[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Faith Break. Finding God moments in your everyday. Each week on Faith Break, hosts Karen, Luke, and Ann Gallagher bring spiritual refreshment to your Daily Life.
It's March 2nd. On today's episode, Karen and Anne, welcome friend and colleague Don Smith, our diocesan coordinator of sacramental catechesis and family life. Don will share fresh ideas about practicing Lent in the real world today with practical advice for your Lenten journey.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Faith Break. I'm Karen.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: And I'm Ann.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: And we have a very special guest with us today, Dawn Smith from the Diocese of Rochester. Hi, Dawn. Hi.
And Anne and I always have our podcast, and we are friends, ministers, wives, and we are working to bring awareness of God moments in everyday lives. And today, well, we have our special guest, but we're gonna be talking about Ash Wednesday, Lent.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: We are only a few days away from Lent.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Only a few days away from Lent.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: So it's time to get our game plan together and figure out how we're gonna be intentional about having a great Lenten season. Yep. So we should tell everybody how we know Don, though. Cause I'm sitting here thinking. It's kind of funny, because before there was Karen and Ann as partners, first there was Karen and Don, and then there was Ann and Don.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: So we should give them a little bit of the history for people who don't know.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: So when I first got my job at my first ministry job at St. Ann, Father Leone was like, you have to meet this guy, Don Smith.
He's great. He'll be a great mentor. And so I went down the road and I met done.
[00:01:56] Speaker D: Because Father Leonie had been my pastor growing up.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: So there was a connection there. So as soon as we met, we hit it off and became friends and also ministers. And we ended up working together at St. Anne and our lady of Lourdes.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: And then you moved from there to Transfig.
[00:02:15] Speaker D: Yep. When we both left Brighton and came to Pittsford and Menden, and I was.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: Working at another parish and then moved to work with Don at Transfig, where we worked together for, I don't, Nine years.
[00:02:29] Speaker D: Seven, eight years.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: A long time.
We were partners in crime.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: And then Don moved to the diocese with Leslie Barkin, my counterpart.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: I know, it's very weird. Draw the connections between all of our ministry friends.
[00:02:43] Speaker D: It would just be, like, very three dimensional. Venn diagram.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: And now you got Anne and I, and Don is our guest.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: And my husband was actually Don's best man.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: His wedding.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
So fun.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Okay. So Don is Here to talk with us all about Lent. And Don, is a wealth of information about church history and all the nerdy stuff about church.
[00:03:08] Speaker D: And so I'm a theology geek.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So we're actually. During this Lenten season, we're going to be doing a series on the Lenten discipline. So in the coming weeks, we'll have an episode on the disciplines of prayer and fasting and almsgiving. But today, we're just going to kind of take a bird's eye view of Lent, if that's cool. Cool with you. And we're just gonna kind of see.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Where it takes us.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: Where it takes us. See what the basics of Lent have been. So, Don, do you want to share anything about, like, why does the church have. Why do we have Lent?
Why do we do that?
[00:03:41] Speaker D: Why do we do this?
[00:03:42] Speaker C: Why do we say that?
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Because we have Easter.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: That's fair.
[00:03:47] Speaker D: Well, because Easter is important enough that we spend time getting ready for it.
Actually, Advent used to be 40 days as well, because we spent so much time getting ready for Christmas, too. And over this time, that changed.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: But it's so funny, we were just talking to Rob about this Advent because he was saying he wished that Advent was six weeks the same way that Lent is because he wanted more time to enjoy Advent. I was like, I've never thought of it that way. When did that change?
[00:04:17] Speaker B: I mean, obviously, a long, long time ago.
[00:04:19] Speaker D: I think it got standardized at four weeks.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:24] Speaker D: So it was like a local custom, and they used to call it St. Martin's Advent because it went from the feast of St. Martin to Christmas.
But Lent is important enough that they give it 40 days. 40 in the Bible always means long time and completeness.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: 40 years in the desert for these 40 days? Yeah, in the desert.
