Lent: A Followed Tradition

When I went to Oxxo today, approximately at 7:00 pm, I saw the girl in the cash registrer with a sign in her forehead. It seemed like a spot of dirt or someting like that. I did not payed a lot of attention; I got back to the car, and suddenly, my mom told me: Linda gave me "capirotada" today as she usually does every Wednesday when lent starts.

Then, I started to question myself: Why do we celebrate Lent? Why do people follow the rule of not eating meet on Fridays? Why do people go to the church, for the Pope to put them a spot of ash in their forehead?

Well, the only answer I could find to all of these questions is CULTURE.



As we saw in class, culture is the a term used by social scientists to describe a way of life, history and common characteristics of different groups. Every human society has a culture, and each culture is formed by different elements, symbols, traditions, customs, languages, technology, and other things.



Mexican culture celebrates a lot of holidays: We have Valentine's Day, Children's Day, Work Day, Mom's Day, Dad's Day; we even have the Taco Day. And today, the third
Wednesday of February, is starting another celebration: Lent.



Lent is the celebration that represents the 40 days that Jesus stayed at the desert, practically, without food! It is a tradition celebrated by most of the Catholics in Mexico, and in other countries such as the United Stated, Canada, Spain, and others. The tradition imposes that people should not eat meet every Friday during 40 days; also, people make promises with God, and they give the start to Lent with the traditionally ash in the forehead.



Besides being part of our culture, Lent is a time in which market sells a lot of fish and sea food.



In my opinion, I think that people just follow the tradition because it has been imposed since long time ago, and they do not want to break it. However, they do not truly know the real meaning of Lent, and they neither follow it for love or compassion; they follow it because they are used to follow traditions.