Making the decision to get fit this Fat Tuesday

Before we get started, please read my previous article, here; Praise the LORD! and check out my latest on Locals, How flirting is a sales pitch, and, hey, I've written a book, you can learn about that, here; Elisabeth and the other man (ebook) and here; Elisabeth and the other man (paperback)

So, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to lecture you on what you should and shouldn't put in it, but, as this goes live on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), I thought now would be a good time to talk about physical fitness.
As y'all know, I hurt my foot a few years ago, walking home from a Palm Sunday Mass. But, what you may not know, is, when I was younger, I wanted to be a professional soccer player.
So, imagine to my surprise, when I saw an anonymous prayer request in the vestibule of a church I don't usually attend Mass at over the weekend (I went to confession and Mass).
So, not my favorite type of church architecture, but, the church has a place on the wall where people can put their prayer requests.
One said, “For me to get good grades and to become a professional soccer player”.
And, it was just so sweet and earnest, that I couldn't not write an article about that.
And, it got me thinking, I'm already a vegetarian, so, what am I going to do for Lent? Giving up meat is pointless, I did that 16 years ago.
And never ate meat again, as far as I know.
But, what am I going to do?
So, I've got the “giving something up”, because Lent should cause a permanent change in my life.
I no longer eat meat.
I am not going to judge you if you do, personally, I don't care whether you do or not. Although, search engines assuming all vegetarians are vegan gets on my dang nerves (most aren't).
But, not only should we be concerned with what we put in our body, we should be concerned with how we care for our bodies.
So, for me, since my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to try to maintain it the best I can.
Catholic churches are (usually) beautiful,But Catholic churches are too ornate!
Well, they're beautiful, because they're the dwelling place of God. Now, of course, God dwells everywhere, that's not what I mean.
They're ornate because we give the best to God.
And, I feel, like, if we keep churches beautiful, we need to make sure we're in top shape, too.
Okay, the context of this is actually about prostitution (yeah, I know), but, I want to mention this
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh”. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral persons sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:15-20).
Now, of course, given that I had a fairly recent conversation with a woman about natural family planning (a good one at that)! That would be a good direction for this to go in (yes kids, contraception IS a sin), but, I really want to focus on v. 20.
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”
And, indeed, reflecting God's creation but using your faculties to keep yourself in shape is a way to do that.
Glorify God in your body!

*All verses from ESV Catholic Edition with Deuterocanonical Books, Copyright 2017 by Crossway.