Latest / INSPIRE STORY / Episode 11_ How do I know what to give up for Lent

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Episode 11_ How do I know what to give up for Lent · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Spot podcast. Today is
• 0:16
  currently before LYNT. However, when you're listening to this, because
• 0:20
  time is weird, it will be after LINT has started.
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  And so we're going to be discussing today about Linton practices,
• 0:26
  what LINT is, what it means to us, and you know,
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  how to go about going through LINT and failing at
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  Linton things and then coming back from that. So to
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  start us.
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  Speaker 2: Off, when of you had a question, it was not me, Okay,
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  so here's my question for you too.
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  Speaker 3: Let's say I walk up off the street and I'm
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  a random guy and I'm like, what are you doing
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  this Wednesday? And You're like, well, I'm going to church
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  and I'm gonna get ashes put on my head and
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  then I'm gonna spend forty days not doing stuff I
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  normally will do, and then I'm gonna celebrate Easter And
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  I say, what is that? And then why do you
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  do that?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So this is a hypothetical scenario where someone's like, hey,
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  what is lynth.
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  Speaker 3: For me, basic guy off the street? This is not hypothetical.
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  What is n I don't know?
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  Speaker 1: Okay?
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  Speaker 3: Are you the guy? We're in a post Christian age. Yeah,
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  are you the off the street?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: You're him?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, you have no idea what lin is?
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  Speaker 3: It's an academic laundry or pick it out of my
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  belly buttons.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's spelled as an em I Michael, you want
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  to answer lee end?
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  Speaker 3: No, no, yeah, I get it. Okay, let's just answer
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  the question.
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  Speaker 1: Oh the chaos?
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  Speaker 3: All right? So basically, what why do you Why do
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  you do lent? Why do you actually do it? Even
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  are you do? You just do it because you're Catholic?
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  What is the point of it? How long have you
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  done it and it's been your decision? What do you
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  really what's the purpose? What do you get?
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  Speaker 1: That's like six questions. But I'll go with this man
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  with this man in the street scenario. So I presume
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  that a man in the street that doesn't know much
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  about lent would not be an expert in Catholicism or whatnot,
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  And so what I would I would I would basically
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  just say that Easter is the biggest feast day of
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  the Catholic here. It is the day where we celebrate
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  the the conquering of death, the day where we celebrate
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  the greatest thing that has ever happened. On earth, and
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  because we celebrate that so much, we prepare ourselves to
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  receive Him on Easter. And we prepare ourselves historically it's
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  forty days. There's traditions and that make it forty days.
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  But we prepare our hearts to receive Christ on Easter.
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  And we do that in a couple of different ways,
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  one of which is recognizing that while we are of
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  no we are in the world, but not of the world.
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  So we restrict some of our worldly pleasures are worldly things,
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  so that we can understand that these things of the
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  world not define us. We also focus on relationships with
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  people and prayer and understanding that there is more to
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  this world than just the physical gifts of this world.
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  And lastly, alms giving, which is to love one another
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  and share one's self with another in a pretty physical way,
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  whether or not it be through giving money to the
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  poor or spending time with the lonely, et cetera, et cetera.
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  And so these forty days are days where we prepare
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  our hearts, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our whole
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  experience to celebrate the greatest gift that has been given
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  to humankind. And you may not understand what Easter is
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  or all of that, but that is what we are doing.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I'm gonna give a little bit you guys
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  are crazy.
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  Speaker 4: I'm going I'm gonna give a little bit less of
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  a theological answer so that I don't scare you off.
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  I'm not gonna go into all that because I I
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  think from a very practical standpoint for me, I like,
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  genuinely I think this will be the first Lent of
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  my entire entire life where I take it as seriously
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  as I actually need to. And it's not even just
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  because I'm approaching Lent differently as much as it's just
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  like I'm approaching my entire life kind of differently. And
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  so what I would say, and you guys can disagree
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  with me on this, I think that Lent. I think
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  the timing of it is to prepare us for Easter,
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  but I think that it's it's meant as kind of
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  an example of the way that we should approach our
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  lives all year round, because I think there's a lot
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  of things like if how do I say this, Like
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  what's the best way to say this? I feel like
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  a lot of people approach Lent like, oh my gosh,
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  it's lent. I have to give up this thing. I
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  can't eat chocolate, I can't so depress whatever it is
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  that you give up, and you're like, I can't do
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  any of these things and it's so annoying, and I'm
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  going in and.
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  Speaker 3: Like it should hurt a little bit, Like it should.
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  Speaker 4: You should definitely kind of feel the effects of it
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  as far as missing out on things that you want
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  to be enjoying. But I feel like for me, it's
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  kind of like just because of kind of the mindset
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  shift that I've had kind of over the last year
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  or whatever, I feel like I'm now at the point
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  where I'm almost like I get to do elet this year,
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  and I don't want to say it'll be easier, but
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  it kind of will be, just because I'm already in
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  the mindset of like I'm trying to work on myself
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  and I'm trying to constantly prepare myself as much as
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  I can.
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  Speaker 3: I feel it that all the time. Third days when I.
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  Speaker 4: Suck at it's so bad that people are like, like,
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  what are you even doing? But that doesn't mean that
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  I'm not working on it. And so I would say
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  that lent is like it's almost like a formalized example
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  of the way that you should prepare yourself for Christ
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  throughout your entire life, and it's crammed into this forty
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  day period to prepare you for the celebration of what
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  is the most important event in human history, Like it's
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  at that time for that reason. But I think that
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  it is just to be an example, and like there's
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  things like if you receive communion only once a year,
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  it's supposed to be during Lent, And if you go
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  to confession only once a year, it's supposed to be
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  during Lent, and there's things like that. Again, because I
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  think that it's all crammed into this preparation for that day,
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  but I think it's an example of how you should
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  prepare yourself throughout your life for the eventual Okay kind of.
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  Speaker 3: So I'll take a break from being Bill off the street, Okay,
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  I Bill. So there were a couple thoughts that I
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  had from what you both of you guys said. One
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  of the biggest things that sticks out to me about
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  Lent is we're preparing to celebrate a feast day, and
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  so feast is the keyword. And this is stuff that
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  I've learned from theology of the body and Christopher West.
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  But before a feast, you fast to enjoy the feast
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  more and so, and then that would play into what
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  you said where it should hurt a little bit. And
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  I've kind of always looked at lent in that same
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  way of, Okay, I have to basically pick my favorite
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  thing and just give that up. But that was pretty miserable.
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  I didn't like it. It was more of last year.
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  I tried to take it very seriously and I was
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  I would say I was kind of a jerk, like
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  I was kind of stuck up and like I was like, oh,
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  I'm giving up this, and I would kind of like
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  poke a people like, oh, I was completely missing the point.
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  And I think the point is very clearly really is
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  supposed to increase charity, not make you a worse person.
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  But something that just struck me when you said it's
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  supposed to hurt a little bit. I think the reason
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  is it's not supposed to hurt just so that it hurts,
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  so you prove that you'll hurt yourself for God. But
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  I think if it hurts, it's a sign that you
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  are learning to point your appetites towards different things. Yeah, yeah,
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  I would say learning pains would be way putting it too.
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  Speaker 1: So the headaches I get when I do my homework something.
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  Speaker 3: Like that, because I think when you're really the to
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  enjoy the feast, which is celebrating the biggest event that
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  happened in history, which basically is the reason we're all
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  so excited about Jesus is because now when we die,
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  we don't stay dead. That's sort of the whole pitch,
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  and so we're pretty excited about that. Yeah, and so too.
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  And then a reflection like you were saying, Michael, how
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  everything is a smaller it's kind of on a smaller
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  scale to represent the bigger one is because ultimately, this
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  time on Earth is a fast before the feast, and
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  so if you gorge yourself on worldly things, you never
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  learn to have the appetite, like call back to the
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  Prayer episode, the appetite for things in heaven because you're
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  so satisfied with what's on earth, which ultimately is never
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  really fulfilling. But then Lent is a focused time to say, Okay,
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  now before this feast day, we're going to imitate Jesus
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  in a way. With the forty we could talk you
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  could talk about that later, Nick, you know more about
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  that than I do.
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  Speaker 1: Not that much.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we'll see, we'll see. And so you
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  at least what I think I'm realizing lent is is
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  taking the time to say, okay, where do I direct?
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  Like the bit the cross to me would be not
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  going to this thing to make myself feel better, but
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  to go to this thing to make myself feel better.
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  And this thing's eternal, and so I have to learn
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  how this thing is what I really want, even though
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  my body and my inclinations and my addictions point me
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  towards this thing. And so it's painful just because I
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  have to turn away from that and turn towards something
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  else that holds the promise of this is life after death.
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  That's why you want to learn that this is the
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  biggest thing. And so it's not that I hate these
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  things or they're bad for me. It's just that there's
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  an opportunity where I can learn to turn towards the
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  things that won't go away, and then that's where I
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  can find my life or the things that will never
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  leave me still thirsty or leave me still hungry. And
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  so I've never really thought about that, but those are
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  two of the things that I picked out from what.
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  Speaker 4: You guys, the other thing that you just said about,
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  like how sometimes you'd be kind of a jerk about
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  it to other people and it's like I'm giving up this,
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  and like you're just giving up chocolate or whatever. It's
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  like it's like you're giving up chocolate and I'm like
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  not going to Starbucks anymore. So like, whoever, Like that's
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  not it shouldn't be something that I've talked to my
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  mom about this a couple of times where it's like
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  it shouldn't be something where giving it up makes you
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  a worse version of yourself, and so honestly, like, and again,
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  we'll talk about all of this as we keep going,
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  but like, it doesn't you don't have to just give
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  something up just for the sake of giving something up.
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  Speaker 3: And if.
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  Speaker 4: Giving up a specific thing isn't actually gonna help you
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  grow in anyway, then like I don't know if there's
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  really any practical benefit to it, if it's gonna just
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  make you miserable and make you a pain to be
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  around for everybody else, because I think the entire purpose
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  it's redirecting your attention, like Fulton was saying, but it's
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  also just again preparation, and the preparation is a process
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  of making yourself better. And so if you're making yourself
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  worse through this process and then it's like you get
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  to the end and you just like go back to
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  exactly as it was before, Like that's probably if it's
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  making you miserable, it's probably exactly what you're gonna do.
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  You're if it's making you miserable and you're just angry
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  about it the whole time, and you get to Easter.
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  Speaker 3: Easter Monday, the.
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  Speaker 4: Day after, you're just gonna start eating the candy again.
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  If you haven't actually grown from it, then that's a.
