Explaining the Faith - Why Penances? Understanding Lent, Fasting, Almsgiving (Ash Wed)

well hello and welcome everybody here live at the national shrine of the divine mercy i'm father chris aylar it's always a joy to be with you as this week we bring you a very important topic that you saw on the slide about penances what are they so misunderstood hardly ever done now and yet needed for our salvation and so we're going to talk about ash wednesday fasting alms giving penances in general what we need to do what we need to know this is a beautiful course i had in seminary that was taught basically by father dennis of saint john canchus and he gave us so much enlightenment on what lent is why we celebrate it and what ash wednesday means so today we go back to seminary so that you can have a great lent i know that sounds weird usually it's all gloomy no there's a lot of so much good there so let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask you send the holy spirit down upon us so that we may open our hearts to understand this gift you give us in prayer fasting giving that we may have a good ash wednesday a good lent and purify ourselves to be ready to enter into your glory we ask this through christ our lord amen in the name of the father son and of the holy spirit amen okay so most of you know lent starts next week already so it's coming wednesday is ash wednesday but what's interesting is more people go to church on ash wednesday then they do regular sunday actually ash wednesday is not a holy day of obligation but every sunday is so people will go out of their way to get to ash wednesday which is good but then they won't even go to mass on sunday which is not good so we need to get prepared and so we're going to talk about this now lent coming up ash wednesday as you all know begins lent and lent is a preparation obviously for easter but they're their own season lent is a season easter is a season but you know there's a season in between called the tridawam those three days are a whole season all of t all by themselves and today we're going to be talking about that first one lent all right lent as you know starts on ash wednesday but when does it end it actually goes right up to thursday evening of the lord's supper okay holy thursday where we celebrate the last supper the lord's passion right or excuse me the lord's supper so you see here lent actually goes right up until then on holy thursday now lent you may not know comes from the english the old english word spring and it also is a derivative of the latin word for 40 days now we all know the 40 days but we're going to tell you more about that so our sunday's included in life this is really a big confusion technically sundays are in the season of lent but that makes lent not 40 days it makes it 46 days lent is actually 46 days there's 40 days of fasting and six sundays of non-fasting right so or i should say the traditional form we are not required to fast every day in lent today but traditionally it's 40 days of fast now how do they develop this okay so um the sundays are in this as i said the season of lent but not as part of the fast we don't fast on sundays even in lent now sometimes people say well father does that mean on sundays i can use or do whatever i gave up so let's suppose you gave up soda and you gave it up for lent does that mean you can have it on sundays some people like to go all the way through lent not at all having it god bless you but if you do enjoy it on a sunday you're not under the penalty of sin in fact i shouldn't tell you this but even if you do have your soda during any day in life it's also not under the penalty of sin to give something up for lend is not obligatory it's not mandatory it's tradition and we suggest that you do that though and we'll tell you why coming up okay now so this is very very good stuff now let's look at our next slide why is the number 40 significant all right the number 40 is significant in the bible because 40 is a traditional number you all know this that re refers to discipline or preparation or devotion to god all right 40 is used in the bible as a round number it just really means a long time so if somebody the israelites were in the desert for 40 years they meant a long time we we read the bible there in that sense right now 40 is very important in the bible what was noah's ark 40 days of rain right how long was moses in egypt not in the desert how long was moses in the in egypt 40 years then how long were the jews in the desert 40 years how many days was moses on mount sinai 40 days how long did noah or excuse me jonah preach in nineveh 40 days how many days did jesus fast in the desert 40 days okay so you get the point here it was used to give a complete number a complete period of time rather than just saying many you know the israelites were in the desert many years jesus fasted many days 40 is the word used for that now when used it is something extraordinary in the bible 40 whenever you see 40 it means the bible is telling you i'm about we are about to tell you something extraordinary something very important so lent brings this both together the 40 days the significance of and the fast that has been tradition in the church but here's the point why do we need penances all right if you are not and i guarantee you this is the number one thing we catholics lack we see the value of the works of mercy we see the value of the sacraments we see the value of of of being good this is all true i see it but i'm telling you right now if you listen to mary at fatima she said what is needed is prayer and penance prayer and penance where we are lacking is in the penance i see prayer a lot praise be to god but i see very very few people doing penance we always like to talk about oh we emails come out oh we need a day of prayer and fasting for the ukraine all right how many people are actually doing it all right how many people are actually doing it not many and this is what mary said was so important so let's do our next slide penance look at your side right there penance is the penalty one imposes upon oneself for one's crimes it's like to tie your own self in your own handcuffs [Laughter] wow that's a good expression all right now non-catholics now we got to explain this really quick because this is the biggest complaint we hear from non-catholics they say that purgatory cannot exist because that would mean christ didn't do something in other words christ paid all our debt on the cross yes this is true well then they say well having purgatory then would mean that christ's work was not fully done was not fully accomplished well if that was true that would mean everybody goes to heaven if what you mean by christ's work was fully accomplished on the cross is that you don't need to do anything you don't even have to cooperate with that grace then everybody would go to heaven and we know that's not christian teaching well wait a minute father i read in the bible where it says that christ did it all yes he did well then what are you saying i'm confused all right christ did it all on the cross he did his part but we got to cooperate with that grace if we don't cooperate with that grace if it didn't matter then everybody would go to heaven i don't have to cooperate with anything i'm going to continue to live my life a sin but i'm going to heaven because christ did it all this is not that's heresy all right so saint paul tells us let's look at next slide first or colossians first chapter 20 verse 24 now i rejoice in what i am suffering for you and i fill it up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to christ's affliction for the sake of his body which is the church right there paul is saying there is something lacking in the sufferings of christ whoa where are our non-catholics when this verse comes up christ did it all you don't have to do anything you don't have to suffer you don't have to do atonement you don't have to do reparation you don't have to do anything that's not what the bible says paul tells us right there there is something lacking in the sufferings of christ whoa what possibly could be lacking in the sufferings of christ your sufferings atonement your reparation your cooperation with that grace