We’ve reached that wonderful six-year cycle on the calendar again.

During Lent, according to Catholic canon law,

The days of penitence to be observed under obligation through-out the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of “Grande Quaresima” (Great Lent), according to the diversity of the rite. Their substantial observance binds gravely.

In other words, eating a pepperoni Hot Pocket at 11:45 on Thursday night, other than being a generally bad idea, is perfectly fine, but eating that same Hot Pocket fifteen minutes later is a mortal sin which, as its name implies, sends you to an entirely different Hot Pocket of your very own.

This is bad enough to worry about, but I get it. Abstinence from this dietary staple is not about the meat itself, but about what the abstinence itself represents and the things that abstinence causes us to reflect on. To willfully ignore or disregard this penance is to laugh in the face of Christ’s sacrifice, more or less equivalent to murdering an old woman, and is totally unacceptABRACADABRA!:

This year, March 17, the Feast of St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, falls on the second Friday of Lent. In light of the time-honored celebration of St. Patrick on his feast day by various parishes and groups within the Archdiocese of St. Louis, I am pleased to dispense, in accord with the norm of canon 87, §1, the just-mentioned parishes and groups, as well as the individual members of the faithful who participate in their celebrations, from the observance of Friday, March 17, 2006, as a day of abstinence from meat.

The mortal sin has disappeared, and your card was the eight of diamonds.

“My son, the Church teaches that not even corned beef on Saint Patrick’s Day is exempt from the Lenten sacrifice.”

“I profoundly understand the meaning of sacrifice, Father, but you have to understand: we really like eating corned beef.”

“Oh, well that’s different. But couldn’t you-”

“Only on the 17th of March. After the 17th, we won’t even think the words ‘corned beef’ again for a year. Does the deli even have it in April? Nobody knows.”

“I see. Well, then I’ll just flip the ‘eternity next to Hitler’ switch to ‘off.’ That same behavior is now perfectly okay, but I reserve the right to flip back to ‘on’ some other day next week.”

“You’re the best, Your Holiness!”

“By the way, my son, what’s the deal with the corned beef, anyway?”

“Oh. Well, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after Saint Patrick was long dead, American colonists imported their beef from Ireland, so it had to be heavily salted. When people think salty beef now, they think of Ireland, and Saint Patrick makes them think of Ireland too.”

“I see now! Well, that tangential association is all the reason I need to temporarily reassign what will and will not separate immortal souls from their loving Creator in damnation for all time. The pilgrims imported salty beef 1300 years after a saint died? Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Father, what’s heaven like?”

“My son, heaven is a gigantic law office, full of angels writing and rewriting rule after rule for all eternity.”

I don’t know why my forehead doesn’t just have a permanent bruise on it.