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  Speaker 3: Really interesting Yeah, that actually plays into the whole idea
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  behind chastity is not abstinence. So when you're parting for marriage,
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  it's like, okay, I can't. Like Christopher West talks a
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  lot about this, is that if you if you're like
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  I'll chain myself to this tree, you chain yourself to
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  that tree, and we won't do anything, we won't touch
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  we're not even gonna risk it. And then on our
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  wedding night, it's like the chains get released. It's like
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  and that's not love. And so he's saying that chastity
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  is is learning that the fast comes before the feast,
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  so you learn to redirect your desires and your appetites
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  to be to be coursed through love. Yeah, and then
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  that that's the same. I lost it. I was gonna say,
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  but that's the same.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I have I have some things to say
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  because you guys have made me think of a couple
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  of different things. One is this idea of you know,
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  Lynch just makes me an annoying person, just frustrating or
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  like a jerk to just say I'm doing this. You know,
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  are you giving up you know hot chilens for I
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  don't think so.
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  Speaker 3: Mine.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, that's not that's not it. I could find
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  it in the Bible where Jesus says, uh, if you fast,
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  did not fast like the hypocrites who clothe themselves and
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  black clothes and walk through the city moaning and groaning,
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  so everyone knows that they are the ones who are
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  giving up things. Rather, when you fast fast in secret,
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  wash your face, present, give yourself a presentable appearance. I
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  sometimes push a little too far in the opposite direction
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  of like, oh no, I can't do that, So I'm
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  not going to let anyone ever know what I'm doing
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  for Linden. I'm not going to let anyone ever know
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  my prayer life. I'm not going to share anything about
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  me because if anyone knows about that, that that's me being prideful.
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  And I've learned that it's a happy middle ground there
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  where like you can talk about what you're you know,
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  giving up for linch of this stuff, but you don't
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  lord it over someone. You don't be like you're not
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  doing good enough in lnts, I'm doing better than you.
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  Well if you if you say that, then you probably
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  have something wrong with your mentality when what you were
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  saying about, you know, and then after you finish lint,
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  you just go back to the candy. That's something that's
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  actually you know, stuck with me. I'm trying to remember
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  where I heard it from. But you know, when you
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  put you on your lint and observances, Yeah, it's not
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  supposed to just end at the end of lint, obviously,
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  like the specific observance is like, yeah, you don't have
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  to follow through that afterwards, but it is supposed to
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  like change your heart in some way and you can
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  carry on with it. So if you you know, spin
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  lint giving up candy or chocolate. Then afterwards you could
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  be like, Okay, I now understand that I don't need
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  chocolate to live, but I appreciate the good of chocolate,
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  so I'll have some chocolate, but I won't gorge myself
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  on chocolate.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so, that's exactly what I was where I
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  lost my train of thought. But the whole idea behind
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  chastity is that you're having your and weird just learn
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  about this at the theology of the body. You're having
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  your entire perception of the world and your heart change
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  to where you don't It's not like I have to
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  stop doing this and I have to do it's all
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  legalistic of no, don't do that, and yes do this,
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  where it's black and white. It's learning to have your
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  entire being transformed so that you don't desire to gorge
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  yourself on chocolate. That's what the whole problem is. And
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  so when you realize, man, I get angry and mad
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  when I don't have this. That is just to say, hey, look,
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  you know there's some work in your heart that needs
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  to go on because there's such an attachment to these things.
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  And so the answer is not just okay, well, I'm
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  just not gonna do it, and I'm gonna force myself
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  to get used to not doing it, because that's just
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  that's a In C. S. Lewis's book Screwtape Letters, one
• 17:37
  of the things that stuck out is the devil was
• 17:39
  thinking and he's like, Oh, we want them to try
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  to make themselves feel peace instead of praying for it.
• 17:45
  We want them to try to make themselves discipline instead
• 17:48
  of praying for it. And that was a trap that
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  I think I would always fall into. It's like I
• 17:52
  have to make myself do this like Lent. I'm sure
• 17:56
  some Catholic slogan somewhere said this, But Lent is not
• 17:59
  a self help program. It's just like a self awareness program,
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  I think. And so one thing I learned is that
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  you can't do lent and you will not get the
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  benefits out of it if you don't have love, Like
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  if you don't have an experience of love, you're going
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  to be doing it for the wrong reasons and you're
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  going to be miserable doing it. And so what's most
• 18:21
  important is a relationship with Jesus where you know that
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  he's real and you know that he's physically present with
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  you all the time, and as you grow in that
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  the reasons for why you want to learn to turn
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  away from certain things is to have a more complete
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  picture of what's really going on and what's real life. Now,
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  I think what's good for like little kids who can't
• 18:43
  really comprehend that. It's like, okay, you got to learn
• 18:45
  to give this up. I think that that can teach
• 18:48
  a sort of elemental discipline of Oh, I can learn
• 18:54
  to control myself and I can learn these things, and
• 18:57
  it's a sort of humility and in training your body
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  in that sense, but it's not for the sake of
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  just training your body, but it's all to support love
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  and that was what I never really grasped until more recently.
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  So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good thing. I like the way you
• 19:18
  said that Linz is not a self help program, which
• 19:21
  is what I think a lot of people view it.
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  As you know, it's like, okay, lint is coming up.
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  I have this vice. I struggle with this thing. I
• 19:29
  want to get better at that thing. So I'm gonna
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  make my observance be not eat food. So thus I
• 19:35
  don't have my gluttony vice. I'm gonna do this, so
• 19:37
  I don't have that, and I'm going to do this,
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  and so I'm going to at the end of LYND
• 19:40
  be a better person, right, which is like to an network,
• 19:42
  that's good. But if you have a vice, don't wait
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  for LINZ fix it. If you have this or that, like,
• 19:51
  don't wait to become a better person, do it now. So,
• 19:54
  like LINT is not a self health program, Like, yeah,
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  do things that make you a better person, but that
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  is not the reason why we're doing LINT. We're not
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  doing LINT to be like so now that I am
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  no longer a slave to those things in the future,
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  We're doing LINT for a different reason. So i'd ask
• 20:09
  a question, why do we fast during LINT? I think
• 20:13
  you are answering some of this, but like, let's focus
• 20:16
  on this questions like why is fasting one of the
• 20:19
  three facets of a time of penance?
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Really quick before we answer that question. I think that's
• 20:25
  like you said a second ago, why are you waiting, Like,
• 20:31
  don't wait until the line to make yourself a better person.
• 20:33
  That's kind of what I was getting at earlier with
• 20:35
  like you should be working on yourself and doing a
• 20:40
  preparation everything during lot, but it should not be restricted
• 20:44
  to what and that's the things you do during lot.
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  Once you do them during line, it should be extended
• 20:51
  to the rest of your life and it should be
• 20:52
  an example of how you I.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Have a question. So when you guys say make yourself
• 20:57
  a better person or fix it? What are yes?
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  Speaker 4: That's probably not the right like terminology to use, I
• 21:03
  get because that makes it sound like the self help program.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just I'm trying to think of.
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  Speaker 4: A better way to say it, because it is more
• 21:09
  it is about, like you're saying, uh, growing in love
• 21:18
  and opening yourself up more, because that is what it is.
• 21:20
  I'm just trying to think, like, I can't think of
• 21:23
  the right phraseology to.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Think of it as in terms of self awareness, I
• 21:29
  think a little bit. Yeah, I think I don't know.
• 21:31
  I don't want to be like yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So the way you were describing this self awareness does
• 21:36
  very like much resonate because the way I'd endswer like, like,
• 21:43
  what is fasting okay, because you can view it in
• 21:46
  the sense of I am gonna not eat as much
• 21:50
  food this slint so that I can lose weight, But
• 21:53
  then you're doing it so you lose weight, not for God,
• 21:58
  and so like, it's good to to do stuff like that,
• 22:01
  and it's like, and link can be a good time
• 22:03
  to do that. But if all of your Linton observances
• 22:06
  are for some worldly good, then you're missing the point.
• 22:10
  Have some like Linton observance that is there just for
• 22:15
  the sole purpose of trusting God in some way. In Genesis,
• 22:21
  when you know, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son
• 22:28
  that God said to Abraham would bring him a multitude
• 22:31
  of nations whose descendants would be as numerous as the
• 22:34
  stars of the sea. That is innocent. Like what Abraham
• 22:42
  was doing there was a fast. He was going to
• 22:46
  kill Isaac as a fast, I mean because God told
• 22:51
  him that, So he was going to do it as
• 22:53
  a fast. And the reasoning wasn't you know, so that
• 22:56
  I'd be a better person or this or that, because
• 22:58
  it's it's not.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I think I see where you're going from. Yeah, that's interesting.
• 23:03
  I've never thought about that.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But rather it's a form of trust because God said
• 23:08
  that God promised to Abraham that he would make a
• 23:14
  multitude of nations out of Isaac, and then God asked
• 23:17
  Abraham to kill Isaac. God can't lie. So Abraham being
• 23:24
  a good and faithful man had to have connected the
• 23:28
  dots and been like, if God is going to make
• 23:30
  a multitude of nations out of Isaac, and if I
• 23:33
  have to kill Isaac, then I trust that God knows
• 23:37
  what he's doing, because he even has the power to
• 23:40
  raise a son from the dead. This is I got
• 23:44
  it from Bibliny, you're from Schmid's. But like fasting is
• 23:50
  not just to be better, it's sometimes to give something
• 23:54
  up to trust that God can do it. You know,
• 24:00
  number of people is like one of the Exodus things
• 24:02
  is you know, cold showers and you could be like, oh,
• 24:05
  cold showers increases you metabolic rade. It's like okay, sure,
• 24:10
  but you don't really think of it that ways. You
• 24:12
  don't think of like I'm doing a cold shower to
• 24:14
  be a better person. It's it's a way to make
• 24:15
  owne discipline. Sure, but like at some extent it's a
• 24:19
  giving up of some good of this world in an
• 24:23
  awareness of yourself so that you know that you're not necessary.