now this is very important that means that there is something that still needs to be done not by jesus but by us he merited the forgiveness of sins but now we have to cooperate with that grace he merited we have been forgiven of our sins by christ on the cross and that grace is given in the confessional this is true so now we can avoid hell and eternal punishment we are now redeemed is every single human being who ever lived in this world redeemed ever has lived living now or ever will live are they all redeemed yes but not everybody will be saved jesus talks about kahana and talks about the souls that will be thrown into the eternal fire this is real so how do we avoid it this is important penances because in penances you have sorrow you have repentance you have contrition you have purpose of amendment i don't want to do it again everything that we're told by protestants that we have to do to be saved is done in penance but yet they don't want to do penance they say some do i i shouldn't say this but many criticize the catholic faith for that jesus did it all what are you saying no we have to cooperate all right so now revelation how do we know this because revelation 21 27 says nothing impure will ever enter heaven nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful has anyone here ever done anything shameful or deceitful anybody well according to the bible then we're not getting into heaven but yet according to non-catholics everybody's going to heaven because jesus did it all how do you explain this difference in other words jesus opened the door to heaven on the cross but you got to walk through it and part of walking through it is saying i'm sorry and let me make up for what i've done it's not just saying i'm sorry jesus said not just saying lord lord is enough i don't know you you have to not only say it you have to show it this is what lent's about this is what penances are about now we all fit into that category we have all done something in our life shameful or deceitful so how can we then get to heaven well even if we are forgiven in that confessional and by christ on the cross and the grace given in the confessional a few things need to happen before you get to heaven do you think you're ready to go into heaven even if you've been forgiven of your sins in that confessional all right i committed adultery all right i committed adultery i go to the confession i'm truly sorry i'm forgiven but if i'm still attached to that if i still can't wait for the next moment that i see that person so i can commit adultery again i can't wait all i think about night and day is this person i don't think about god i only think about being with this person do you think you're ready for heaven you've been forgiven of your sin you committed adultery you've been forgiven of it you asked god to forgive you but you're still holding on to it jesus says you can commit adultery in your mind so if this is the case do you really feel you're ready to walk into heaven this is no way we got to be detached that's what purgatory is about purgatory is not about the forgiveness of sins purgatory is about detaching from the sins you've already been forgiven of this is why it makes biblical sense and all non-catholics attack purgatory say you're saying jesus forgiveness on the cross was not enough no we're not saying that forgiveness of jesus on the cross was enough but now we've got to cooperate to be cleaned up i could be forgiven but not ready that's why we have penances at the same time not only do we have to detach all right we um all right so where was i here all right so not only do i have to detach all right i have to be purified from past sin do you think that all i have to do is if i murdered 12 people is just saying i'm sorry even to god yeah that's the start now you'll avoid hell but you've still got a lot of cleaning up to do you need to be purified that's the other thing and then you need to be prepared so that you don't do this again in the future so you need to be detached of current sin purified from past sin and prepared to meet god and to live with him in purity to prevent future sin penance does all of this but nobody's doing penance i fail all the time i try to fast two days a week and i get to you know most of the day like i made it all the way to like 10 o'clock at night last friday fasted all the way through then i cracked and so it's okay you just get back in the saddle all right so this is good stuff here now yes we were given we received the grace of forgiveness in the confessional but there's still consequences of past sins that we have to make amendment for so detach from current sin be purified from past sin and prepared to be with god so you don't commit future sin this is what purgatory is about but you know you can avoid purgatory on this earth purgatory is a lot of suffering you don't want to go there saints tell us woo try to get away from that but you can you can avoid purgatory by penance yes we can do penance to make reparation for the sins that have already been forgiven by jesus on the cross well you said jesus did it all he did he forgave you that is doing his part he did all of his part but he's going to not make you cooperate with his grace that's your part let's look at our next slide that's why in the confessional the priest gives you a penance even though you've been forgiven why didn't the priest just say you're forgiven go ahead go do whatever you want no priest gives you a penance so we need to do satisfaction for the negative effect our sins have had on the world you know along with forgiveness penances prepare us for heaven because again you could be forgiven and not ready for heaven non-catholics miss this point they think once you're forgiven you're totally ready to walk into heaven i've been forgiven of impatience of of of gluttony but i'm still attached i still get impatience i still have glitch so i know i got to do purgatory time or do penance to purify from that while here on earth powerful stuff so anyway penances can help us prepare for heaven so what are they what what do i mean father what do you mean you keep talking about penances all right the catechism says we must repent for sin and as far as possible make reparation to the divine justice how do we do that all right there's two forms all right you can do all right here's what's interesting you can do things that you don't like or you cannot do things you do like now father that sounds stupid hang with me because it's very powerful all right all right so what do i mean you could do things you don't like all right try taking even 30 seconds of a cold shower on a winter morning man if you wake up with any impure thoughts or anything like that cold shower will straighten you out in a hurry and man it'll wake you up so do things you don't like doing like taking a cold shower then you give up things that you like i love soda i'm from detroit especially faygo that's like my favorite thing in the whole world but i'm not going to drink any of it during lent so you give up something that you like now this doesn't make sense father why do we do this god created us to enjoy things hang with us all right we surrender our will okay so god can fill us we get we empty ourselves of ourself it's like cana remember cana the whole story of cain is emptying your jar so that god could fill you with the holy wine the wine of the holy spirit denying myself something good that isn't even sinful makes no sense to 95 percent of catholics but when you empty yourself of yourself even if it's not sinful you have more room for god to fill you this is what's going on if we can't say no to something or someone we are enslaved to it even faygo sodapop all right if i absolutely cameraman giuseppe loves mountain dew that's his favorite thing in the world is mountain dew at one point he said i just can't say no to it well that's enslavement now he's doing really good through of all your prayers people out there are praying for cameraman giuseppe now he's doing really good i haven't seen a mountain dew in his office in months so this is the point is we we break our enslavements even to the senses or the appetites if i absolutely cannot say no to a cigarette i'm enslaved to it