[00:04:43] Speaker D: 40 years in the desert. 40 days in the desert.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: 40.
[00:04:45] Speaker D: 40 days and nights for the flood.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:04:49] Speaker D: So it's just. It's the complete time to prepare.
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Gotcha.
Yeah. And so I always think of Advent as being more like kind of a cozy time. Like, you think about, like, getting your house ready for Christmas, you think about getting your heart ready for Jesus. But the spirit of Lent is kind of different. Right. And Lent, I think of it more as, like, kind of like spring cleaning of the heart, maybe. Kind of like opening up the windows, letting the fresh air in. And there's just a different kind of spiritual vibe to Lent. I mean, traditionally, it's more penitential than Advent is, but I think there's lots of ways that we can think about, you know, what the Spiritual meaning of Lent is for us in our lives.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It's really hard, I think, for people to let go of things.
And so I recognize Lunt as a time of, like, mercy, giving myself the mercy and grace to let things go and not hold onto it.
But what are some of your thoughts on the purpose of your Lent?
[00:06:01] Speaker D: Of my Lent, personally, or, like, how.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: You think of it?
[00:06:07] Speaker D: I'm the coordinator of Sacramento Catechesis, so obviously I go sacraments because Easter is the baptism time. A lot of what we do really, is preparing us for that life in baptism. So I struggled with Lent for a long time. It was actually one Lent. I remember you when you did your 40 days or 40 bags.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: 40 bags in 40 days. I was gonna talk about that today. Yeah. Yes.
[00:06:36] Speaker D: But that year, because you challenged me to stop looking at Lent completely penitential and look at it as a spring cleaning. And it made me. And that was the same time that somebody made a comment about, it takes 27 days of work of a habit. Oh, to form a habit, to become a normal action.
And that's why we. Whatever we give up for Lent or we do for Lent or whatever practice we take on has the potential to last well past Easter.
I realized that it was time to stop looking at Lent as just for Easter, but for a life in Easter.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: So less of, like, I'm going to do this temporary. I'm going to do this habit or give this thing up temporarily for these 40 days. And more like, I'm going to use this as a reset to kind of, you know, reboot and recalibrate and, you know, put myself on a different path.
[00:07:32] Speaker D: Than maybe one of the parishioners one time at St. Thomas More used to always give up popcorn and beer for.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: When I remember you talking about this.
[00:07:41] Speaker D: Like, that was his thing. He gave up popcorn and beer. And every year when he would leave the Easter vigil, he'd go, I'm gonna go home and pop my popcorn and have my beer.
For him, it was a postponement. It wasn't a change.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: Which doesn't mean it's bad. Like, that's not a bad.
[00:07:59] Speaker D: It's a good discipline.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Right, Right. But there could be more. Yeah, there could be more.
What are some of the things you guys have done for lend in years past that have been, did you want to do successful or unsuccessful first? What should we.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Let's start with successful.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Because I think everything else I have tried has been unsuccessful.
But, yeah, like, going back to the notion of, like, oh, I'm just gonna Give it up for 40 days.
I did. Turning off the radio in the car on my way to and from work.
And that was awesome. Like, it. It was. I noticed my commute, and I noticed the things around me.
Do you ever get in your mind and all of a sudden you're like. At your location, you're like, how did I get you? How did I get there? Yeah. I did not have any of that because there wasn't any other sort of distraction.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: You were present.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: I was present and focused, so that was a good one. And Don and I. I don't know. Do you still play Candy Crush?
[00:09:07] Speaker D: I don't.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Okay. I don't either.