• 24:27
  You don't need the joys of a warm, comfortable shower
• 24:32
  to survive. It's an awareness of that that you don't
• 24:34
  need that. And also to trust God. That's like God
• 24:38
  will provide where the heat of this water will fail.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what. So that's why I've been thinking about
• 24:44
  the whole time you've been talking. So I guess maybe
• 24:47
  the way I would approach it would be if you're
• 24:49
  giving something up, you can give up whatever you want,
• 24:53
  but the way that you should think about it if
• 24:56
  you're giving up is I'm giving this up because I
• 24:59
  try us think God will satisfy the desire that I'm
• 25:03
  trying to fulfill with this thing. Maybe yeah, so and
• 25:09
  then when so when you say, like take the cold
• 25:12
  shower because it increases your metabolo c rate and stuff,
• 25:14
  that also like that could be because like I've said,
• 25:17
  I think I've said that multiple times about the metabolock
• 25:20
  grade and it's like better for your head and your.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Skin or whatever.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: But like I think that's almost like I don't know
• 25:26
  if I want to call it a coping mechanism, but
• 25:28
  it's like you're saying that to yourself because you're like
• 25:30
  I need to make I know, I need to make
• 25:31
  myself do this, and so I need to show myself
• 25:33
  some kind of practical benefit for it so that I
• 25:35
  actually do it. I'm so that's not necessarily the way
• 25:38
  you should approach it. But I do think that if
• 25:42
  you're giving something out because like, why do we enjoy
• 25:44
  hot showers Because we enjoy the comfort. And maybe if
• 25:48
  we're in the shower, it's like peaceful and we're like
• 25:51
  comfortable and.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Us feeling warm, comfortable, like a hug of water.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: And so if we're giving that up, we're saying like,
• 26:01
  because I know, for me genuinely like being in the shower,
• 26:04
  cranking it all the way up, it's like a billion
• 26:07
  degrees and I'm sitting in there and I'm burning up,
• 26:10
  but it's super comfortable and i just sit there and
• 26:12
  I'm just like at peace.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, this is the greatest feeling ever.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And then your skin gets red.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: It does. It's a good feeling.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: So but maybe if you're giving that up instead of
• 26:23
  being like, I'm giving this up just because I enjoy it,
• 26:25
  don't say I'm giving up just because I'm enjoying it
• 26:28
  or I enjoy it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Say I'm giving it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Up because I trust that guy will satisfy on my
• 26:33
  desire for comfort and my desire for peace in some
• 26:36
  other way. So maybe a look at why you enjoy
• 26:38
  the thing so much. If it's showers, or if it's
• 26:40
  like sweets, or if it's like watching YouTube or listening
• 26:44
  to this kind of music, or if it's something completely different.
• 26:49
  But yeah, that was a really good point. And also
• 26:52
  I just want to say, like Abraham literally says, me
• 26:56
  and the boy will both come back to you. Oh
• 26:59
  so it's like anyway, sorry, we can talk about this more.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: But yeah, now okay. So then I guess I guess
• 27:08
  this sort of pops in my head is if we
• 27:16
  if it, Like you said, it's almost an exercise, and
• 27:18
  trust is really what this is. Because you're not giving
• 27:23
  up the shower just because you enjoy it, but you're
• 27:26
  giving up the shower because you enjoy it. And you're
• 27:29
  basically saying, all right, all of these worldly things, these
• 27:33
  will pass, but there are certain things that won't pass.
• 27:38
  And so by by taking the desires and the joys
• 27:44
  of the things that I do have, and by saying
• 27:47
  I will allow these to go away to what to trust?
• 27:54
  To trust that God? Will? I mean, really, what you'd
• 27:58
  be what you'd be saying, which I guess I've never
• 28:01
  thought about, is I am trusting that by doing this
• 28:06
  it will bear fruit in the sense of I will
• 28:09
  come to know you better, so I will get a
• 28:12
  deeper connection with you that actually I'll look back and say,
• 28:15
  I'm glad that I allowed that to pass so that
• 28:20
  I could show I trusted and then that relationship is deeper.
• 28:24
  So it's like, okay, I'm in let's say I'm married, yea,
• 28:29
  and I am playing video games on Saturday nights and
• 28:34
  I have a great relationship with my wife all other
• 28:37
  days a week, but Saturday nights it's from six to
• 28:40
  twelve pm.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Saturdays for the boys.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Right now, Saturdays are for the boys. Now that is
• 28:47
  something that brings me joy. She knows it brings me joy.
• 28:50
  She's not telling me never play video games again. But
• 28:54
  if I would say, okay, you know what, tonight, I'm
• 28:58
  going to put this joy to the side, and I'm
• 29:02
  going to even though I would prefer this right now,
• 29:05
  and it's not like a psychotic prefer it's just I
• 29:07
  would like to do this right now in addition to
• 29:10
  my life. I'm going to see that this ultimately is
• 29:14
  not the big picture. This is a part of the
• 29:17
  big picture. But I will put that to the side
• 29:20
  and say, hey, would you like to spend some time together?
• 29:23
  And then she's seeing Oh, I know that you enjoy that,
• 29:28
  but you're showing me that you want a deeper relationship
• 29:31
  with me, So we will now have a deeper relationship.
• 29:35
  And so I think that's what because I mean, I'm
• 29:39
  sure I've heard it before or some people have said it,
• 29:41
  but it's like, if you don't do these things, you
• 29:44
  will have a deeper relationship with God. And I guess
• 29:47
  that never really clicked. But literally, if I'm willing to
• 29:50
  do this, his promise will be true of him saying
• 29:55
  I am right here, and if you allow that to move,
• 29:59
  not going forever, because I still want you to have it,
• 30:02
  but if you allow it to move, I will move
• 30:04
  in your life. Yeah.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: And the thing you're saying about like it's not gone forever.
• 30:10
  It's almost like the thing with Isaac and Abraham where
• 30:16
  guys asking Abraham to show that he is willing to
• 30:20
  make the sacrifice. Like if you're married and you're playing
• 30:24
  video games on the weekends and it's like just you
• 30:26
  and the boys. Like again, like you're saying, your wife
• 30:29
  doesn't want you to give up video games forever, hopefully
• 30:32
  like that she did whatever, but she wants to know
• 30:37
  that you're willing to give up playing video games for
• 30:40
  the night to spend time with her. She doesn't want
• 30:42
  you to give it up forever. She just wants to
• 30:45
  know that it doesn't take priority over your relationship with her.
• 30:51
  And so if you show her that I'm willing to
• 30:53
  do this for you, maybe next Saturday you just play
• 30:56
  video games again. But she's totally fine with it because
• 30:58
  she knows that if she asks you too, then you'll
• 31:02
  give it up and you won't do it, and you'll
• 31:03
  spend time with her and stuff.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: And also you will know it, and you will know it,
• 31:07
  the love between you two will know it, and I
• 31:09
  think that's really what the point is.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and again, also you said people always say if
• 31:18
  you don't do this thing, it'll grow your relationship with God.
• 31:24
  I think that's just the wrong way to say it,
• 31:28
  just like because it doesn't really describe that feeling.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: And again, this is like it makes it seem like
• 31:32
  if I do this, I won't have a relationship.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is this is also the first time I'm
• 31:38
  like really figuring this whole thing out too. So if
• 31:42
  I can't verbalize this properly, I apologize, But like it
• 31:47
  should be something more like if you are able.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: To how do I say it? How do I say it?
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Instead of saying, if you don't do this thing, you'll
• 32:03
  grow your relationship with God, maybe it should be if
• 32:07
  you show God and yourself that you are if you
• 32:14
  I'm starting trying to make it not a transactional thing.
• 32:17
  It's because it's not transactional. It's relational. It's all about,
• 32:21
  like you need to prove to yourself that this is
• 32:27
  more important than this thing. So it's like, if the
• 32:30
  video games are more important than your relationship with your wife,
• 32:33
  there's a problem, but they might not be. And it's
• 32:36
  like you just enjoy doing this thing, but she might
• 32:38
  not know that she's more important. That you just need
• 32:42
  to show her that you have your priorities straight and
• 32:45
  that you understand the hierarchy of goods there, So I
• 32:50
  don't I'm trying to think of just like a one
• 32:52
  line or just like phrase to like replace that. I
• 32:55
  can't think of like the right way to condense it.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Though, yeah, well we'll think it might come up in
• 33:02
  future discussions. But yeah, what you were saying is like
• 33:04
  this hierarchy of goods. It's actually I think a really
• 33:08
  good thing because something I think I said earlier was like,
• 33:13
  if you know, oh, I have this advice, I'm going
• 33:15
  to give up the thing that lets me indulge in
• 33:17
  this vice. Like, that's not fasting, Like you're not giving
• 33:22
  up a good, You're giving up a bad, which is like,
• 33:26
  that's not something you give up, that's something you throw away.
• 33:30
  So you to fast appropriately, you have to give up
• 33:36
  a good, something that is truly good. And by giving
• 33:41
  up that good, you know, to understand the hierarchy of goods.
• 33:43
  As you guys were talking about it, you're proving to
• 33:46
  yourself and showing to God in some way that you
• 33:53
  understand the true hierarchy of goods. And I think that
• 33:57
  by fasting and giving something up and understanding this true
• 34:01
  hierarchy of goods will actually improve how you view that
• 34:05
  good that you gave up. If you like, for instance,
• 34:09
  you know, if you in in this video game wife example,
• 34:15
  if you're obsessed with the video games too much and
• 34:18
  you're you know, and the Verisary falls on a Saturday,
• 34:22
  and you're like, I'm sorry, it's for the boys. I can't,
• 34:24
  then you have a misunderstanding of the hierarchy of goods.
• 34:29
  But if you have to, if you say to the boys, sorry,
• 34:32
  boways not tonight, tonight's for the wife. Then you understand
• 34:36
  the hierarchy of goods, and coming back to the video game,
• 34:39
  you understand it's like I am not beholden to this
• 34:42
  video game, Like I am not doing this just because
• 34:44
  I have to do it. I'm doing this because I
• 34:45
  want to do this and it brings me joy. It's freedom,
• 34:50
  and so to give something up allows you to understand
• 34:55
  and embrace the freedom of it more when you allow
• 34:59
  yourself to come back to it. To give something up,
• 35:02
  say like the cold shower example we've been using because
• 35:04
  that's a good example of something where it's not necessarily
• 35:07
  a benefit to it, but to give that up at
• 35:11
  the end of it all understanding that like I appreciate
• 35:14
  a warm shower, and now that I know that, like
• 35:17
  I don't need it to survive, but I enjoy it,
• 35:19
  like I choose to take this shower and to be comfortable.
• 35:23
  And it's that freedom where it's like I chose to
• 35:26
  have the warm shower, not like, oh, it's a shower
• 35:28
  times a warm like I have to do that. I
• 35:30
  have to have the warm shower.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And that's how Jesus like I came to free Basically
• 35:34
  from that's everything. Okay, I that No, that's good. So okay,
• 35:39
  tell me what you think about this. And this is
• 35:41
  came to me as you were talking. So I think
• 35:45
  one of the things I wanted to flesh out is
• 35:48
  if we are talking about fasting, is giving something up?