if i can't say no to a person every single night my boyfriend comes over he wants to have sex i can't say no to him i can't say no i'm enslaved to it so if we can do these penances we can do that we exercise freedom to in order to exercise true freedom you have to be able to say yes or no to something if you're never allowed to say yes you don't have freedom either if you're never allowed to say no you don't have freedom you true freedom is being able to say yes or no and if i'm enslaved to phaga soda or cigarettes or alcohol or pornography or drugs or whatever it is i'm enslaved to it and the biggest thing christ gave to the world when he came was break the enslavement i'm here to break the chains this is why christ came all right so to exercise freedom you have to be able to say yes or no to both good and evil people say well why would i say no to good or yes to evil the whole point is you have to have the freedom to say well that's why god doesn't stop us from saying yes to evil because it would take away our freedom i had somebody write me says this this is crazy why would god ever allow evil he can't be a good god because then we wouldn't have freedom with freedom i have the ability to say yes or no to good and i have the ability to say yes or no to evil if i can't say yes or no to anything i'm enslaved to it if i can't say no to the evil of whatever it is tempting me i'm enslaved to it i said pornography or drugs or whatever it is and so this is what's really important if you can't say no then you have to say this is the time to do penance that's how i learned to say no with the little things so that i can then say no to the sin that's killing me and when you do it on ash wednesday and good friday you got an extra grace because you're being obedient to the church on that day the church says fast and abstain from me i see no value to that father do you know how much grace there is in the value of being obedient to christ through his church and the church asked us not to eat meat and to fast on that day you get so many graces by just being obedient all right it's also when you do it a sacrifice for god not for yourself because he can use that to save souls then also you become a mini-co-redeemer when you fast you are sharing in the cross of christ you're on the cross with christ man if you've ever fasted more than one day only a couple times in my life if i fasted multiple days i tell you you are on that cross but you know what's ironic about it once i got through the first day i was shocked that second day was actually easier it was the weirdest thing that first day is the killer in fact it's the first eight hours once i can get first the past the first eight hours i seem to sail through now the other night friday i broke down late but once i got onto that second day because usually we have a pascal fast on the between ash or good friday and the vigil that's a tradition in the church so it's multi-days of fast now here's what the thing is you're being a mini co-redeemer that is why jesus said some demons are you struggling with the demon of alcohol are you struggling with the demon of thievery are you struggling with the demon of lying are you stealing with dealing with the demon of unforgiveness jesus says some of these demons only come out through prayer and fasting prayer and fasting but you know giving up something for lent though is actually as i said not mandatory by denying ourselves though which is a good practice what we enjoy we discipline our wills so we aren't enslaved to our pleasures as we just said just as listen to this just as over indulging in the pleasure of eating leads to physical flabbiness over indulging in pleasure in general leads to spiritual flabbiness i tell you it's one of the hardest things for me because i do comfort eating you know i'm late in the office one night i just do it but training ourselves to resist temptations when they are not sinful because eating is not sinful we train ourselves to reject temptations that will come that are sinful in other words you're training you're like rocky you're training remember um karate kid remember karate kid that he wanted to train to be this karate guy and maga what's his name not magaly that's one of the employees who works for me magagi miyagi miyagi makes him go like this in the paint with the fence and he's like what the heck am i doing this is of no value he's painting the fence up and down and up and down and then when he got into the fight and punches were being thrown and he's got punches being thrown at him he's he's deflecting those punches it was that wax on wax off or then he went like this that was the wax on this was the wax off and then he was doing this to deflect the the shots it was something you didn't think it was practice this is what's going on here and so we also express our sorrow when we give up something um for having not resisted past temptations so i can give up something in lent as a way a sorrowful way to say lord i'm sorry for all the times i didn't give that up there are few better ways to keep our priorities straight then by denying ourselves things of lesser priority to show us that they are not necessary in life that we can focus on what is necessary god but you know i got to be careful here you can deny yourself too much the church teaches we can deny ourselves too many pleasures god made human life contingent on certain goods such as food and to refuse to enjoy enough of it can be harmful and even damage your body don't go overboard with this please it's god's gift if we deny ourselves too much it may deprive us of goods that god gave us in order that we might praise him and then it prohibits us from being effective in ministry for instance it can also be the sin of ingratitude by refusing to enjoy the things god wanted you to have all right for instance i told the thing before i was with a postulate brother a novice brother and we're supposed to we were supposed to fast our superior wanted us to fast brother father mark and somehow we went out to brookville and we did something that we were invited over to somebody's house and they had a surprise and it was on a friday not during lent but we don't eat meat on fridays here every friday during the whole year did you know that did you know that we are actually required by the church to abstain from meat every friday not just fridays in lent but every friday of the year the entire year did you know that father i've never heard that well okay the usccb has come in and says that you can give up something else now that you can eat meat on fridays outside of lent but you have to give up something else it is a day of penance that's not changed fridays are still a day of penance every day of the year every day of the year fridays are a day of penance so we are supposed to give up meat now again the usccb has said if you choose to eat meat then you got to give something else like a tv show or a dessert or something but don't overdo this charity and love is the king so we went over to this house and this woman surprisingly cooked us a beautiful dinner and it included meat and one of our marians just kind of went like this and said sorry i can't eat that so i talked to my superior he's like absolutely you eat that you eat that so do not become self-righteous do not become overboard with this or scrupulous to sit there and a woman that went through all that love to prepare that dinner that included me for him to go like this and say i'm not eating that it's friday i have to be holy well you just shot your holiness because the lack of charity that you show to that person how beautiful when we could say deny ourselves even what we want to do even at the sake of what we think is our own holiness for the love of that woman now parents um you know if a child refused every gift the parent gave him wouldn't you start to think well there's something wrong here it would displease you if you went through it you stood in line and bought the newest toy or whatever these things are you know and you got home and your child rejected it you'd be displeased so god doesn't want you rejecting all his gifts this is not the heresy of jansonism where everything's bad and we give up everything we don't