Thank you, Father [Michael] Van Sloun, for your [March 1] article on giving up something for Lent.

I am 86 years of age and attended St. Helena’s School in Minneapolis.

The St. Joseph nuns saw to it that we not only “observed” Lent but that we “participated” in it by giving up something dear to us during the Lenten season. We took on the suffering of Christ with a little suffering of our own.

The self-denial experience became a learning experience, preparing us for adulthood. As we matured, we experienced and observed the hard lesson of life — that man’s worst enemy is himself. He self-destructs.

Those of us who practiced self-control by self-denial in our youth seemed better prepared not to succumb to the temptations that attack our lives as adults.

Conrad Carr
Minneapolis

Gap between rich, poor not a myth

A recent letter writer (March 1) complained that President Obama is calling attention to the income gap between rich and poor in this country of ours. He seems to think it is a myth, and that the president is being untruthful.

The facts are that many government and private organizations have been taking note of this income disparity for some years now. The president is simply talking about it, and hopefully he will take action to halt the flow of riches to the super-rich that has been taking place for the last 25 years.

This has largely been the result of the Reagan/Bush tax cuts to the very rich, resulting not only in a shrinking middle class, but a huge national debt.

Class warfare, indeed.

The rich have been given all the weapons in this war, including lower taxes, the ability to weaken American industry by outsourcing jobs, the lower taxation rate on unearned versus earned income (a travesty of the worst kind), among others.

The financial gurus are calling this income inequity the worst since the Gilded Age of the 1890s.

The letter writer needs to get his facts straight.

Carol Larsen
St. Stephen, Anoka