosque on East Mountain St. has drawn responses from Catholic neighbors.

Father José A. Rodríguez, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish on Lincoln Street, said last week that he made arrangements to take some people to visit during the Muslims’ prayers.

Two weeks ago, for his monthly Bible study, he compared the Bible and the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book, giving sessions in English and Spanish.

The visit is a follow-up on these sessions, which were a response to comments about the new neighbors, Father Rodríguez said.

“There was a certain anxiety about having a mosque in their midst,” he said of people’s responses. “People unfortunately connect Islam and 9-11. It’s sad, because that’s the image that has been portrayed.”

The only way to change that image is to learn about Muslims, he said.

“It’s easy to fear and condemn things you don’t know about,” he said. “There’s a lack of knowledge about Islam.”

So he compared Islam with what Catholics are familiar with–their own religion. When people fear something, they withdraw, he said, so he wanted not only to teach, but also to make them comfortable enough to learn.

“You could see they wanted to understand more,” he said of the participants’ responses. But, he said, “to really understand and appreciate it you really need to have a good grasp of your own religion, your own Scriptures.” Bible study is not a strength of Catholics in general, and a number of Hispanics are turning to Islam, he said.

He expressed hope for a cordial relationship with Muslim neighbors and said they have been trying to ease tensions.

“We are neighbors of the mosque,” St. Joan of Arc parishioner Jeanne Duggan said after the Bible study. “I would have come anyway, but that was kind of an added incentive.”

Her husband, Joseph Duggan, said he was part of a group which got a tour of the Muslims’ facility.

“They were very pleasant to us,” he said. “They want to be good neighbors.”

“Our religion greatly recommends that we serve neighbors,” Imam Hafiz Hamid Mahmood told The Catholic Free Press. An imam is a leader, in this case a religious leader, and hafiz is his title, which means memorizer of the Quran, he said, adding that he has memorized the whole book. His title is followed by his first and last name.

“We have to be the best neighbors, co-workers, relatives, friends,” he said. “We must share everything in terms of happiness, grief, tragedies, with others.”

He said they are mainstream Muslims, and 99 percent of Muslims in the United States are as well. They denounce killing people in the name of religion, he said, but indicated that media portrayals of a few extremists have left people with misconceptions about the majority of Muslims.

“Christian organizations have greatly helped us to be understood by the community at large,” he said. “They let us come in and talk about ourselves,” and include Muslims in interfaith activities.

Generally they have had a very good reaction from their new neighbors and passersby, he said, adding that people have shown interest in their grand opening, which will probably be held in a couple months. Visitors are welcome to attend prayers there at 1 p.m. on Fridays and activities there from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sundays, he said. He said the Muslims would also welcome invitations to visit churches and other houses of worship.

Groups of visitors to the mosque can call ahead so accomodations can be made for them, he said. Proper protocol is to shake hands and sit for worship only with people of the same sex. Women are asked to cover their heads and wear long sleeves and a long skirt or loose-fitting pants, he said.

Prayers were first held in the new mosque last Friday, Imam Mahmood said. For the past 30 years, the community worshipped in their mosque at 57 Laurel St., he said, but they were outgrowing the space. For about 100 years before that, Muslims in Worcester gathered in houses to worship, he said.

Three years ago they started building at 248 East Mountain Street, he said. The handicapped-accessible Worcester Islamic Center there holds a mosque, a social hall and Alhuda Academy, a Muslim elementary school whose name means guidance. Also part of the center is a separate fitness center being constructed.

The pre-school through grade 8 school of about 70 students, which opened a few weeks ago, is in its fifth year, having moved here this year from Northboro, according the administrator Hakima Elyounssi.

In his talk Father Rodríguez said Abraham is considered the Father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the main monotheistic religions of the world. Jews and Christians call God names such as Yahweh and Lord. Muslims call him Allah.

The Bible, meaning collection of books, contains 46 books in the Old Testament written down by different people from 900 to 200 B.C. and 27 in the New Testament composed between 50 and 100 A.D., he said.

The Quran, meaning “repeat this after me,” contains 114 chapters written by Mohammed in the early 600s as word for word revelations he said he received from God through an angel, Father Rodríguez said. That is why Muslims have as much reverence for the Arabic version of the Quran as Catholics have for the Eucharist, he said.

Christians build on the revelations of the Old Testament. Muslims consider the Quran, which contains some things from the Bible, the last revelation, he said. They do not accept Christian belief in the Trinity.

Imam Mahmood said the “Muslims of each time” followed the prophet of their time–Moses, later Jesus and, still later, Mohammed.

“When God sends a new prophet, you have to follow that prophet in order to be Muslims,” he said, adding that they give importance to Mohammed because he is “the prophet of our time,” and the last messenger.

The Quran permits attacking others, but not first, and says there is a proper place for war, Father Rodríguez said, adding that the Old Testament also has war scenes, but Jesus’ message in the New Testament promotes forgiveness. Christians say a war must be just, he said.

The Quran contains a lot about fighting, Imam Mahmood said, adding that there is no world pure of fighting, so regulations are needed. “Holy war” is not an Islamic term, he said, and jihad refers to defending oneself against evil, usually not by fighting. It can involve self defense and fighting personal temptations, he said.

Father Rodríguez said not everyone who believes in the Bible or the Quran believes it in the same way.

He suggested highlighting positive things from Islam, such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and closed with a prayer asking “Father Abraham” to help “us” find ways to heal division.

“I thought it was excellent,” Sister of Notre Dame Rose Mary Grant, of St. Mary Parish in Shrewsbury, said of Father Rodríiguez’ presentation. “We need to understand” other religions. Now she has a lot more questions; one doesn’t learn all about another religion in one session, she said.

Sister Claire Perez, a Sister of Notre Dame from St. Joan of Arc, said a religion is more than its holy book; Muslims wouldn’t understand Catholicism by reading the Bible without also attending Mass. She said she had passed the mosque, but had not thought much about it, then heard about the presentation at St. Joan of Arc and wanted to learn more.

Brian Ortiz, a St. Joan of Arc altar server and seventh-grader at St. Peter-Marian Junior High School, said he has been comparing the Bible and Torah and “knew there was a third element.” So he came to learn about the Quran.

This story from the Catholic Free Press may be reprinted if Tanya Connor and the Catholic Free Press are credited.

Colbert: Hannukah, highest of the high holy days.

Rabbi: I have to tell you. This is not the highest of holy days.

Colbert: OK, it is. Let’s just move on from there.

Rabbi: Well, I have to contradict you.

Colbert: Name one holier day.

Rabbi: Yom Kippur.

Colbert: Well…name another!

Rabbi: Rosh Hashana.

Colbert: Now you’re just making things up.