touch anything everything's evil so keep it in perspective all right so what do we give up all right all right so in recent years catholics luckily have been going to more doing good things rather than avoiding things now it's still good to avoid it's still good to do self-denial we need to do that but catholics are now giving more self-giving penances all right what do i mean by this let's look at our next slide all right our next slide what is this the works of mercy those i'm not going to read them all but you can look at your works of mercy they're doing more prayers for people visiting them the sick clothing the naked feeding the hungry or on the spiritual side counseling the doubtful admonishing the sinner these are all works of mercy so you can pray for someone you can visit them in the sick you can do more spiritual if you can't do the physical remember join with me every day to do a work of mercy and on friday a day of penance remember that we've been saying that now for months every day do a work of mercy and on fridays do a work of penance powerful or even to fast from sin now be careful with this one though i had a priest once in the confessional tell me i want you to fast from sin that's good in one sense yes you want to avoid vices like unkindness or or impurity but be careful because fasting always has an end that you can enjoy something later so you don't want to say well you know what i'm going to fast from being with my girlfriend or boyfriend for the next 40 days but boy after that we are going to celebrate uh-uh it doesn't work that way it doesn't work that way okay so be careful now prayer and works of mercy all right like almsgiving are both wonderful and necessary lenten practices all right however if we do them and we practice self-denial of things even if they are good if we do not practice these things if we do them for the wrong reasons we miss the point all right if we do not practice self-denial of things that are good we miss the point of lent if we practice it for the wrong reason we miss the point of lent people don't get up they they see avoiding things that are bad but they don't see the purpose of avoiding things that are good this is the point of lent jesus engaged in rigorous self-denial of good things like food when he fasted in the desert for 40 days this has been done for 2000 years all right also in neglecting to fast listen to this i read this in the church fathers the the in neglecting to fast we are unintentionally feeding the beast oh one of the effects of the fall in the garden is an inordinate love of ourselves that allows our appetites to run amok not just not just food our appetites for pleasure sloth comfort pleasure lust whatever those might be one of the purposes of the seasonal lent is to attack this inordinate love of self i've said this before everybody i know has heard this by is so we're saying again i really hear the first commandment confessed that i broke the first commandment oh i don't worship buddha i don't worship allah i'm not guilty of the first commandment yes we are if we put food money power sex if we put anything ahead of god that's why we take you've heard me say this we take the vows of poverty chastity and obedience why poverty to overcome the god of the world of money why chastity to overcome the god of the world of sex why obedience to overcome the god of the world of power right now it's all about power just look in the ukraine it's it's all about power the thing is we make ourselves god and when we make ourselves god we have violated the first commandment because we were seeking what we want our will so we could have like i said money sex or power could be our god or worst of all ourselves i'm on the throne i don't care what the catholic church teaches i make up my own truth i am doing this because i don't agree with the church now you have broken the first commandment you've made yourself god so this is what we are talking about now paul says to put away the old self to allow it to exist is foolishness we must declare war on it he said so we put our old self to death how by penance mortification mortification comes from the words mortem and fasciari together they mean to bring about death this is why death to ourselves it consists in the practice of denial of the lower things and the desire for sensual pleasure to be able to open ourselves up to receive the bigger things to mortify ourselves brings freedom i can say yes or no to it you know it's funny when people ask me father is this sinful or is that sinful as long as you can say yes or no to it it's not sinful father is watching football necessarily sinful if it becomes your god and it's all you do and you'll miss mass for it yeah all right so to be clear practicing penance though is not an ending of itself this is where the protestants nail us they say you think you're going to work your way into heaven no the penance is not an end and of itself the church does not just prescribe penance because it's sadistic it does it for two reasons listen to this one it reminds us of our own weakness to recognize that i messed up my own sinfulness all right our lack of self-sufficiency and our dependence on god that's first second is that it's a meaningful lenten observance that makes easter even that much greater of a celebration isn't it called absence makes the heart grow fonder you know one of the toughest times in my life is when i'm separated for somebody that i really care about but man when you see them versus seeing them every single day it really makes you say wow praise be to god when lent is over then it's a time of glory we consume those good things that we've gone without now don't overdo it okay so i'm not gonna drink three cases of fago soda you know come easter all right so scripture describes heaven as a banquet matthew 22 and a wedding feast matthew 25 devoid of hunger you'll have no more hunger all right so penance is what lent is all about so it can prepare us for the joy of the resurrection good stuff all right so let's go on to our next slide the tradition in lent is prayer fasting and almsgiving so i want to talk a little bit about this okay the jews considered these three things the main cardinal works of mercy prayer fasting and almsgiving all right what is it all right prayer you know i'm not going to go into there i have a whole talk it's got over a million views now on youtube how to pray so instead of talking about that here i'll just direct you there go to the video how to pray um by myself so a-l-a-r my last name and you'll see that video on how to pray again it's already got over a million hits please watch it for this lent if you can now the jews consider these the three big and those are in the bible prayer fasting and almsgiving all right so we know about prayer you can watch that video but fasting is also mentioned along with prayer and alms giving fasting is critically important now by fasting we are controlling the passions of the body and then we free our souls to pray more so fasting actually opens up the door to prayer and guess what else when you refrain from eating and spending the money on all that food you have money now to give to the poor so actually fasting paves the way for prayer and almsgiving and what's the most important of all of those almsgiving that is the most important all right let's keep going we're moving good here i got to keep going um lent do you know lent ends up being 10 of the calendar year it's a perfect tithe people ask father catholics have to tithe 10 of their gross income well you tithe what you are able and if you really want to be literal you want to do 10 percent tithing can be in time treasure or talent you can tithe your time your money or your gifts your talents now is the perfect time lent is 10 10 of the time of the calendar year give that 10 to god now you've tithed the time the church calls us to practice all three together especially during lat prayer fasting and almsgiving christians that are seen to be doing good works however don't do them just to be seen jesus warns about this in the bible all right you must do the good works for the purpose of god like i've always said when you fast if you're only doing it to lose weight