[00:09:09] Speaker C: Me neither. We've all quit Candy Crush. So.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: We've all quit Candy Crush. But that was actually. Leslie suggested that I give up Candy Crush. Cause it was such an addiction. Because two of my other guitar coworkers played it. And so we were constantly like, oh, I just beat you. Oh, I just beat you. And it was like this whole competition thing, but I ended up deleting it after Easter, and I didn't even start back up. And I don't even miss it. So, yeah, I think those were, like, my two, like, really successful.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah. The year we did the 40 bags in 40 days challenge was, I think, one of our best lengths. For me, I think I generally do better with adding prayer than with necessarily giving things up, depending on what the thing is. But the 40 bags in 40 days, what that is, is what it sounds like. You take 40 bags of things out of your house in 40 days. So it doesn't have to be one bag a day. And it could be trash, it could be donations or, you know, give away, whatever. But the idea is that it's.
It's, like, very. It felt very sacramental to me because it was a physical act. And you could actually see, like, the results in our house. So the year that we did that, it was way back. It was. We were in our old house, which was our tiny little house. Remember when we painted?
[00:10:36] Speaker D: We painted the whole thing.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Helped me paint my entire house. Our first house when we moved in. Um. And, yeah, we had friends come and paint every room. And Don was there every day for a week, and.
But then we had the kids. They had all the stuff that comes with the kids. And we knew we were gonna be moving. Like, we're within the next year or two. You know, we're kind of getting ready to make that change. And I was like, we just gotta. We gotta clean out. You know? And it was like, it Was really good. We all got into it. Even the little ones, you know, could help with that. And I really like that. So I'm thinking maybe this. I said this last year and then didn't do it. But I think this is the year we go back and we do the 40 bags in 40 days again. Because that must have been like, eight years ago or more, because we've been in our house, like, eight years, and now the kids are teenagers, and we still have tons of stuff that they've accumulated and we don't need anymore. But it's just like, you feel so light when you're.
When you get rid of things like that. You know, it's just. You feel so light, and you can. I don't know. It was very gratifying to, like, see the results of the change in our physical space.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker D: I remember one year I gave up being late.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: I remember that.
[00:11:54] Speaker D: And so I remember that I made a conscious effort to be at least on time, if not five minutes early every day. Every. And Meg Kastner looked at me and said, but you're not late.
And I went, what are you talking about? I come in half an hour after the start of the workday every day.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Well, that was your start time.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: You stayed later, too. I mean, come on.
[00:12:19] Speaker D: But I started getting in on time, and I was amazed that I felt less guilt at, like, oh, I'm short, changing, and. But. And it became a habit. And I. Other than today, when I was right in. As we were.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: You were right on time today.
[00:12:41] Speaker D: I still tend to be fairly good at that. So that one was a success.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: One year, kind of. I feel like it was kind of early in our marriage. Brian challenged me. Do you remember this? The year he challenged me not to roll my eyes at him?
He said. He told me that it was a sign of disdain.
Hurt his feelings when I rolled my eyes at him, which, honestly, I didn't even realize I was doing all that much. But then when I tried to stop, I was like, oh, boy, that's really hard.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: So what was the penalty if he caught you rolling your eyes at him?
[00:13:16] Speaker C: I don't think we even did that. It was something I worked on and we. But I did. I gave up rolling my eyes at him, and now I don't think I ever rolled my eyes at him.
But that was a hard one.
[00:13:26] Speaker D: Well, and it's interesting when you give up things like that that really make you look in and say, wow, I really do that.
Didn't even realize.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah. You know those memes where it's like your face says it all without you actually saying anything.
[00:13:43] Speaker D: Using my outside voice.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a feeling that that.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: Would be very difficult for me.
Your mouth isn't moving, but your face.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Is saying, my face gets a whole story every single time. So that would. I think that. Oh, there you go. Okay, I'm gonna try that.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: That was rough.
[00:14:00] Speaker D: And with Brian giving you an idea for you to do, there's one of the priests that I follow on social media has a Jewish friend who gives him his thing to give up.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: I've heard that. And yeah, that's cool.
[00:14:18] Speaker D: He's like, it's from the Jewish tradition of trying to make myself better. So he's the one that. And when a friend tells me what I need to work on, it's more truthful than me going, oh, I don't want to be late.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yep. Or just giving up chocolate. And then Easter Sunday, drinking all the beer and popcorn and chocolate. Yeah.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: So have you had some that didn't go well? Some Lents that maybe you set yourself up for failure instead of success?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: You know, we talked about the beginning of the year and New Year's resolutions. I am not good.