• 35:52
  I wanted to pose this idea that if God is
• 35:55
  a god of addition, not of a god a god
• 35:58
  of taking away in a way that we can frame
• 36:02
  fasting isn't giving something up but adding something more. And
• 36:07
  so you could look at if you are addicted to
• 36:10
  video games, you look at you are you were losing
• 36:14
  something if you don't play video games and you go
• 36:16
  spend dinner with your wife, or you can see it
• 36:18
  as I am gaining I'm adding something more real as
• 36:24
  opposed to losing something that I have that is real.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: That actually brings a good point to my mind. Yeah, no,
• 36:32
  that that's really good because you know a lot of
• 36:37
  people look at at Lenza's you give something up, and
• 36:40
  you know one of the things that people say is like, oh,
• 36:43
  give up social media or give up this, or give
• 36:45
  up that, And you need to understand what giving something
• 36:51
  up actually means. If it's something that is a time sink.
• 36:55
  Giving something up means that you have the time and
• 36:59
  you need to fill that time with something.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Meaningful because it creates a vacuum. Yeah.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: One Like one time I was like, okay, for Lent,
• 37:06
  I will give up anything computer or like electronic related,
• 37:11
  So no watching anything, no playing video games, none of that,
• 37:15
  all of lent. And that was just what I did.
• 37:19
  So I'm like, okay, I'm doing it. And then I
• 37:21
  would find myself just like sitting at my desk, you know,
• 37:25
  after finishing up homework, just like on the computers, Like
• 37:27
  I can't play video games just like click randomly, and
• 37:30
  then I'm just like a blob. But like I love reading,
• 37:34
  so I could have easily just gone downstairs, grabbed a
• 37:36
  book and read it. But because my mind was like
• 37:38
  I am not playing video games and then I want
• 37:41
  to play video games, then I'm not actually recognizing what
• 37:44
  I can actually do.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is that addition, because you know, yeah,
• 37:49
  sure I could subtract away the video games to add
• 37:52
  on something more deep, more meaningful. Now that's for things
• 37:55
  that are at time sync. You know, taking cold shower,
• 37:59
  and I mean you'll probably take a shorter shower, but
• 38:02
  it's not the different like you don't need to fill
• 38:05
  it in with something else sort of deal. But if
• 38:07
  he gives up something big, like watching YouTube, and you
• 38:09
  watch YouTube for like four hours a day, you can't
• 38:12
  just say I'm giving this up and not doing anything.
• 38:14
  You have to say and through this time, I will
• 38:17
  fill it with this, because that's part of the discipline.
• 38:19
  The discipline isn't just I can prove force my way
• 38:22
  through this jungle. The discipline is I have a knife
• 38:25
  at my site. I can cut through the things that
• 38:27
  are in my way. And so it's like.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And so we're saying God's a gout of addition,
• 38:36
  not of subtraction. And then something that I hear people
• 38:41
  say all the time is boredom is the devil's playground.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: So if you're just if.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: There's something that you spend a lot of time doing
• 38:48
  and you just like if it's video games, and you
• 38:51
  just stop doing that thing, but you don't fill that
• 38:54
  time with anything else that's not going to be necessarily
• 38:58
  a good thing. And if you just aren't doing anything
• 39:02
  and you allow yourself to just be like, man, I
• 39:04
  really miss playing video games, that's where like again, like
• 39:08
  we were talking about earlier with at the end of lent,
• 39:10
  are you just going to start doing it again and
• 39:12
  you're just gonna go back to the exact same way.
• 39:15
  So if you don't fill that time with anything, it's
• 39:18
  more productive. First of all, you're not adding anything, and
• 39:20
  so maybe that's not actually opening yourself up to God,
• 39:23
  because if you open yourself up.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: To God and he will always give you more.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Essentially that sounds kind of like a prosperity gospel kind
• 39:30
  of thing, but like not in the physical sense, but
• 39:34
  you know what I mean, just for anybody out there,
• 39:35
  if you're giving something up for lent that takes up
• 39:38
  a lot of your time, if it's video games or whatever,
• 39:42
  just because I can't think of any other examples off
• 39:44
  the top of my.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Head, but.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: Don't just stop doing it and then just like sit
• 39:50
  around and be like, man, I have all this sound
• 39:52
  like cause I've I Once I deleted Instagram, I started
• 39:56
  doing that and I talked to everybody. I'm like, man,
• 39:58
  I don't have Instagram anymore. It's like I can't scroll
• 40:00
  for five hours. I don't even know what to do
• 40:02
  with myself. I have so much extra time, And it's like, yeah,
• 40:05
  you do have that extra time. But this is just
• 40:08
  like for myself, just calling myself out, like I need
• 40:11
  to do something with that time. Like, if you're you're
• 40:14
  being given that extra opportunity to pursue something that will
• 40:17
  improve your relationship with God, you'll be able.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: To grow in love and everything.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Take that opportunity, add something new and that will help
• 40:28
  you to achieve that goal. Don't just like stagnate and
• 40:33
  sit around and wait for a lent to end and
• 40:35
  then go back to exactly the way.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: You were before.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: So I think it's a good transition from We've been
• 40:39
  talking a lot about fasting, and I think at some
• 40:41
  point we should talk about more practical aspects of how
• 40:44
  to go about lint or tips and chicks. But I
• 40:47
  think it's an intermediate because what you were talking about
• 40:49
  made me think of there's three facets to a time
• 40:54
  of penance. Do you guys know what we call them?
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: I might know them, I can't think of them. I
• 41:01
  don't know exactly what you're talking about.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: So the three things that we as Catholics are called
• 41:06
  to do in lint, it's not just fast It's not
• 41:08
  like fasting isn't to the point of lint fasting isn't
• 41:11
  what we're called to do. We are called to three
• 41:13
  things as the prayer exactly. Okay, okay, yeah you do
• 41:18
  know them. So prayer, fasting, and alms giving. These are
• 41:22
  three important aspects of lint. We've talked a lot about
• 41:26
  the fasting sides. We don't really need to go too
• 41:28
  deep into that. But when you're saying it's like you
• 41:30
  have the time, well you're also called to do prayer
• 41:34
  and alms giving. So if you spend five hours watching
• 41:38
  YouTube and you give up YouTube and then you have
• 41:39
  all that time, well, then spend an hour in prayer
• 41:43
  and it's going to be hard. But like addition, prayer
• 41:50
  is not an easy thing. And in some ways adding
• 41:53
  on prayer or some aspect of a relationship with God
• 41:57
  and however you want to add it is just as hard,
• 42:01
  if not harder, than taking away something and fasting, which
• 42:05
  is why we have it as prayer and fasting, and
• 42:08
  then alms giving, which is a difficult one.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you talk a lot about prayer so far
• 42:13
  in these episodes, so like what.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: This is for me too? Like I don't care if
• 42:19
  anybody else gets anything out of this. What would you
• 42:22
  call like, what would.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: You define almsgiving ass because that's something that I've always
• 42:26
  kind of like.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Struggled to really.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Have a grasp on, like as far as because like financially.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: I it's mister Google, how would you define alms giving?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: So alms giving is charity?
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: How would you define the charity of giving money or
• 42:50
  food to poor people?
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's the like the I don't think it's
• 42:55
  just that, that's what I So that's the giving.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Charity to another. Yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So it all is heavily connected to charity. And if
• 43:02
  you look in the Bible on one Corinthians thirteen, which
• 43:05
  we talked about two weeks ago, I think it talks
• 43:09
  about what love is. In some translations it says charity.
• 43:15
  So charity and the Catholic sense understanding, is a synonym
• 43:19
  for love and it is a self giving, which is why, like,
• 43:24
  you know, charity is a giving. You know, Oh, this charity,
• 43:27
  what does they do? Who do they give to? It's
• 43:28
  like that's what a charity is. It's a self giving
• 43:31
  and that's why we view love as a self giving
• 43:34
  and so that's why love and charity are synonyms. And
• 43:37
  so almsgiving is self giving. And yeah, it's the historical
• 43:45
  name comes from, you know, giving alms. I don't know
• 43:48
  who the term alms came from, but like to give
• 43:51
  a little bit of a pittance, you know, on your way.
• 43:54
  But but that's where like it originated, like for the name,
• 43:58
  which is what you know Merriam Webster probably said. But
• 44:02
  like what it actually is is a self giving And
• 44:04
  so if you don't have the money, you are still
• 44:06
  called for almsgiving. And this is the hardest facet of
• 44:09
  lint for a lot of people. For me particularly, I've
• 44:12
  been trying to figure it out, like how I could
• 44:14
  add in almsgiving, because it's not just giving of money,
• 44:17
  it's giving of self. And so a very good thing
• 44:19
  is time. You can give your time, and it could
• 44:24
  be something simple like I give my time to my
• 44:27
  family by joining in on the family dinners, or I
• 44:31
  give time to my family by actually having time and
• 44:33
  talking with them instead of just sitting in my room
• 44:36
  playing video games all day. Oh hey, there's something I
• 44:37
  can do when I give up video games time or
• 44:41
  to give my time or a labor. So if you
• 44:45
  don't have the money to give up money alms, you
• 44:48
  could give up body alms by helping out at the
• 44:52
  food pantry, moving things around for people, helping out an
• 44:55
  old lady cross the street, things like that, where you
• 44:59
  give of self, Like that's what alms giving is, and
• 45:03
  that's charity. And so it's like the three facets prayer, fasting,
• 45:06
  an alms giving prayer is deepening your relationship with God.
• 45:09
  Fasting is understanding and awareness of self, and alms giving
• 45:14
  is the community aspect of we are all in this together.
• 45:18
  And so like the three facets are of lens, are
• 45:23
  you know, the the three facets of life God. And
• 45:28
  the reason we say this in disorder is God comes
• 45:32
  first and you can't help others if you don't understand yourself.
• 45:35
  So it's like God, self and others, even though others
• 45:39
  come before whatever. But it's like those are the three
• 45:41
  aspects because it's our relationship with God. God is the
• 45:44
  ultimate end, and we are who we are and that's
• 45:48
  our the nature, and it is our community with people
• 45:52
  that forms us more fully. And this is I'm trying
• 45:57
  to think of the theology of the body as aspects
• 45:59
  because we talked to stuff like this, but yeah.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: I don't I don't know, I don't remember, I don't
• 46:05
  know what you're talking about that.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: My mind connects thoughts and weird ways.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: So one way that I just thought about it is
• 46:11
  prayer would be communicating with God, fasting would be opening
• 46:15
  up to communication with God, and then alms giving would
• 46:19
  be communicating with God with the with the Christ in
• 46:24
  through level.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Christ, I was almost thinking.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: I was thinking about it in a little bit of
• 46:29
  a different way because I was gonna before you even
• 46:32
  were saying the thing about prayer, fasting, almost giving in
• 46:34
  that order. I was thinking, I was trying to think
• 46:35
  of a way that they could be connected. I would
• 46:40
  say this should be in that order, which is kind
• 46:44
  of the conclusion I came to, but for the reason
• 46:47
  that you were saying, because prayer should be first, because
• 46:53
  like we've talked about forever, that's deepening your relationship with God.