almsgiving if you're giving a donation to the church but you only want your picture in the in the bulletin and all right if you are praying but your prayers go like this lord please change my husband he's got this problem this problem this problem and that's your prayer and so we have to be careful that we do these in the right way all right god says you'll get your reward don't seek being seen here don't seek being seen you're praying just to appear to be holy pray when only the father in private sees you but it's good it's a good public witness all right it's a very good public witness all right so but every word will be in heaven now christ's warning is sometimes that we can do right things with the wrong intention all right so this is important um are you you know it's funny because jesus said if you do these things to show your own greatness or your own piety you'll be rewarded on this earth by the respect of men but you won't be respected by god that's a wake up all right to give alms should be only to be given for god um you know when we when we do this prayer fasting and almsgiving we do it the right way can actually not only forgive the sin if you have perfect contrition but it can already relieve all the temporal punishment that is due to sins that you've already confessed so if you've already confessed your sins you want to relieve purgatory time you do penance and where the best way to do penance is prayer fasting and almsgiving prayer fasting and almsgiving you know the almsgiving that gets us to heaven is when it's anonymous that's hard every one of us likes to be recognized in some way if we do something good you know what's funny is um not knowing the giver not knowing that you're the one who gave it that's hard you know the rabbis the jewish rabbis would actually drop money behind them so they couldn't see who picked it up sometimes though we give and we act like it was out of love but it was really for recognition do you know the word in greek for hypocrite means actor actor the word in greek for hypocrite means actor how many of us at one time or another have been an actor pretending that we're sorry or pretending to do something just so that we can get recognized be careful we don't want to glorify ourselves it's to glorify god and nothing greater than do that than anonymously many times people give and get a feeling of superiority i remember i had this argument with my dad you know and and and so you know people will give and say boy did i really help that person they owe me so much and you're just a steward we don't own that money god does you know what's funny is when you help somebody and you give to them actually they've helped you more than you've helped them don't feel superior oh boy aren't they lucky that i was around i you know they didn't have me around they'd really be in a pickle well they helped you more than you helped them because their need and their their uh um position where they needed help gave you the chance to be charitable and that charity is what's going to get you to heaven so they actually got you to do a greater thing in an act of charity that you will help you to get to heaven if you do it genuinely then you help them by giving them a plate of food that sounds crazy doesn't it but it's true all right however the poor actually are giving you more in return a chance to be charitable and merciful true almsgiving true almsgiving the real kind of almsgiving is giving up something that we want or that we need rather than out of our surplus so if the millionaire goes into the church pew and writes out his ten dollar check ah yeah look at that i gave to the church millionaire giving out of his ten dollars out of his out of his say that's that's not a sacrifice that's a surplus doesn't have as much merit but you could give something even if you don't have a dollar your time your talents you can give those to god i think a brother mark and brother ken i think of mary's sitting here in the front row with her ability to cook she feeds us miriam's i think a brother ken that every single day gives his talent sitting up there playing for the glory of god in the in the liturgy i think of brother mark the hours that he has spent trying to set us up so that we could even be broadcasting this to you right now nobody else is able to do what brother mark does nobody else is able to do we have a few brothers but nobody's as good as brother can so they give up their talents they don't have to give money heck they don't have any so so they don't have any money they don't have to give their money they're giving something that's pure to them they have that talent he has that talent to be able to sing beautifully and to be able to play the organ he gives of that to god for the glory of god that's what brother ken does brother mark has the ability and the talent in the technology to be able to get us up to the world that's what he gives and so this is what it's about each person can give in a different way if you're not sure what i can give talk to your confessor together with your confessor you can decide what you should do to give now let's keep going let's talk about fasting this is very important fasting and abstinence all right food is not bad i've said this i love it we need it i eat it i i do all right but giving up good things helps us to focus on the better which is god as i said okay now it is a way to give up lesser goods to attain higher goods i said that but all days in lent are appropriate for fasting even though we're only required to fast on ash wednesday and good friday okay but canon law does not make you fast any other days but two and you know what's interesting ash wednesday and good friday the only two days that we have to fast all year are both fasting and abstinence meaning we give up meat i always used to hear that when i was a teenager i thought absence meant giving up sexual relations now it does but you know i'm a teenager in high school saying okay they say that you have to be 14 years old you know giving up sexual relations at 14. no it's abstinence from meat abstinence from meat all right now the the priest used to give abstinence from relations even with their wives at certain times of the year too now here's what's interesting these two days of the year okay who is required to fast every person age 18 to 59. my dad's funny after he turned 59 he's like i don't have to fast anymore i'm like dad you really didn't fast that much before so so 18 to 59 every person now medically if you are unable to fast please no the church does not make you jeopardize your health if you are a diabetic like my mom she had to carry when she was able to move around she's now bedridden but when she'd carry around she used to have a purse full of candy bars and stuff like that to regulate her blood sugar no the church is not condemning you for that that is not sinful okay all right now what about abstinence who has to avoid meat everybody age 14 and over all right but it's not as hard as you think fasting is only well i'll get to that what's your quite a fascinating but let's talk about abstinence a little bit most people know that we don't eat meat on fridays in lent but even this is disappearing i mean i go i remember i was traveling last um no it was actually before covid i'm sorry it was a couple years ago and they had a search a church social in the basement and this was a catholic church i'm just a guest so i i really didn't feel is my place to say anything and the church social had all the pizza filled with meat lovers pepperoni and sausage and ham don't get me wrong i love that stuff but this is a catholic church on a friday i'm like what and so most people know that not eating meat on fridays and lent us wrong but even that is disappearing all right as i said before all fridays are a day of penance so we're not supposed to eat meat but you can give up something else we talked about that but you know what you can eat that's actually flesh fish why can we eat the flesh of a fish but not the flesh of a chicken because the fish is the symbol of christ fish is a symbol of christ fish is really a flesh it's like a meat but we can eat it because it's a symbol of christ now fridays are abstinence why why do we