So there have been plenty of times and I can't pinpoint one, but I think the whole. I don't like the idea of giving up something because it's like, yes, you're fasting from it. Yes, you're trying to like. But again, I think it has that, like, mental capacity of just like, oh, I'm just gonn do it for the 40 days.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: You know, and it's not like. It's not a goal. It's.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: An end result type of thing.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: And it can get real easy to get kind of like letter of the law rather than spirit of the law.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: Like Lenten, you know, disciplines. And like, maybe you set up out on Ash Wednesday and you have like, I'm not gonna have chocolate and I'm not going to have wine, and I'm not going to like. And you set up all these things and then, you know, when you slip up or whatever, it's like, whatever, I'm done with Lent.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: But it's like an all or nothing.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: An all or nothing. Or. Because, you know, we've talked before about how, like, the Sundays in Lent don't go.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: We should probably say that because I don't know if we've said it. Have we said it before?
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Well, like, we should do it again. Why don't we? That's a good point. Let's go Back and say, what?
So what? The official expectations for Lent are fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and then we're encouraged to, you know, be in solidarity with Christ in some sort of Lenten sacrifice. Would you say, what am I missing?
[00:16:26] Speaker D: Absence from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. So really, the church doesn't give us a whole lot of rules, really.
[00:16:36] Speaker D: That's pretty. And it's 40 days, but when you do the math between Ash Wednesday and Easter, you come up with, like, 47, I think.
Oh, if you take out the Lord's Day every week on Sunday, you come up with 40.
[00:16:52] Speaker C: Because every Sunday is a little Easter.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:54] Speaker D: So is Sunday Lent? Or. I mean, priest is wearing purple.
[00:16:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:59] Speaker D: But it's not part of the number.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: So a lot of people take that as their cheat day.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: For whatever they're giving up, totally disregard.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I, like, personally, I try to maintain the Sundays. It becomes harder because then otherwise it's like you're just looking forward to that cheat day and not Easter.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: I've told you guys about the Lent. When I was in college and there was a Starbucks on campus, and I would use my meal. You could use your meal plan to buy, like, Starbucks. So I would get Starbucks, like, a lot. But I gave it up for Lent, except that the Starbucks wasn't open on Sundays. So I decided in my head that Mondays were going to be my Sunday, that Lent, and I could have the Starbucks on Monday. And this is the kind of mental gymnastics I'm talking about that can kind of like, trip people up during Lent. Right. Because it's just. That's not the point.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: It also goes into, like, when we're talking about reconciliation and people are like, well, why do I have to talk to a priest about it? Why can't I just talk to God? And that's exactly why. Because you make these rules or assumptions and you're like, oh, that won't relate to me. Or that really wasn't that bad. But when you face it with another person, then you have. You have.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: You're whole.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: You're held accountable. And then you're like, oh, yeah, maybe Monday wasn't really my Sunday. You know?
[00:18:17] Speaker C: But, I mean, there is a sort of wisdom in that, like, you don't want to get so, like, I don't know, puritanical is not the right word, but, like, so hung up on it that it becomes all about perfection and not about. Yeah, sacrifice of the heart. Right.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: And growth.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's real easy to do.
Do you guys remember lent 2020? I was trying to remember when I was preparing for today. Like, I mean, that whole time is sort of a blur. But I. I do remember having a whole bunch of, like, conversations on social media and over text and stuff about, like, people started off with, like, their normal Lenten ideas or whatever. And then we got hit with the pandemic, and everything shut down, and we're like, well, this is. This is it. This Lent has just been given.
[00:18:58] Speaker D: This is my Lent now.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. I gave up toilet paper. No, I'm joking.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Too much information. No.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: And that. Because there is.