• 46:58
  And if you don't have that kind of context, then
• 47:02
  the fasting won't be anything. Because again, like we've been
• 47:05
  talking about the whole time, it's not giving stuff up
• 47:09
  just to give stuff up. It's giving stuff up in
• 47:12
  the context of this will help me to grow my
• 47:15
  relationship with Christ and to grow in love and all
• 47:18
  these things. And then Aulm's giving last, because you can't
• 47:26
  fully give yourself to others unless you.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Understand what it is that you have to give. That's
• 47:32
  a good way place.
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: That's I mean, that's basically what you said. I kind
• 47:35
  of just paraphrase what you're praising it now.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: I would say something that struck me today in a
• 47:41
  podcast that I was listening to was I think I've
• 47:45
  kind of been in the habit of thinking, what like,
• 47:48
  if you want to be a loving person, you have
• 47:50
  to go and you know, go into yourself, find out
• 47:52
  what your wounds are, bring invite healing into that, all
• 47:56
  of that stuff. But what the guy said, who's Jake
• 48:02
  kim is on a really good podcast. I'll have to
• 48:04
  send it to you guys, restore the glory as a
• 48:06
  fantastic I've heard about that before, very good And what
• 48:11
  he said was, perhaps the thing that you need for
• 48:17
  your next step is actually to go out and be
• 48:20
  loving to somebody. And so of course it's I like
• 48:25
  the hierarchy to of prayer. You know, it kind of
• 48:28
  goes down the list, but you could think about it
• 48:30
  in the sense of also sometimes to wake yourself up
• 48:34
  to the reality is of a relationship with God is
• 48:39
  through serving somebody else. And then experiencing what it is
• 48:43
  to be loving and then you realize, oh, like then
• 48:47
  things wake up in you. And then maybe that's the
• 48:49
  thing that leads to, well, I want to fast, I
• 48:51
  want to I want to spend time doing other things
• 48:55
  that are more directed towards whatever this realer reality is.
• 48:59
  And then that leads to a deeper prayer life, because
• 49:01
  that's at least been the experience I hear from a
• 49:04
  lot of people, is they were really nice, they give
• 49:07
  themselves a lot, but then it leads to a deepening,
• 49:09
  and then it leads to a deepening and that leads
• 49:11
  to an intimate interior life with God. So you know,
• 49:16
  as with everything it goes.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like when we're saying the order of prayer, fasting,
• 49:21
  alms giving me, that's not saying that you know one,
• 49:23
  it's not like but like in real structure, that's why
• 49:26
  in Lynz would call to do all three and not one,
• 49:30
  then the next, then the next. Yeah, it's all into connected.
• 49:34
  And so let's move on into a practical side of things.
• 49:39
  How should I pick what to give up for Lintz?
• 49:44
  And just a quick note because this is going to
• 49:46
  come out after Wednesday. Ash Wednesday, you can add things
• 49:50
  on during Lentz. It's not It's not like, oh I
• 49:54
  missed the beginnings and I can't. No, you gotta wait
• 49:56
  until next I gotta wait until next year because I
• 49:58
  miss It's like, no add it on and also nothing.
• 50:01
  Note if you fail in something you do, it's not
• 50:03
  like ah, I felt, okay, whatever, don't just keep doing it.
• 50:06
  Like you know, failure isn't part of life, and you'll
• 50:12
  fail in something, and so don't let that failure define
• 50:16
  the rest of your lintz. Just be like, Okay, I
• 50:19
  did not like I gave up YouTube, but then I
• 50:21
  watched YouTube today. Well guess what I'm gonna do tomorrow
• 50:26
  not watch YouTube.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: Don't let past failures prevent you from achieving future success.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I like it. Yeah, So how should I pick out
• 50:36
  what to give up or do for lint.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to think about it because I know, for me,
• 50:43
  there's just some things where I'm like, really, I've spent
• 50:46
  a long time kind of working on things. I'm kind
• 50:50
  of like continuing that. So I'm trying to think of
• 50:52
  like what I would even say. I think I would
• 50:57
  like to draw back to the.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Saturday nights for the boys video game situation, because I
• 51:05
  think that brings a good it's a good symbol of
• 51:10
  the bigger picture. And so let's say you're playing the
• 51:15
  video game, what you're experiencing is real. Like let's say,
• 51:21
  just for fun, in the game that you're playing, it
• 51:23
  SIMS and there's a relationship in there. Now, technically, let's
• 51:28
  say there's a relationship. Is the reality. Okay, there's a
• 51:31
  relationship in there, and it is real. You are experiencing
• 51:36
  like there's a relationship in the game that you're playing,
• 51:39
  and you're participating in this game in this community. Let's say,
• 51:44
  so that is real. But then there's a bigger reality.
• 51:48
  There's a more real reality, which is a relationship with
• 51:52
  a human person, and so there's a deeper reality that's
• 51:56
  going on. And so allowing this one to have its
• 52:01
  proper place as still real but not the most real
• 52:06
  thing you have you have in your real life is
• 52:11
  to really allow things to be where they are and
• 52:13
  to be closer to connected to reality. If you're if
• 52:17
  this real experience in the game is inhibiting a relationship
• 52:21
  with the real relationship you have, that is something that
• 52:26
  you should be taking a look at as Okay, how
• 52:29
  can I turn back towards the real relationship where you
• 52:32
  have a human connection which is more fulfilling than the game.
• 52:36
  There's just a cross that comes with it, but it's
• 52:39
  it's always going to be better, I think in the
• 52:42
  same way if you take that out the next step,
• 52:44
  you have a relationship with this person, but there is
• 52:47
  a more real reality going on the whole time, and
• 52:51
  it's your relationship with God. And so this relationship with
• 52:54
  this person is real and it's a joy and it's
• 52:56
  something that's really there. But if that whatever that is,
• 53:00
  whether it's a relationship with warm showers or a relationship
• 53:05
  with candy, or a relationship with I don't know whatever
• 53:09
  reading a book, maybe if you're if that is something
• 53:14
  that really takes away from the depths of reality, which
• 53:18
  is remembering the big picture. Jesus came and died, and
• 53:22
  now we don't have to stay dead. But he is
• 53:26
  the way to not have to stay dead, and that's
• 53:29
  what he's really here for. So he's not saying give
• 53:32
  this stuff up, stuff up to prove that you love me.
• 53:35
  It's realize the truth. So that's what the renewal of
• 53:39
  your mind is, is to have your mind renewed to
• 53:43
  realize that for those who have eyes to see, the
• 53:46
  person that sits across from you has already passed. There
• 53:51
  is a deeper reality that's going on. There's something way
• 53:55
  bigger that gives all of this that we're experiencing now life.
• 53:59
  And so learning to see that is learning, is the
• 54:03
  renewal of your mind, and that's coming into a relationship
• 54:06
  with God. Like you said at the beginning, you're learning
• 54:09
  to see that the things that are unseen are real,
• 54:13
  and so you're allowing the things that you do see
• 54:16
  to serve those things, like you're allowing that to happen.
• 54:20
  And so if the video game which you see and
• 54:23
  you're playing and it's fun, if that is not if
• 54:27
  that is all you see, you're missing the relationship with
• 54:30
  the person. So you have to learn to see the
• 54:32
  relationship with the person and you have to be open
• 54:35
  to it, and that might require you adding on time
• 54:37
  with that person. And then it goes out to the
• 54:42
  deeper reality that there's things that we can't see but
• 54:45
  that are there and we can experience and be in
• 54:48
  relationship with and that takes time, and that's really what
• 54:52
  this all is about. It's just here's a slice of
• 54:55
  time where we're we're going to do this as a community,
• 54:58
  and we're going to do this together, and it's to celebrate,
• 55:00
  it's to prepare ourselves basically, to feel that realization. The
• 55:06
  ache in our heart is that this video game is
• 55:09
  not the most real thing. And when it's gone, I
• 55:12
  can feel I'm hungry for something. And then I realize
• 55:15
  this relationship with this person is here. And then if
• 55:18
  I even go deeper to say, well, this also is passing,
• 55:23
  then I feel this ache of like, oh my gosh,
• 55:25
  I'm there's got to be something. Then you're open to
• 55:30
  that relationship with God, which is the most real thing.
• 55:35
  But prayer is opening up that longing, and so you
• 55:39
  have to allow yourself to feel that, and you want
• 55:42
  to feel that because that's the guiding thing towards love.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: So with this philosophy, what should I give up for?
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: Lynz ok? So, I'm not going to say give something up.
• 55:58
  I'm trying to.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Let should never say what are you giving up for? Lint.
• 56:04
  Don't ask someone what you're giving up lint, ask someone
• 56:06
  what you're doing.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: What you're doing.
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm gonna try and like condense that all down,
• 56:11
  like what I understood as so, and as a form
• 56:16
  of practical advice. Maybe so, And you can tell me
• 56:20
  to think about it. Maybe look at the things that
• 56:25
  you enjoy the most in life. Ask yourself what it
• 56:31
  is you enjoy about that the most, and then consider
• 56:38
  reflect on medit, haate on whatever what you can do
• 56:41
  in relation to that thing to direct your desire in
• 56:47
  the right direction. So if you like with the video game,
• 56:52
  if you're playing kid, it's gracious.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: If you're playing the video game.
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: Because you enjoy the relationship that you have with your friends,
• 57:00
  you can see that. But then you can see that
• 57:02
  that's pointing you towards your relationship with your wife. And
• 57:05
  then you can see that and you can see that
• 57:08
  that's pointing you towards your relationship with God. And so
• 57:10
  you can look at any one thing and you can
• 57:12
  see what directions.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: Like if you look.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: Close enough and you really think about it, you can
• 57:18
  figure out what desire is that that's fulfilling. So I
• 57:23
  guess maybe and maybe it's not giving something up, Maybe
• 57:27
  it's just approaching it differently, or like something that I
• 57:31
  was thinking about is like we were talking about before
• 57:35
  we started with music, Like I love making music, but
• 57:39
  maybe instead of just doing whatever kind of music, and
• 57:43
  I can keep on doing music that's not like explicitly
• 57:46
  Christian whatever, but maybe the desire that I have for
• 57:50
  whatever I get out of music, maybe what I can
• 57:53
  do with that Instead of just being like I'm not
• 57:54
  gonna make music anymore, I could be like, Okay, maybe
• 57:57
  I make a song that's pointing me and hopefully other
• 58:02
  people towards God instead, And maybe I'm directing that in
• 58:06
  a different direction. And so yeah, I don't I wouldn't
• 58:11
  say what are you giving up? I would say what
• 58:14
  are you doing? And to figure out what you should do?
