Bacon: A Lenten Lesson

by | Mar 22, 2013 | Uncategorized

Don’t worry french fry fasters, alcohol abstainers, and chocolate curbers — Lent is almost over.

But even at this stage in the game, I’m tempted to say: “Oh, the Hell with it. It’s only one more week. Just one sip. Just one candy bar. Isn’t a little splurge better than killing the clerk at the grocery store on account of low-blood-sugar-induced rage?” Wait … so why am I fasting again?

I’m fasting because … well, because it’s Lent. Why? Because God wants us to go hungry … no, wait, because Jesus fasted in the desert. Or is it because food is too distracting? (What, did someone say donuts? … mmm … donuts) Where was I? Food — it’s food that is to blame. Jerry Seinfeld knows.

 

As the master of minutiae says, desserts are the one on pedestals. The scent of french fries is like Charlie’s Angels — alluring and yet can pierce through a foot thick concrete wall. They’d rather end up at the goal line of your stomach lining than tossed in the trash. They love you, then leave you. They are the enemy.

Paddy Long's Bacon Bomb (courtesy of Paddy's Longs)

Paddy Long’s Bacon Bomb

Seinfeld says that it was pop tarts that blew his mind. Me, I’ve had a torrid love affair with bacon for about 10 years now. It has tried to woo me in various forms … candied, drenched in chocolate, stacked on a burger, hugging a perfectly cooked filet, sitting all alone at the end of bar at a local Milwaukee pub on lonely Tuesday nights: “All you can eat bacon with beer purchase.” But, it’s most irresistible form is found in Paddy Long’s (Chicago) Bacon grenades — spicy sausage wrapped in bacon, battered and fried. Perfect in everyway, the fist-sized bacon grenade doesn’t just want to break my heart. It wants to get in there and annihilate it. (Just had your mind and/or belly blown? Try their bacon bomb).

This Lent, I’ve given it up. It’s been tough. Don’t believe me? Look at what I’m up against.

jsullivansj

Jeff Sullivan, SJ

jsullivansj@thejesuitpost.org   /   All posts by Jeff

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