avoid meat because jesus died for our sins on a friday making it a specially appropriate day to mourn our sins and deny ourselves as something we enjoy likewise sunday we don't fast or abstain why because it's the day he rose so it's a day of rejoice celebration that's why even in lent on sundays we can enjoy what we want now don't over do it now with fasting you will feel deprived but it'll help you lead an authentic life of lent this now what does it mean to fast okay fasting isn't really that hard you know what it is the church defines as a fast now there's many different facts you can do if you go online you can find the intermittent fasting for health reasons it even helps there's two forms of intermittent fasting that i've tried one is where you pick an eight hour chunk of the day and you eat whatever you want in that eight hours but i outside that eight hours you don't need anything so you pick like ten to six ten a.m to six pm in that chunk i can eat whatever i want but outside that chunk i'm not eating anything the the rewards to the body and the spirit are tremendous now that goes every day though that's a little hard so i picked the 5-2 plan have you ever heard of that five slash two you can look it up on the internet five days a week you can eat anything you want whenever you want but two days a week you fast you take those two days and you reduce your calorie intake to like 300 400 calories so i took that to see this is perfect because the church tradition is to fast on wednesdays and fridays some it's been tuesdays i do tuesdays because in case i miss it then i do the wednesday and then if i i pick friday and if i miss friday then i try to do it on saturday so i have a backup plan but the 5-2 plan is you eat what you want on five days a week but you pick two days a week and you don't you reduce your calorie intake tremendously again please let me emphasize please let me repeat and i've got some people here as witnesses i am not saying you have to do this if your heart or body or your medical condition doesn't allow it we're not saying this the church is not teaching this this is if you want to grow in spiritual life and you are able my mom can't do this because of her diabetes many of you cannot all right so this is important so what is a fast a fast on the traditional sense of the church is one sensible meal and two snacks that don't equal a full meal two days a year barring any medical problems two days a year not that difficult not that difficult one meal and two snacks or two smaller meals that together don't equal the size of a regular meal not that hard again if you are physically able all right now parents are you required to make your kids fast if they are under 18 no so no children at 18 is an adult so technically you are not required to make your children fast because after 18 when the church says you have to fast they're no longer children but you are obligated to teach them about the need for spiritual fasting giving up things that are not food related pastors you can dispense somebody with medical problems if you have a medical problem you just simply ask your pastor father i really need a dispensation from fasting on ash wednesday my diabetes is flaring and i really need that all right or even abstinence if you need meat for some particular reason all right get near here all right if you can't fast as we said for medical reasons you can avoid other things one of the best things you can avoid if you can't fast is the condiments you know condiments offer almost no nutritional value mustard ketchup i was shocked to learn how much sugar is in ketchup salt mustard ketchup salt these are things that you could give up if you can't fast for the medical reason i guarantee you you're not your life does not depend on the condiments all right we can give up flavoring and just eat a straight meal steak without a1 i'm not going to die without the a1 on my stake i might think so you know most all religions and ancient philosophers practice fasting not just catholics by fasting we as we said we are controlling the passions of the body and then we're free we're free we free our souls for more prayer so refraining from food can help bring our bodies under the control of our spirits and that's what paul said the purpose of fasting is that the spirit controls the flesh not the flesh controls the spirit why is this important because the bible says if you live by the flesh you will die if you live by the spirit you will live so you got to do something to make that spirit in charge not the flesh who is your are you listening to your flesh or your spirit all right it is also a way of doing penance for past sins so the church recommends it the fast on good friday as i said before may be continued all the way to the easter vigil this is when lent ends all right this is called the paschal fast to honor the suffering and death of jesus his sacrifice but again medically if you're able now the holy father said this is really interesting that fasting one of the reasons we do it is it helps us become or overcome our indifference for those who go without who don't have food home or or whatever he said we show no interest in their lives their stories their needs or their future the holy father said how many times did their pleading faces make us look the other way as we walked by when we get used to something we become indifferent so fasting can overcome that we can build solidarity all right but again don't lose the purpose of fasting i always i always pick on cameraman giuseppe and i always bring up stories of my dad and and i love them both very tremendously so don't get me wrong but my dad tells the story when he was a kid and technically he didn't have to fast as a kid because he was under 18. i think he was like 13 14 and he had a paper route god bless his efforts but there was an old man who ran a hamburger stand in monroe michigan my dad took the money from his paper route and he said he had the best hamburger big bermuda onion and it's the best hamburger you ever had in your life so my dad was working his paper route took the money from his paper and bought himself this hamburger he said he was racing home mouth salivating you know he was starving he raced into the house and he sat down and his mom my grandma said uh-uh it's friday in lent my dad said he waited up looking at that hamburger till the croc clock struck midnight [Laughter] and then he gobbled that hamburger down okay if that's six hours between the evening and the midnight you're just sitting there staring at that hamburger as your main focus you're kind of missing the point all right so don't kind of fall into that trap although a for effort right praise be to god you gotta imagine god is still smiling still smiling at that effort i i think it's i think it's awesome all right so real quick here all right so um this is the point here um don't lose the purpose um you know in early centuries christian fasted as we said on wednesdays and fridays not just wednesdays and fridays but all year long the church does set some guidelines as a minimum but you're free to do more if you are able why do we do this look at daniel i daniel mourn for three weeks i ate no food i ate no choice food no meat or no wine touched my lips and i used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over it was a period of fasting the gospel message is one of self-denial and detachment for the things that consume us all right so we can become so attached that even the beauty of the world and things in our lives become our gods this is shocking to people but one of the most common is child worship worshiping your own children that you put them ahead of god in terms of discipline or teaching of the faith that they don't want to they don't care they don't want to go to church and okay you don't have to go junior you don't have to well no as part of our family you don't force them to go you invite them and say this is part of our family and so we don't want to be worshipping things of the world even even people even people ironically this is where fasting and abstinence help us to become more satisfied we empty ourselves god fills us for god alone not the things of the world can fill our hunger