• 58:17
  Maybe that's adding it's always adding something, but maybe that's
• 58:22
  giving something up. Maybe that's just pointing something in a
• 58:24
  different direction. But it's super subjective. It's hard to like
• 58:29
  give a concrete answer. But I think it's all about
• 58:32
  making sure that your desires are pointed in the re direction.
• 58:36
  And so look at what's satisfying your desires, and maybe
• 58:39
  you don't need to change anything about it. Maybe, I mean,
• 58:41
  obviously there's always room for growth, but maybe there's something
• 58:45
  you don't need to really change. Yeah, so just look
• 58:48
  at everything that's satisfying you're satisfying your desires right now
• 58:53
  and try and orient it a little bit more in
• 58:57
  the right direction.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And if you find something that you're like, you know,
• 59:00
  I really don't need to change this. You don't need
• 59:03
  to that's fine, just something else.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the reason I and I think I
• 59:12
  am more hesitant on being like, well, you should do this,
• 59:16
  or you should do this, or you should do this.
• 59:18
  I though, really the main thing I'm trying to at
• 59:21
  least do for myself or for you guys or whoever's listening,
• 59:26
  is to try to assist in gaining the right mindset,
• 59:33
  because really it comes down to this is your relationship
• 59:37
  with God and it's your life. And so if all
• 59:41
  I can do is give you a better grasp of
• 59:44
  where to start with your own discernment or really how
• 59:49
  to view what's going on, then it's really lent is
• 59:54
  like Okay, now go for it, like try to figure out,
• 1:00:00
  try to ask, or just start searching or reading the
• 1:00:03
  Bible or listening to podcasts from people that are good,
• 1:00:07
  or spending time in prayer or doing little things that
• 1:00:12
  your heart is called to, Like if you open up
• 1:00:14
  and you ask and you realize sort of what the
• 1:00:17
  bigger picture is then your journey is really figuring out
• 1:00:23
  what you can do, like what you want to do,
• 1:00:27
  really what you I guess not should do, but it's
• 1:00:35
  what your heart needs the most. Like what lent is
• 1:00:40
  not just here's the thing to do. It's like there's
• 1:00:47
  a relationship with God waiting for you. Here's an opportunity
• 1:00:51
  to grow in that, and here's a way to do that.
• 1:00:56
  Because when we feast, I feel like we also don't
• 1:00:58
  have any guidelines for how feast. So it's like we
• 1:01:02
  all are worried, like thinking, well, what should I do
• 1:01:04
  for Lent? But then feasting it's like, oh, well, we
• 1:01:06
  all know how to feast, what.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Should do on Sunday to feast right enjoy exactly?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Because if we're in the church that goes up, you
• 1:01:12
  know it's against feast, fast feast, fast, feast, then we
• 1:01:15
  should have a guideline for both how you properly feast
• 1:01:19
  and how you properly fast. And so it's not like here,
• 1:01:22
  go do this thing and then you're going to enjoy
• 1:01:23
  the fast or the feast. It's like there's an entire
• 1:01:26
  thing going on all the time we're in this timeframe.
• 1:01:30
  What is really going on? And then your heart will
• 1:01:32
  sort of be able to listen to the promptings of
• 1:01:36
  the spirit to show you what where it is that
• 1:01:39
  you can turn more so to God all the time.
• 1:01:43
  And then really you've made it in a sense when
• 1:01:47
  you have a dark night of the soul, like there
• 1:01:48
  are certain saints and it's they describe it as they
• 1:01:52
  have they're completely dark, like there's it's because their desires
• 1:01:56
  the world around them there, they don't desire it anymore,
• 1:02:00
  like it's been a pure, purified process. But it's not
• 1:02:03
  because they're giving up everything they can just to get
• 1:02:06
  to God. It's that they're trying to get to God,
• 1:02:09
  and in doing that they realize the things that they
• 1:02:11
  desire are not God like the things were the desires
• 1:02:16
  were born with. But they're all pointing us there and
• 1:02:18
  directing us there, and ultimately that union with Him on
• 1:02:21
  earth is dark because it's like you don't need to
• 1:02:25
  see all of this stuff. You don't need to have
• 1:02:28
  the warm shower, you don't need it, you don't you
• 1:02:31
  literally don't desire it anymore because you're so freed from
• 1:02:34
  it that you just have a relationship with God. And
• 1:02:37
  that's complicated, and I don't know how it's possible, but
• 1:02:42
  that is truth, and that would make sense. And so
• 1:02:46
  I think I'm trying to more just give an understanding
• 1:02:50
  or at least what my understanding is now of sort
• 1:02:54
  of where to start. But then really, if you're not
• 1:02:58
  sitting and asking, or if you're not praying, if you're
• 1:03:01
  not opening to where your heart should go next based
• 1:03:06
  on what we've talked about here or based on what
• 1:03:08
  you might know or whatever it is, then you're gonna
• 1:03:12
  miss the point.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, So I think the only thing, Yeah, I totally agree.
• 1:03:19
  I think the only thing I'm trying to do is
• 1:03:21
  like I know, for me, having.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: Practically like because the spiritual stuff is obviously number one,
• 1:03:31
  like that's the priority.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, but I think that for me it's like
• 1:03:35
  if somebody tells me do this thing. I'm not trying
• 1:03:38
  to be like, do this thing. But I think if
• 1:03:40
  you say, if you want to do something for a lent,
• 1:03:44
  whether it's giving something up or you add this habit,
• 1:03:48
  you have this habitual prayer, whatever it is, like I
• 1:03:52
  think if you're if you want to do something for
• 1:03:54
  a lent, you should look at everything in your life
• 1:03:57
  and do something that helps to orient your desires in
• 1:04:00
  the right direction, which is ultimately what I think you're
• 1:04:03
  talking about, because you're talking about like you need to
• 1:04:06
  have a desire for God, but you realize you desire.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: These other things.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: And so I think I'm trying to like put it
• 1:04:11
  in a more practical sense of like just do something
• 1:04:15
  that will help to point your desires in the right direction.
• 1:04:18
  But it's just like I just because I know that
• 1:04:22
  I like practical stuff because it like helps the spiritual
• 1:04:26
  and like psychological aspect of it for me.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I try to ask a question to
• 1:04:31
  japolate on that. So I'm a random person coming out
• 1:04:34
  of church. I come up to you Fulton or you
• 1:04:36
  Michael and be like, you know, I just listened to
• 1:04:38
  your podcast when you talked about stuff, and just like
• 1:04:40
  I really want to like do lint right, I really
• 1:04:43
  want to to like grow in a relationship with God
• 1:04:47
  and understand these things and all of those stuff. But
• 1:04:49
  I'm new to this as thing, like like I don't
• 1:04:51
  know what to do. Like I like I want to
• 1:04:54
  pray to God, but I don't know how to pray.
• 1:04:56
  I want to give stuff up, but like I don't
• 1:04:58
  even know what I could give up, and I want
• 1:05:01
  to do almsgiving, but like I don't even know what
• 1:05:03
  that is, so like, could you tell them give me
• 1:05:05
  some things and like a list of things, and it's
• 1:05:08
  like I'll pick some of the things that I can do.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, perfect Bill. Thank you for coming up to me
• 1:05:13
  and ask me. I'm absolutely flattered and very humbled. All
• 1:05:16
  that I can really do is give you what I
• 1:05:18
  think right now with the limited information I have. But
• 1:05:21
  here's what I'm doing. I'll give you a brief reason
• 1:05:24
  behind it. So for Lent, I'll be praying the Angelus
• 1:05:32
  at six am, twelve pm, and six pm, and those
• 1:05:36
  are in line with the monks and stuff they do
• 1:05:39
  that prayer schedule or one similar to it. But it's
• 1:05:42
  to kind of give my day structure outside of just
• 1:05:45
  I'll spend an hour praying when I get the chance.
• 1:05:47
  It kind of keeps me on the same track where
• 1:05:49
  I'm always sort of communicating or praying or calming my heart.
• 1:05:53
  And that's that is what I'm going to do every
• 1:05:55
  day for prayer. As far as fasting the things that
• 1:06:01
  I've realized have stuck out as sort of making my
• 1:06:04
  relationship with Jesus a little bit more difficult. Are things like, well,
• 1:06:09
  luckily the church encourages us to fast from meat on Fridays,
• 1:06:13
  so it's really a delicacy that we get. But I'm
• 1:06:15
  going to refrain from it so I can learn to
• 1:06:18
  appreciate what it is. And I'm training my body to
• 1:06:23
  not just give in when I want things, so I'm
• 1:06:25
  not going to eat meat on Fridays. And then another
• 1:06:31
  thing is, well, okay, it'll be all right. So I
• 1:06:36
  like nicotine, and so I've realized, but is that's something
• 1:06:40
  that I turn to because I like how it makes
• 1:06:43
  me feel. But if I take time away from that,
• 1:06:46
  then it opens up a chance for me to feel
• 1:06:49
  sort of like what do I do? And then I
• 1:06:52
  can turn to Okay, if the scripture says that it
• 1:06:55
  will give me what I need, then I'm going to try.
• 1:06:58
  And I'm going to read until it speaks to me,
• 1:07:01
  and I'm gonna pray until I feel peace, And if
• 1:07:03
  i feel anxious or nervous or worried, I'm going to
• 1:07:08
  just use my will to sit in adoration until my
• 1:07:14
  heart calms down. And so that's what I'm gonna do.