I didn't really. I'm like, okay, we can cut that.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Out if we need to keep it in.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Just trying to be funny.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Sometimes you make plans for Lent, and sometimes Lent gets Just lands on your head and it gets given to you for whatever reason.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: I think a goal would be, like, one thing. Just, like, try to focus on one attainable. Like, you know, when we're talking about it, instead of giving up chocolate or giving up wine or whatever, say, I'll have. If you eat it all the time or you're drinking something like soda. If you drink soda all the time, cutting it out is going, like, going from Tuesday to Tuesday.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: Cold turkey is hard.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Say I'm only gonna have one a day. And then that way, not only is it maintainable, but you're also growing, and it's not.
[00:19:53] Speaker D: Well, it is still a sacrifice. Sacrifice doesn't mean cut it out completely. Sacrifice means sacrifice it. Like, cut back. Make it. Make it a little harder than just, oh, I'm. It's not a big deal for me to leave out a cup of coffee.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:10] Speaker D: So maybe I need to leave out two or five.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: You do not want this podcast with me uncaffeinated.
I don't understand the concept of decaf coffee.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: So. Yeah.
[00:20:25] Speaker D: But I think that that's. It's also a matter of intentionality.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: Like, the worst lengths that I've had were ones that snuck up on me. I was really busy right up until Ash Wednesday, and then I had to come up with something to give up. Well, it's not something that's gonna help me at that point. It's something I'm doing to check it off the list.
[00:20:44] Speaker C: And the whole idea of fasting is only one of the three Lenten disciplines. Right. Even now, that's all we've been talking about this whole time. But really, it's only one of three. Prayer and almsgiving are just as important, but we always focus on.
We can treat it almost like Catholic diet Season. It's like, that's not what the point is. I don't know.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: So, Dan, we're in the Jubilee year.
How does the theme of the Jubilee relate to Lent and Easter and all that? You want to.
[00:21:13] Speaker D: But Jubilee is all about renewal and refreshing. And if there's two words that work for Lent, it would be renewal and refreshing.
So the idea that we spend time to get back to our roots and who we were made to be is a very Lenten theme. But it is the whole idea of Jubilee, too.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we're excited because our theme this year for St. Catherine's and transfiguration is the Jubilee.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Pilgrims of hope.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Pilgrims of hope.
[00:21:48] Speaker D: Oh, nice.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: So we made. You know, we wanted to make sure that tied in. But for those that don't necessarily understand what a Jubilee year is, could you give us a little more info on why the Pope decided.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: This was a year or how that all.
[00:22:04] Speaker D: There's two different types of Jubilees, ordinary and extraordinary. The ordinary jubilees are every 25 years.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:12] Speaker D: So the last one was in 2000, and now it's. It's time. And so it's just an ordinary, ordinary.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: 2000 was only last year, though.
[00:22:23] Speaker D: We weren't even in ministry yet.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: No, I started in Ministry in 20. 20. 20.
[00:22:29] Speaker D: 20 or 2000.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's 2000.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: See, those 20 years just disappeared.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.
[00:22:39] Speaker D: Interrupt, but so it's an ordinary Jubilee. So it's. It does. It wasn't called with a specific purpose other than its time.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:50] Speaker D: So it really is like a Sabbath or a Lent or whatever. Our normal time is to get ready for and to renew.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:03] Speaker D: So in that way, it's ordinary, but in every other way, it's meant to be set aside as different than the normal year. The other type of Jubilee is the extraordinary Jubilee, which Pope Francis called in 2015 for mercy. Yeah, I remember that because he saw a need in our world and wanted to dedicate a year with all of the trappings and things that go with a Jubilee for that purpose.
[00:23:33] Speaker C: And the Jubilee is about. It is kind of like Lent, because it goes back to that passage from Luke 4. Right. Does this one also go back to when Jesus came and declared his mission?
I remember 25 years ago, that being like, of the.
[00:23:48] Speaker D: One of the big ones.