now i want to real quick we've only got uh one page left so it's going to be real quick now i'm going to show a quick video brother mark's going to show a video on fasting it's it's only a couple minutes she'll watch this video and then when we come back we'll wrap up we're pretty close to being done thank you let's watch this video [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] okay so some really good points there about fasting now let's finish with ash wednesday this is coming up next week and even if you're watching this video at another time later date it's good to know what we have in our faith about ash wednesday now as we said ash wednesday starts 46 days not 40 uh before easter and um because 40 fast days and then the six sundays all right but it actually comes from the ancient jewish tradition of penance and fasting why all right look at the bible job remember he repented in sackcloth and ashes nineveh at the warning of jonah repented in sackcloth and ashes jesus even mentioned this jesus even mentioned ashes he said if the mighty works done in you had been done in tyre or sidon they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes even our lord talks about this let's look at our next slide if brother mark didn't put it up already ash wednesday there's the traditional we catholics see it as the ashes on the forehead we'll talk a little bit more about that why do we have these ashes because they symbolize the dust from which god made us it's not a sacrament it's a sacramental like a rosary it's a symbol of our faith the sacrament is not a symbol a sacrament is actual grace real grace a sacramental is a symbol of so the ashes are a symbol of the grace that you're receiving so our foreheads are marked with these ashes to remind us that life passes away here on earth remember genesis man is dust and until dust you shall return so this was first called ash wednesday way back over a thousand years ago by pope urban ii and it went even before that we have writings from the second century church that refer to wearing ashes as a sign of penance now christ himself spent 40 days fasting in the desert moses spent 40 days to repent for the golden calf and it follows the example of the ninevites who did penance in sackcloth and ashes all right so later in christianity people who had committed grave faults had to do boy we have it much easier today we can do it privately back in the early church if you committed a grave sin you had to do public penance kind of like the scarlet letter right with the big a for adulterer but basically what would happen is on ash wednesday the bishop would sprinkle ashes every year the ashes are made from burning the palms the year before right and the penitents were removed from the church because of their sins can you imagine doing that today oh my gosh we're even giving communion to wayward public sinners so the penitents were removed from the church because of their sins why why were they removed from the church it was like adam and eve adam and eve the first parents were thrown out of the garden because of disobedience so adam and eve being removed from the garden was symbolic when the when the people were removed from the church there wasn't no cry of how horrible that was they knew it was for their own salvation they wanted to do that penance and the penitents did not enter the church again until after 40 days of penance and doing going to confession last few paragraphs today we're not that tough even non-christians and the excommunicated surprisingly are welcome to receive the ashes why again because it's not a sacrament it's a sacramental they can be traced on the forehead as we do in america we're sprinkled on the head actually that's more traditional sprinkling the ashes on the head is more traditional um and in fact some diocese are mandating it for because of covet the ashes you may get them sprinkled on your head again this year all right now the catholic church does not limit though the distribution of the blessed blessed ashes to within churches some priests take them out to the streets and you can even you can even have a non-priest distribute these ashes so it's not as restrictive as you think but it's not really appropriate if you got them on to go out and shop and recreate after receiving the ashes it's really probably better in those cases to to wipe them off but it's also not required for one to keep them or not keep them all right they may be washed off as i said it's probably more appropriate if you're going out and doing something like who wants to see a guy at the bar swearing at the television because his sports team is losing with a big set of ashes on his forehead that's probably not a good witness so in those cases first of all don't do that but if you do do that wipe off wipe off the ashes all right that is why many places the ashes as i said are sprinkled on the head so you can avoid that all right last couple slides here's a picture of some pancakes why in the world am i showing us some pictures of some pancakes it's what we call shrove tuesday this is the day before ash wednesday now all we hear about is fat tuesday because of mardi gras but actually there's a deeper meaning the whole week before lent used to be called trovetide and that is the english equivalent of carnival this is derived from the latin words carnam and lavare which means to take away the flesh interesting carnival means to take away the flesh it's a preparation to remove it not as indulgence of sin that we see in the world today so let's look at our next slide this is what mardi gras has become today and this ironic look at that slide you got corporate sponsors here in tata capital you've got public places like six flags endorsing the mardi gras festival which sometimes is filled with some crazy stuff but yet even mention having a religious festival and that really is religious in the wrong direction but mention anything to do with christianity or easter or anything like that oh no we can't do that but we can celebrate debauchery kind of ironic kind of crazy but anyway in the united states particularly louisiana we call it mardi gras what is marty in french means tuesday and grah means great or fat or large so mardi gras fat tuesday fat tuesday now it's traditionally the day where we now i worked in detroit where's a good polish community in hamtramck right in the middle of detroit all these beautiful polish people and man the lineups at the bakeries for the what they call punch geez if i'm saying that right mary punch key okay ki panchky and they would be lined up around the blocks if you live in the polish section of town anywhere go get yourself some of these they're wonderful and that would be the day that you would indulge in those because then lent you would give it up now this was seen as a last chance you know for over indulging or gluttony but in some places it became excessive um and you know shrove tied then was the time to cast off the flesh but yet preparing but yet doubt in places like mardi gras they've come become very very sinful so pray for those situation why do we call it shrovetide well to shrive meant to hear confessions and to give penance not to the flesh but to the spirit not to the flesh of the beads at mardi gras to flash and expose yourself but rather to the penance of confession and self-sacrifice all right to highlight the point and the motive that the people wanted they would wear special masks and they were performed would they would portray the passion of the lord this has all been demented now now it's demons and you know crazy things used to be originally masks portraying the passion of christ now it's demons and so the weak of shrove tide condone proper pleasures from which a person could then abstain from during la like maybe beer or punch keys right now to abstain from flesh meat and from all the things that come from the flesh is a tradition so people don't realize this that that abstaining from meat wasn't just the meat but meat byproducts so do you know in the church when we would abstain from meat it didn't include just meat but milk cheese and eggs in fact in the eastern catholic church they still do that and their days of abstaining it's not just