• 1:07:17
  And then alms giving somewhere I've really seen that I
• 1:07:21
  can grow is in the way that I communicate and
• 1:07:24
  talk with people. And so I'm going to spend this
• 1:07:27
  lent to try really hard to see the Christ and
• 1:07:31
  the other person almost in a benefit to me, because
• 1:07:35
  it's like I want to have a relationship with Jesus,
• 1:07:37
  and if Christ is in every person, then I'm going
• 1:07:40
  to try really hard and I'm going to ask to
• 1:07:44
  see the Christ in the other person, and that's who
• 1:07:46
  I'm going to try to base my interactions with. And
• 1:07:51
  so those are ways that I've I've figured are where
• 1:07:55
  my heart's calling me to go. That does that end
• 1:07:57
  your That's really cool.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that gives me some ideas and stuff I want
• 1:08:01
  to do.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: Well, Thanks for coming, Bill, listen to my podcast. Any thoughts.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so let me think for a second. So I
• 1:08:16
  think I would give a similar answer to Bill that
• 1:08:18
  I gave a second ago and for me personally. So
• 1:08:23
  just one example, we're doing exodus and so social media,
• 1:08:29
  it's like no social media and so itlete Instagram except
• 1:08:33
  for when I have to postspire stuff.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: That's so don't delete Instagram us No.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: But so if I get rid of Instagram, I realized
• 1:08:45
  that I'm happier, I have more time I don't get
• 1:08:48
  as wayed down by whatever kind of stuff I see it.
• 1:08:51
  So I would And then also the reason you would
• 1:08:57
  have social media in the first place, I think you
• 1:08:59
  just have to examine it for yourself. But so if
• 1:09:02
  you're again, I would just say, if you want to
• 1:09:05
  know what to give up, you want to know what
• 1:09:07
  to do, it's really going.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: To be super subjective.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: So I don't even want to give examples because it
• 1:09:14
  just it's so dependent on what each individual person like
• 1:09:20
  where you're at. But like I said, with social media,
• 1:09:24
  it's like I see this thing and I see that
• 1:09:28
  I want an escape, or I see that I want relationship,
• 1:09:33
  and I see that I am actually more able to
• 1:09:35
  achieve those things without social media. I would just try
• 1:09:42
  and find something that helps you to Again, I'm going
• 1:09:46
  to keep on saying it. Just find something that helps
• 1:09:48
  you to orient yourself in the desire or in the
• 1:09:51
  direction that you need to be oriented in, like whether
• 1:09:54
  that's giving something up or adding something in. If you
• 1:09:57
  need to take time, if you want to say the
• 1:09:58
  angels every day, if you want do whatever, Like, just
• 1:10:02
  find something that.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: Helps you to direct your heart towards God.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: And it doesn't have to be like if Bill is
• 1:10:09
  just he was baptized a week ago and this is
• 1:10:12
  the first time he's ever done anything like this. Like you,
• 1:10:15
  I would never want to be like, do all these things,
• 1:10:18
  and I have this whole list here and you can
• 1:10:20
  just check these off every day.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: It's like, maybe you do spire for a while, I
• 1:10:25
  didn't think about that.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's like every day you have spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, evangelical.
• 1:10:31
  You check off something on each of those boxes every
• 1:10:33
  single day. Look at that, Look at the way it
• 1:10:36
  all comes to that.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know why I didn't think of it, think
• 1:10:43
  of that. Yeah is a great yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: But so even if it's a little thing, just whether
• 1:10:51
  it's spiritual, maybe you only do one. Maybe you're like
• 1:10:53
  every day this week, I'm gonna try and do something spiritual.
• 1:10:57
  It really just is so dependent on where you're at
• 1:11:00
  in your journey. But just do something to orients yourself
• 1:11:04
  in the right direction.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know. That is so insane that we didn't
• 1:11:08
  think about it. That's actually a huge relax on our
• 1:11:11
  pot because that is really it makes me. I'm gonna
• 1:11:15
  probably actually do that. I don't know why I haven't
• 1:11:17
  thought about that. Okay, that's dang well, that's what I'm
• 1:11:22
  gonna do for lent is because I don't do it
• 1:11:24
  every day. Yeah, I do some aspect but really not intentional. Yeah,
• 1:11:29
  it's a very it is. You're right, it's intentional. It's
• 1:11:32
  an active maybe.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean do the same thing actually because I try,
• 1:11:36
  but I don't like always write it down. Maybe I'll
• 1:11:38
  force myself to write it down.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: And it's like, all right, we'll make a pact.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: After we stand up. We're all going to shake hands
• 1:11:44
  or like, we're gonna all write this down and we'll
• 1:11:46
  have our notebooks. We're gonna have our notebooks. We're gonna
• 1:11:50
  hold each other accountable. We're all going to bring our
• 1:11:52
  notebooks every time.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: And actually we'll challenge whoever listens, if you like this,
• 1:11:56
  do this with us this lent. You get to pick
• 1:11:59
  what you do spiritually, you get to pick what you
• 1:12:00
  do physically, but it has to be.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Written down, written at the end of the day, what
• 1:12:05
  did I do? Or before the date, write down what
• 1:12:08
  are you going to do? And then check it off?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: Or if you just do it during that you can
• 1:12:12
  do Yeah, but how are you gonna do it?
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I have it written down to account that Wow, yeah,
• 1:12:18
  I'm gonna talk to Bill too.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: This is how you know this is live and totally
• 1:12:23
  it's like we did not think about we came.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Ten minutes before, like I don't have a question, but yeah,
• 1:12:29
  I'm going to talk to Bill too, because I'm in
• 1:12:32
  this group just kind of hid behind fulls and I
• 1:12:34
  was like getting distracted by some cute girl and whatever.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's always a cute girls. Man.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Oh no, I kept think straight, making them all nerves.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Like, well Michael, well, well, well, Michael was talking about
• 1:12:54
  like I don't want to give you examples to I'm
• 1:12:56
  I have no such qualms. I'm going to give you
• 1:12:59
  as many exams amples as I can because I think
• 1:13:01
  it's actually really good to be like almost jealous, like
• 1:13:04
  I kind of want to do that and like to
• 1:13:07
  give a bunch of examples and no, don't do all
• 1:13:09
  of them. That's stupid unless you're like really capable of
• 1:13:13
  doing that. But let's talk about prayer. How can I
• 1:13:17
  pray Rosie every day? It takes fifteen minutes, find a
• 1:13:22
  little booklet. They're everywhere in your church or oh mass,
• 1:13:26
  daily mass, not every day. That's a lot I mean,
• 1:13:28
  unless you can do one more mass every week, that's
• 1:13:32
  a good thing. And some of those masses you can
• 1:13:34
  pray with the old ladies afterwards and pray the rosie.
• 1:13:37
  Oh shoot, those connect because the old ladies love to
• 1:13:39
  pray rosaries right after the mass or before mass. So
• 1:13:43
  for prayer, a big part of prayer is silence. Just
• 1:13:48
  spend time silence at the end of the night, silence
• 1:13:52
  to focus on God and do a meditation on the day.
• 1:13:57
  How has the day gone? Simple as that, just how's
• 1:14:00
  the day gone? Like what did I do today? And
• 1:14:02
  then you'll think, oh, I was disappointed that I was
• 1:14:05
  glad about that. If you're glad about something, be thankful.
• 1:14:08
  Another prayer thankfulness. You can write a little notebook with
• 1:14:11
  spire like S P I R E. And then thankfulness
• 1:14:14
  or like things I am thankful for today. I can't
• 1:14:19
  think of more prayer things, but there's all sorts of
• 1:14:22
  other examples because you could do all of those things.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted to. You just reminded me. And this
• 1:14:26
  is something that I feel like we don't at least
• 1:14:28
  I don't hit on that much. But really we have
• 1:14:30
  an entire tradition of saints that do this all the time.
• 1:14:34
  So I think when I have in my mind of like,
• 1:14:36
  you know, just do these things that help you get
• 1:14:39
  it is you do kind of need practical stuff. So
• 1:14:42
  there are a lot of prayers that you can find
• 1:14:44
  from really good saints that have already done this, Saint
• 1:14:47
  Rees of the Zoo, padre po as good prayers, fuld Machine.
• 1:14:54
  I mean, who are some saints you guys like or
• 1:14:58
  just or you can do lidies, Yeah, because really I
• 1:15:03
  think what we don't.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Litanys are a beautiful thing.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I can't even believe I didn't think, Hey,
• 1:15:07
  try to go to Mass more of this lent because
• 1:15:10
  it really is like we're deepening our relationship and the
• 1:15:13
  sacraments are meant are like humongous grace bombs that you
• 1:15:20
  can go participate in. And that's an awesome thing that
• 1:15:25
  the church has. So there's just there's a lot of resources.
• 1:15:29
  You just have to type it in add Catholic on
• 1:15:32
  the end and then boom, you will have a like
• 1:15:34
  access to saints who have been doing this, and people
• 1:15:37
  have done and repeated that's what works. They know what
• 1:15:40
  they're talking about. They've spent they've given their lives to it.
• 1:15:43
  You can find communities around that have all of that. So, yeah,
• 1:15:46
  that was something that you reminded of that I wanted
• 1:15:48
  to say. So sorry, I'm.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Gonna put this out there. If you're a listener or
• 1:15:52
  you two even if you want a book of like
• 1:15:55
  random prayers that you can pray and talk and things, comments,
• 1:15:59
  ask for it, and if you live near me, I'll
• 1:16:02
  drive and hand you one of the books that I
• 1:16:04
  got I have recently about I have a ton of
• 1:16:05
  books that like, so this thing's and and it's just
• 1:16:07
  like a compilation of prayers, just like random prayers you
• 1:16:10
  could do like oh for this thing or that thing
• 1:16:12
  or that thing. It's like, if you want that book,
• 1:16:13
  I'll come give it to you for lint. You can
• 1:16:15
  turn it afterwards, because I like my books. But yeah,
• 1:16:18
  when you say Litney's litanys are an amazing thing, I
• 1:16:20
  have a Litany of Humility in my shower just because
• 1:16:22
  it's like when I take a shower, I pray the
• 1:16:24
  litany of humility, and it's like it's a really cool
• 1:16:27
  way to just orient myself, you know.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for people who don't know what a litany of
• 1:16:32
  humility would sound like, just I'll make this real quick,
• 1:16:35
  but I know.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: That, Yeah, just do a couple of these.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: Shout out to Joel. I don't know if he's ever
• 1:16:39
  heard about these, but it's just like, I'm not good enough,
• 1:16:43
  make me better. I'm not good enough, make me better.
• 1:16:46
  So this one is so it's see, you would say
• 1:16:55
  you would be praying, and you would say, from the
• 1:16:58
  fear of being forgotten, deliver me Jesus. And a way
• 1:17:02
  that I like to phrase it so that it makes
• 1:17:03
  more sense in my mind is I'll say, Jesus, save
• 1:17:06
  me from the fear of being forgotten. Jesus, save me
• 1:17:09
  from the fear of being preferred, or save me from
• 1:17:12
  the desire of being preferred to others, save me from
• 1:17:15
  the desire of being esteemed. And so you're basically learning
• 1:17:19
  to give up all of your in this particular litany.
