Vice Squad!

Miami Vice: Stubble-faced detective Crockett and his partner Tubbs. Together they took on the Florida drug world. The show influenced men's fashions toward Italo-casual and interior decor toward the Memphis look.

Ah the eighties...A time when it was cool to be capitalist, when ladies wore shoulder pads, Tubular Bells played everywhere and a female Prime Minister smashed the unions with an iron fist, deregulated the banking sector, destroyed our manufacturing base, privatised every public utility in sight and handed them over to companies motivated only by profit and the pockets of their shareholders, while heroically and determinedly moulding Britain into a beacon of the Global free-market economy. Oh hang on...

Tomorrow is officially the start of Lent. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of 40 days of abstinence and is a penitential season set aside by the Church in order for the Faithful to live more in conformity with Christ and to grow in His love ending with the Easter Triduum of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. For our models we look to the lives of the Saints and of course, Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice, who defeated vice wherever they found it.

I have composed a list of vices which, with the help of God's Grace, I should endeavour to overcome over the Lenten period. Here they are: 1. Pride, 2. Avarice, 3. Lust, 4. Greed, 5. Envy, 6. Anger, 7. Sloth. How very daunting! The very idea of even overcoming two of them seems like climbing Mt Everest...with a sack of rocks on my back! I mean, I can't even give up picking my nose, so quite how I am going to overcome any of these God alone knows. Sloth?! I can't even get up in the morning! Let's not get onto lust...

However, we are not alone in our battles. The Church offers us a wide range of assistance in our battle against the Devil, the World, the Flesh and the Self. Regular Confession, reception of the Holy Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving are among the top recommendations for pilgrim souls. Fridays we can make the Stations of the Cross, reminding us of the true cost of our redemption and a way of making reparation for our sins.

Ultimately, Lent is not meant to be about giving up chocolate or kebabs (as I somehow managed last time round!). It is about repentance, acknowledging our need for God and expressing through deepening prayer a desire to live in Union with God. It is about turning away from our selves, so often the cause of our greatest pains, and turning towards God and the needs of our neighbour, especially the poor, who become our greatest joy.