It actually goes all the way back to. I think it's Isaiah, one of the prophets, about taking time and laying your fields fallow. And there were laws prescribed in the Jewish tradition forgiving of debt.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Was a big thing, too. Right.
[00:24:03] Speaker D: Freeing the slaves, all of those things that.
Yeah. They're legal. Are they what we should be doing.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: This is a great time to have this jubilee.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: Yeah. So do you want to share anything about some of the things the Pope or even our diocese is planning to help celebrate the Jubilee year?
[00:24:26] Speaker D: Well, one of the big hallmarks of jubilees are pilgrimage. The idea that we take a journey that reflects our inner journey towards God. And traditionally, that was you go to Rome and you visit the seven churches that were set aside in Rome for this purpose for the four major basilicas and then three other churches, and you walk through the holy doors and you go to Mass. You get reconciliation, you pray for the Pope, and you get a special indulgence. Great.
Pope Francis realized in 2015 that the vast majority of the world can't get to Rome, nor do they really want.
Nor do they really want everybody in the world descending on one city in one year.
And so he said it. A Jubilee is not meant to be for the wealthy. It's meant to be for everyone.
And so he said that every cathedral, and he's continued it this year, it can be a pilgrimage site. So we can get all of the jubilee experience that you would get from going to Rome by going to our own cathedral. He expanded it this year and said a diocese could set up other shrines or holy sites and automatically included any minor basilicas. Now, the Diocese of Rochester doesn't have any shrines that really fit it, but if you go to Buffalo or Syracuse, on either side of us, there are multiple.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Okay. Sites.
[00:26:08] Speaker D: Sites, but there are multiple basilicas. So Right. In Syracuse, in Buffalo, down in Olean.
[00:26:16] Speaker C: Just saying.
[00:26:19] Speaker D: And then I think there are a couple shrines, too. I know Albany has some.
If you go to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, that's been set aside as one.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Okay, cool.
[00:26:32] Speaker D: But the thing I like about pilgrimage is that even if you can't go to the cathedral or make a long trip, pilgrimage is really meant to be something that isn't supposed to be big and overly so.
You can do a Stations of the Cross.
It's a movement that reflects an inner movement.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Oh, I see.
[00:26:58] Speaker D: You could pray a labyrinth. It's a movement that reflects an inner movement. There's a lot of physical prayer that we do that could match it.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: Cool. I like the labyrinth idea.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: I know. We have a labyrinth.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Yeah. We should dust that thing off this year sometime.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: And does the tarp. The tarp, yeah. Awesome.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: All right, well, what are you guys. I know it's maybe you haven't made all your decisions about Lent this year, but do you guys have anything you're thinking about committing to for this Lenten season coming up?
[00:27:36] Speaker D: Well, I think I'm inspired by Brian. I'm gonna ask Kristin to pick for me.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: You're gonna ask Kristen to pick for you? Okay. That's different than telling her to start.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: From what I was gonna say.
[00:27:47] Speaker D: No, I'm gonna ask Kristin to pick something for me to take on.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: That's a good idea. Yeah. I really want to get into the rice bowl this year with the family. And in addition to that, they have the Friday meatless meal recipes.
[00:28:04] Speaker C: Those are cool.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: So I really want to focus on actually purchasing those ingredients, reading the stories with the family.
Fortunately, my family, we eat at the dinner table almost every night, so that. That will be nice addition. Having that conversation based around the meal that we're eating and doing that, I think is really. It's gonna be fun.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm gonna do the 40 bags thing like I shared before, but I'm also thinking, you know, I'm not on social media a ton, but I think I might just do a social media, like, complete fast for Lent this year, because I just don't think it's adding anything to my life right now, and it's actually a source of stress. Life right now.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: And does that mean Don and I can't send you memes?
[00:28:54] Speaker C: Oh, you guys can text.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: That's not the same thing as social media.
[00:28:57] Speaker D: That's where I get all of them.
[00:28:59] Speaker C: Well, yeah. Then you'll just send me the good ones.