meat but it's milk cheese and eggs and meat byproducts boy i didn't know that until i went to seminary i'm like man i i wolf that stuff down well in the west we're allowed to have those even on days of abstinence so again it's not that tough this is why you see pancakes so that pancake that i showed you on that slide that brother mark picked up it's because these were popular because people emptied their kitchen of meat by-products like milk cheese and eggs so you got pancakes on shrove tuesday kind of interesting stuff now the church allows this these meat byproducts here in the west during days of abstinence but again the east does not so why oh one little side note on the egg why do we have easter eggs at easter because the egg the easter egg symbolized the shell like the tomb being cracked open and new life coming out of it the little baby chick so easter eggs were symbols of easter the egg was because the tomb cracked open and jesus came out with new life kind of symbolizing this little bitty chick in in creation all right so last thing and we're wrapping up here ash wednesday the joy of self-control but doesn't that sound like an irony the joy of self-control all right to trick i should say the trick to a happy lent is to see it as a chance to make spiritual progress to clean your house get fit do some good things that's a good thing we should see that with joy the fasting prayer and self-denial they're not the end in themselves it's kind of like the cross that we catholics teach if that was all there was if the cross was the end why in the world would you rejoice i'm not going to rejoice in the cross i rejoice in what the cross leads to the resurrection and so prayer fasting and alms giving is not the end in themselves to be sadistic or to be recognized for being virtuous it's the joy of the resurrection that it leads to in easter this is very important and they are like the exercises of an athlete when an athlete exercises that's not the end purpose just to exercise it's so that he can be better when it comes to competition and trust me we're going to face the competition of the evil one we want to be ready or the artist who practices his talent so he can produce a beautiful painting if we and i want to finish with this last couple points if we can't control our stomach our need for sex alcohol or even sleep which are visible things and how do we suppose we can control our emotions our will or our soul which is invisible you can't we are body mind and spirit and what we do with one affects the other so if you don't keep control of the flesh you're never going to have the spirit rule the goal in lent is confession and then make reparation for the sins that were forgiven this is what we talked about the whole first part of the talk through prayer fasting and almsgiving then we are reconciled back to god and when we are that when we are in a state of grace everything you pray and do and say is full of grace you're out of a state of grace nothing you do pray or say is effective now right now i believe hopefully to god i'm in a state of grace so that means what i'm telling you is now full of grace if i was up here not in a state of grace the words wouldn't have that grace and that's when our reputation and our reparation are at stake interesting huh reparation can make a real difference everything you do is elevated by jesus by the grace of god so ashes ashes are important even non-catholics can receive the ashes because again they're a sacramental they can even be given to infants did you know that because even the infants share in original sin so fasting it's a biblical discipline that is in both the old and the new testament christ expected his disciples to fast and issued instructions on how they should do so praise be to god we thank you for joining us but connected with ash wednesday in fasting let's show our next slide the holy father if you haven't heard this pope francis is said to make march 2nd which is next wednesday coming up which is ash wednesday a day of fasting for peace now we have to fast anyway that's a day of fasting in the church but he's saying make it a fast for the day of peace so let's pray for the ukraine the situation over there that there may be peace between russia and the ukraine and the whole world you know look at our next slide jesus said mankind will not have peace until he turns with trust to my divine mercy you know jesus gave us this image that brother mark is showing praise be to god through that image jesus promised that i will defeat your enemies now it doesn't mean that you don't like jim down the street and he's gonna bury jim because you don't like him parking blocking your driveway what it means is your enemy the evil one sin enslavement he will defeat through that image get that image if you don't have it i don't care where you get it draw it have your child draw it if you have to but as we said last week and i'll throw this one last slide a couple last slides brother mark and show um you can get a beautiful image now that we make right here priests brothers seminarians our employees our staff we make these beautiful canvas images right here at the shrine of divine mercy we have them in our gift shop for our visitors that you can go get these beautiful canvas images especially get the divine mercy image to protect your home to protect your loved ones you can get it at divinemercyart.org or at shopmercy.org either site if one's down you can go to the other or call us at 800-462-7426 again if you can't get it with us that's fine get it somewhere even if you just download it off the internet we have those available too so please join us marians as we stand in this lenten season as one big family we're going to need to help each other up you're never going to be able to get through something of penance without help and we're going to help you and pray for you so join our marian family and that is at micprayers.org if you want a powerhouse of prayers being said for you and your family become a marian helper there's no cost it takes ten seconds become a mirian helper join us in our army in this lent to pray for peace to pray for each other and most of all pray that god's mercy know when you become a mirian helper daily we do masses and prayers and penances for our marian helpers share in that grace you want to share in that grace father why are you promoting this because i want as many souls to get to heaven that's what i'm liable for i will be judged as a priest on how many souls get to heaven that have been entrusted to me and if you're watching this right now you're being entrusted to the marians and our goal is to get you to heaven i don't care if you donate a dollar now if you can god bless you god puts the heart that's how we survive i mean we need to keep the lights on but if you can't so be it my goal is to get you to heaven that's what i'll be judged on that's what we want to do become a marine helper share in these graces have so many beautiful ways part of our marian family that we stand together so god bless all of you have a very fruitful lent coming up next week it starts on wednesday and we hope to continue to see you here and our wednesday show on ewtn which i didn't get even to touch on here is about ash wednesday so please join us at 6 30 eastern time or 3 30 on the west coast as we will be showing on ewtn living divine mercy a show right from here in stockbridge so catch it on ewtn and if you miss it wednesday night at 6 30 eastern time you can catch it on our website livingdivinemercy.org god bless you in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen you

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 157,709

Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, fr. alar, Catholic, Church, God, fr. chris alar, blessed virgin, Mary, blessing, worship, Salvation, Faustina, Prayer, Saints, Lent, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, mardi gras, shrove Tuesday, ashes, Good Friday, Paschal fast, 40 days, penance, fast, bible, Ash Wednesday, Easter, repent, reparation, atonement, divine justice, mortification, abstinence, Easter Vigil, Moses

Id: -6zc-37y5NE

Length: 86min 50sec (5210 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 26 2022