• 1:17:24
  It's a it's a form of prayers. It's not meant
• 1:17:27
  to just be said, but it's like you learn to
• 1:17:31
  bring that into your mind because we have to change
• 1:17:34
  our minds in the ways that we see things, and
• 1:17:37
  so litanys and prayers, the rosary it's a time to meditate,
• 1:17:41
  which is like a it's like taking a warm shower,
• 1:17:44
  in your brain and in your heart, and in like
• 1:17:47
  in your imaginate, like in your imaginative faculties.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: My favorite part of the litany of humility is right
• 1:17:53
  at the end, because it's a deliver me. So it's like,
• 1:17:57
  from this good thing, deliver me Jesus. There's like six
• 1:18:00
  or seven of them. And then from the fear of
• 1:18:02
  this bad thing, deliver me Jesus. And then it ends
• 1:18:05
  with Lord, grant me the grace to desire it. And
• 1:18:09
  so it ends with I want to desire this, this
• 1:18:11
  and that. Yeah, and the very final thing that it
• 1:18:13
  says is that that others may become holier than I,
• 1:18:19
  provided that I become as holy as I should. Lord,
• 1:18:22
  grant me the grace to desire this. That is true humility,
• 1:18:25
  to understand that others can be holier than you, holier.
• 1:18:29
  You're called to be as holy as you can. But
• 1:18:31
  the humility says, Lord, I recognize that others will be
• 1:18:36
  holier than me. Help them to be holier than me,
• 1:18:40
  provided that it becomes as holy as I should, because
• 1:18:42
  I can't just be like, oh, they'll be holier than
• 1:18:44
  me if I just go. But yeah, anyway, line of humility,
• 1:18:48
  my favorite humility, my favorite litany.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: So that's what the of trust is. Another linear of
• 1:18:54
  trust is a good one. Yeah, and so just google
• 1:18:57
  Catholic litanies and something that pops out to you. Do
• 1:19:00
  it every day. It takes like two minutes. So that's
• 1:19:04
  prayer fasting. Here's a bunch of things that I've heard
• 1:19:07
  people do. No snacking, no desserts. You can give up
• 1:19:16
  social media, YouTube, video games, all above whatever. You can
• 1:19:23
  give up not sleeping correctly and get eight hours of
• 1:19:26
  sleep every night. You can get up. You can give
• 1:19:29
  up sleeping in and waking at your first alarm. That's
• 1:19:35
  like the ah there's a name for that, but I forget,
• 1:19:38
  but like wake up at your first alarm, do not
• 1:19:40
  hit snooze. Do push ups every morning? Physical do push
• 1:19:45
  ups every morning to get your heart pumping and whatnot,
• 1:19:48
  like consistently do that. Other things you could I'm blanking
• 1:19:53
  on more things, but just like along those lines, just
• 1:19:56
  something you could give up not eating things of the Saints.
• 1:20:02
  You know, read cool as things from the Saints, so
• 1:20:04
  that you can learn how to pray more.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: Actually, isn't that just ad?
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: But fast things like I fast from the not readings.
• 1:20:14
  I like reading putting it that way and then alms giving.
• 1:20:16
  This is a hard one for me, but like tithe
• 1:20:20
  to your parish if you haven't been tithing, we are
• 1:20:23
  called to like tithe ten percent of our income to
• 1:20:27
  the church because the church needs, like our churches need
• 1:20:31
  money to provide air conditioning and heat when we go
• 1:20:34
  there for mass and this and that and to do
• 1:20:36
  all the services. And it's just good to give. So
• 1:20:39
  give money to charity or whatnot. Like it can be hard,
• 1:20:43
  but you could do it. I need to do that myself.
• 1:20:45
  That's really It's like if you're young and you don't
• 1:20:49
  have an income, yeah you don't need to tithe, but
• 1:20:52
  other forms of alms giving. Find a service opportunity near
• 1:20:56
  you Google Catholic service opportunity Saint Louis. I need to
• 1:20:59
  do this because I want to do that and do something.
• 1:21:02
  Give up your time to go to help a food
• 1:21:04
  pantry or do this or that thing, or clean up
• 1:21:07
  a streets or clean up in the river or whatnot.
• 1:21:09
  Just do give your time alms giving A smile at people,
• 1:21:15
  open the door for them.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: This is all evangelical.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, alms giving is evangelizing. Yeah, that's a good way
• 1:21:23
  of putting it. Yeah, so anything that is evangelical is
• 1:21:26
  like that's alms giving. So like, smile people, open the
• 1:21:30
  door for them, Call your mom, call your dad, Call
• 1:21:36
  your friend who's really struggling with his life. You know
• 1:21:39
  he's struggling, and it's like you gotta call him. This
• 1:21:42
  is also things that I really struggle with. So I'm
• 1:21:44
  like it's like all of these, like just do something
• 1:21:49
  for another person, like every day, just be like I'm
• 1:21:52
  gonna do something for another person and make make the
• 1:21:54
  decisions like I'm gonna I know I'm gonna see this
• 1:21:56
  person today, so I'm going to do this for them.
• 1:22:00
  Make make your bed for your brother. I don't know.
• 1:22:03
  I was once given that as a penance when I
• 1:22:06
  was like twelve or something. I went to confession and
• 1:22:09
  my penance was do something nice for your brother. So
• 1:22:11
  I'm like he's out of the room quickly made the
• 1:22:14
  bed and like that's nice. Like make your bread for
• 1:22:17
  your make a bed for your brother, or make make
• 1:22:21
  bread for your mom, like those are really good.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also it's not lint, well it will be lent.
• 1:22:28
  When you will watch this, well stop for like ten minutes.
• 1:22:32
  You can undo the like giving up YouTube and an
• 1:22:34
  on YouTube search things I can do for lint Catholic
• 1:22:39
  and watch videos from people who suggest things. Yeah, those
• 1:22:44
  are my thoughts on the Yeah, that's all really good.
• 1:22:48
  Do all of them all the time, spend twenty four hours.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: Have an Excel spreadsheet, and then you just like have
• 1:22:54
  all of them in there.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: And if you're not used to do one small thing
• 1:22:59
  for prayer, one small thing for fasting, and one small
• 1:23:01
  thing for almsgiving, and maybe one large thing that can
• 1:23:05
  be any of those. And I think that's a really
• 1:23:07
  good way of doing it. Small easy things that it's
• 1:23:10
  not that hard to do, but it's still is a
• 1:23:13
  little hard. And then one hard thing that's like, this
• 1:23:15
  is what I'm focusing on.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: This is spire. That's pretty good. That's good. That's pretty good.
• 1:23:23
  All those fit in.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: There, Yeah they do. And and so it's like, what do.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: You do for a intellectual today?
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: Now you have some ideas.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: Well, because really that is instead of thinking that you're
• 1:23:34
  just when the vacuum appears after you give something up,
• 1:23:39
  replace it with the corresponding spire.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, another good one. Journal I hate journaling. It is terrible.
• 1:23:48
  I hate it. But I've started doing it for Lynt
• 1:23:51
  the past years, and it's such a good thing. I
• 1:23:55
  never do it anywhere else really because it's still I
• 1:23:57
  hate it. It's so rough. It has done good, and
• 1:24:01
  I do actually sometimes look back at my old journalists like, oh,
• 1:24:05
  you idiots, how did you think like this back then?
• 1:24:08
  That if any of you guys have read my journal,
• 1:24:11
  I'm sorry you see a lot of stuff about.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, cute girl.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, but like, yeah, no, journaling is
• 1:24:28
  a good thing. Do it every night and use that
• 1:24:32
  s p r E. Those are five of your lines
• 1:24:34
  beginning of your journal, asked what I did for spiritual,
• 1:24:36
  what I did for physical and maybe for link Do we
• 1:24:40
  want to when we come to do the podcast, we
• 1:24:45
  have the start with no, no, We say what we've
• 1:24:51
  done for Aspire this past week, just briefly, just like
• 1:24:57
  one of the days from the past week where you
• 1:25:00
  had your spr E that you put down, because we're
• 1:25:02
  gonna do the handshake thing to submit ourselves to that,
• 1:25:05
  and we share at the beginning, just this is my spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational,
• 1:25:10
  and evangelical from one of the days this week.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah it sounds it, Yeah cool, It was totally outside
• 1:25:19
  of this anyway, Louis should do. All right, everyone put
• 1:25:23
  your right here ready.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: No, no triangle, triangle, Okay, we're doing it. So now
• 1:25:38
  I have five lines in my journal that I can
• 1:25:40
  do easily. Sometimes it's hard to Yeah.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: If you listen to this, you can hold me accountable.
• 1:25:46
  I know you love doing that.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: So all right, Well, conclusion, many final thoughts.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: No, it's not a time of depression. It's a time
• 1:25:56
  of growth.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: And it hurts sometimes, but only because you're growing hopefully
• 1:26:04
  ideally that is what should be happening.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, you're gonna take us home.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: I'll lead us off in prayer, my father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen, Lord,
• 1:26:14
  this time in Lint, help all of us throughout the
• 1:26:17
  world recognize the true good of this world, the true
• 1:26:21
  goods of this earth, but most especially to recognize your
• 1:26:24
  presence in our lives, and to direct ourselves to You
• 1:26:27
  through the goods of this world and through others. And
• 1:26:31
  we pray that these observances that we are holding throughout
• 1:26:33
  this lint we may stick to, and we may understand
• 1:26:37
  why we are doing them, and when it hurts, we
• 1:26:40
  may understand why it hurts, so that we may direct
• 1:26:43
  that suffering that pain to your cross, whom you suffered
• 1:26:47
  and died for us. And we pray that through these
• 1:26:51
  forty days we may come to experience great joy in Easter,
• 1:26:58
  for at your resurrection, that we may be resurrected from
• 1:27:02
  these pains, that we will be experiencing to live in
• 1:27:07
  Your joy in relationship with God, which is what we
• 1:27:12
  all along for. We asked this in your name, Amen,
• 1:27:16
  Father Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: All right. This has been the Spire podcast. I'm Fulton,
• 1:27:22
  I'm Nick, and we will see you next time.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: When you did Spire. Also sorry comments what you've done
• 1:27:34
  for Aspire one day each week. It's a challenge to you.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: Challenge. Put that at the beginning of the video.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: This is what Drew said he did for Spire. Analyze
• 1:27:48
  it and you Kenny, all right,