Yeah. I don't know if, like, I just think Facebook's become total garbage.
[00:29:08] Speaker D: Well, it's become a time sink. And so the time that I spend on Facebook, I could be spending bettering my relationship with God. And that's a worthy Lenten thing, actually.
[00:29:19] Speaker C: Even, like, the news, my news consumption, I wouldn't not read the news or listen to the news, but I would. I think limiting it to, like, once a day or something might be a healthy thing for me to fast from this Lent.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
Do you want to get into. We have three scripture passages. Did you want to get into those or.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Are we good?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Well, so we were just. These are kind of. They're from the Ash Wednesday readings, which are the same every year, so.
But we have Joel 2. Well, this isn't the whole thing, but one of the quotes from the first reading on Ash Wednesday talks about rending your heart, not your garments.
So, you know, having your Lent be whatever it is. Be about what's happening internally to give us internal freedom. Right. Not just things we can brag about or tell all our friends we're doing for Lent and seem like, you know, spiritual muscle builders or something like that. I don't know.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: In Matthew. It's Matthew, chapter six, it says, you, Father, who sees what is hidden will repay you. And it was interesting because Anne and I had. We had done search retreat, and I was a small group leader, which I was so excited to be. But one of the things we had talked about in our group was, like, when we talk to God about our day, sometimes we don't talk about the shameful things. And one of the participants was like, which I don't understand why I gloss over that, because God knows who I am. Anyway, God saw it, and I was like, wow, that is so true. So, you know, God will repay us whatever, you know, and will always love us. And I just love that he sees you and what is hidden, even if we don't know it yet, too.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Right?
[00:31:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So there is value in making commitments, Lenten commitments, and pursuing the Lenten disciplines because they can be, you know, they're embodied expressions of our faith.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:30] Speaker C: But it's all about what God is seeing internally.
And so, I mean, I think it's okay for this Lent to be a quieter Lent, too, if that's where you're feeling called or if you just need to make some space for silence in your life. That is a very worthwhile thing to be thinking about in our very noisy world. And, yeah. So I would just encourage everybody to really, when you're thinking about what you want your Lent to be, like, not to go overboard and think you have to do it all, but to pick one thing, whether it's adding something or, you know, letting go of something that you think is gonna touch your heart, that's gonna really make that internal opening space for God to come in and move. Yep.
So, you know what we didn't do today?
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: We didn't do our God moments.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: We didn't do our God moment.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: We do our God moment. Don's our best listener. Don's our best listener, so he knows what's going on.
What's your God moment this week, Don?
[00:32:33] Speaker D: This past week or whenever.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: Whatever.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Whenever.
[00:32:36] Speaker D: I got to spend hour and a half each way with a close friend driving to another friend's house yesterday. And we do it monthly every couple months. But I realized just how much we haven't done it since, like, October.
And I realized how much I'VE missed just sitting in the car, driving with Mike, and we talk other times, but there's something about physically being present, and it was just.
[00:33:13] Speaker C: That's cool.
[00:33:14] Speaker D: It was really good.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: Well, we might have the same one, because we both have just come off of the Search retreat.
Yeah. So I got to spend the weekend with a bunch of our teenagers from church, and to get. Just to get away and just to watch them. You know, I don't take a small group because it's important for somebody to be, like, kind of the lifeguard in case anything comes up. So I always kind of. When their kids are in their small groups, kind of just kind of hover around and. But I can, like, listen to some of the conversations that are happening. And, man, the Holy Spirit was moving, and I could just hear from the things the teens were sharing that God was busy. And I love seeing teens Faith come to life for that. Cause you know, it's gonna be bearing fruit for years to come. Yeah.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Mine is also from Search, but it was one particular moment Father Rob came. He was so great, said maths for us on Friday night. And it was so out of all the teens, only two, I believe, had gone to Search before.
[00:34:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:25] Speaker D: Oh, wow.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: So there were a lot of new kids and a lot of younger aged kids, but Father Rob invited us up around the altar with him, and it was just like. Just looking around and how intent everyone was on the words they were saying. Receiving of Communion.
It wasn't like a monotonous, stand up, sit down, stand up, you know, say this, do this. It was just. We were all just so present.
[00:35:00] Speaker C: They really dialed in to the moment. And a lot of them, at the end of the retreat, when we asked them to share what their grace was, said that Mass was there. Yeah.
[00:35:07] Speaker D: Wow. That's awesome.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And a lot of them are like, we've never celebrated Mass without a lot of people, so. And I'm. I go to daily Mass, so a small crowd is. I like the intimate, but it. But just watching. You're right. Just watching them and hearing the wiseness of high schoolers.
[00:35:28] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: Oh, for sure.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Like, that was. I'm like, dude, how old are you?
[00:35:32] Speaker C: And how they can be there for each other.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:35] Speaker C: It was a witness to all of us. For real.
[00:35:38] Speaker D: Very much.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: So.
[00:35:39] Speaker C: Well, Don, do you want anything else you want to talk about before we end?
[00:35:45] Speaker D: Your comment about the coming up around the altar and just being present to what they were saying reminds me of a challenge that I was given one Lent, which was to stop looking down during the Our Father and to look around at the people that we pray with, because it's the beginning of the communal act of communion, where it's meant to be community. So who are you praying these words with? And it changed how I approached coming up for communion because suddenly it wasn't me and Jesus, it was the community. So that might be a need. It's an easy one, but it's a powerful one.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: Nice. I like that. Any other suggestions for Lent? Well, in general, I'm just thinking of.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: The Our Father or any prayer that we say at Mass.
I noticed, and I'm not. It's not bad, but I noticed Ann has a different cadence of her prayers during Mass than I do. And it's really interesting because you, like. Do you say it as fast or as slow as the priest, or are you praying it your way? And I love it because I'm always like, what? I hear the words that you're emphasizing.
[00:36:50] Speaker C: I'm a fast talker, definitely.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: But it is. It's like just the awareness that there are others with you.
And I challenge everybody. We talk about this quite a bit, but I challenge you after Communion not to get into your own zone, but to watch other people receiving.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: It's powerful.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: It is so powerful.
[00:37:14] Speaker D: Each of them is becoming a tabernacle.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah. That is, like, one of my favorite moments.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Okay, well, we'll have a lot more tips about prayer and fasting and almsgiving in coming weeks, but we wanna say thanks, dawn, for coming on.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Oh, thanks for having me.
[00:37:32] Speaker D: This was fun.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: You can come back anytime. I know. I feel like.
So the joke is that Karen and I are extroverts, and dawn is our introvert friend. So, like, doing a podcast with Don, I almost feel like maybe we should just sit here for a few minutes and then see if you come up with anything else you want to say.
Remember that shirt you had that was, like, a battery?
[00:37:55] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: Introverting.
[00:37:56] Speaker D: Introverting. And it, like, was empty. Yeah. Empty battery.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: Just need some time to, like.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: You're going to really enjoy your ride back to the diocese.
[00:38:06] Speaker D: I might take a page out of your book and just turn off the radio.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: Anyway, well, thanks for being here.
[00:38:12] Speaker D: Thanks for having me.
[00:38:13] Speaker C: All right, everyone. We hope you have a good Ash Wednesday. Hey, come to the soup supper on Wednesday.
It's so fun.
And we'll see you next week.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Thanks for taking a faith break with us today.
Karen, Luke and Anne Gallagher are lay ministers with the parishes of St. Catherine of Siena, in Menden, New York, and Church of the Transfiguration in Pittsford, New York. More about our parishes, including weekly live streamed Sunday Mass, can be
[email protected] or transfigurationpittsford.org thank you to our special guest today, Don Smith. Engineering today is by Jeff Beckett. Join us for new episodes of Faith Break each week in Studio on YouTube or on your favorite audio podcast or music app, SA.
