Lent Is a Process—Not an Event

excuse me sorry i'm gonna do this big deep breath let it all out okay here we go [Music] hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents so it is ash wednesday well maybe it's ash wednesday when you're watching this if it is ash wednesday when you're watching this tomorrow is the thursday after ash wednesday that'll be march 3rd 2022 at 2 30 pm central time back in this channel ascension presents there's a guiding father mark toops father mark toops is the author of the lenten ascension linton companion he is going to be uh journeying basically kind of like with people throughout the course of lent with this companion and online so if you're interested at all go to back to this go go to no stay or return to this channel tomorrow at 2 30 central time um on march 3rd and if you missed it maybe to have it recorded i mean it's going to be recorded maybe they'll rebroadcast it maybe you can like return to it anyways this london companion it's money so check it out it is lent um i don't know if you noticed this you might be part of the virtual front pew the we have an online mass every sunday last sunday uh something went completely wrong with the camera the audio worked just fine but the camera did not work just fine and so there was no image there's no picture so we just kind of posted the homily it was one of those situations where i felt badly for the virtual front pew those folks who are unable to get to mass in person because we've been praying with them and for them throughout this whole pandemic in fact back in 2020 i don't know if you heard about this thing in march of 2020 when everything shut down everything locked down one of our thoughts we didn't even get to say goodbye to our students on campus i work on a campus and they were on their spring break we were all in spring break and it was like oh i'll see you next week and all of a sudden it was like oh i'll see you i don't know when i'll see you and so one of our thoughts was we wanted to be able to like knowing that people couldn't get to mass we're like well let's have a mass online and reach out to our students and so that's i contacted ascension and said hey can we do this and they're like yeah great we'll we'll host it on the platform really quite kind of a cool thing we got a camera it was it was what it was and then it seems like every i don't know four or six months there was a need to update something like okay the camera's fine but it's not really great or the audio is okay but it's not really working that great um and so every single time we would uh try to fix things because they seemed to not be working or not working like they should or not working like they could be working and it would be really easy for someone like me maybe to get really frustrated with this process to be able to to see this as uh this is failure like oh i thought we would get that with i thought we got this right or i thought after a couple times of changing this now we're done we can set it and forget it and yet there were a couple of people i work with at ascension some people are just phenomenal and whenever they come and visit and and help with here's a new camera or here's a new way to film this or here's a new way to do these kind of things they never see the the old way as failure and the new way as complete success they see it as a process in fact they keep using the word iterate meaning uh they talk about the iterative process and that's a fun word it's a fun phrase uh the iterative process like no this is just an iterative process they say which means um they don't see this uh this learning and growing as failure they see it as learning and growing so the iterative iteration is so hard for me to say the iterative process is affect the fact that oh we can change if things aren't working as well as they can be we can adapt we can update we can change these things and the fact that we need to change or update is not failure it's the process of growth now i've been thinking about this not only because that just really just hits my heart especially after last sunday when we the mass online mass just kind of took a nosedive but also when it comes to lent i know that for myself a lot of times when it comes to lent i'm like okay i'm going to choose something and we're just going to hang on to it like it and it's kind of it becomes one of those situations where it's like how long can you hang on because you chose this thing on ash wednesday chose that you said you were going to do this one thing so for the next season of lent you got to do that one thing you got to just hang on even if you realize at some point this isn't helping even if you realize at some point well it seems like something else would be more helpful for me well to let go of that and to choose something else or to even adjust that and pivot to something else could seem like failure like no no i chose this thing on ash wednesday and i stuck with it until easter not a bad thing but if i realized that wait a second the thing i chose is not the thing that's really actually needed in my heart for example i i thought of this example a while ago like say you were to give up social media say okay for social for for lent i'm going to give up social media i'm not going to turn to all the all the usuals right facebook twitter instagram those kind of things because you just noticed yourself getting really distracted by social media but then what happens is in the course of lent you might realize wait a second it wasn't those things that was really distracting me it was all the time i spent on youtube like right here all the time i spent on youtube that was really distracting me that was really taking me away from being present that had become an obstacle between me and the lord well now you might just say well no i decided on ash wednesday i was going to give up twitter and facebook and instagram i didn't say anything about youtube well it could be that you just need to iterate give yourself the grace give yourself the freedom to grow right right to change and to realize that what i started doing at the beginning of lent doesn't have to be the thing that i finished all the way through the end of lent now of course don't if something's not broken you don't have to fix it but also if you realize that you know i had a goal when i gave up whatever the thing was or when i started doing whatever i started doing i'm recognizing right now recognizing right now that this is not helping me towards that goal i wanted to get closer to the lord but i'm realizing you know two weeks in that doing this thing or giving up that thing isn't actually making room for me to get close to the lord so instead of just hanging on and saying well i'm going to stick with it because i said i was going to do it gosh darn it but saying i'm going to iterate i'm going to grow i'm going to change why because this is so good holiness is not an event holiness is a process and lent doesn't have to just simply be an event lent is a process in fact we know this already the season of lent was originally called the season of purification and enlightenment and purification doesn't happen in a moment purification is a process an enlightenment doesn't happen on what happened in the moment enlightenment is learning right and learning is a process and so my invitation if what you chose for lent is helping you stick to it commitment is a virtue that's really good perseverance is a virtue but if you discover that what you chose is not actually helping you in the way that is optimal then why not pivot why not change why not iterate lent gets to be an iterative process for all of us so as we begin this lent um it's not just to set it and forget it lent is not crockpot cooking and neither is the holiness holiness is not crockpot cooking where you just set it and forget it it is attending to one's soul and asking the question okay lord is this helping me get close to you or is this leading me further away is this is this drawing me near to you or is this an obstacle to your heart and if it is an obstacle if it is not helping me then iterate it is an iterative process and i love saying that phrase anyways promise here at ascension presents my name is father mike happy lent and god bless iterate iterate iterate [Music] you

Channel: Ascension Presents

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Keywords: ascension, ascension press, ascension presents, father mike, catholic advice, catholic inspiration, catholic motivation, fr. mike schmitz, fr. Mike schmidt, father mike schmitz, michael schmitz, fr. Mike advice, fr. Mike videos, fr mike schmitz, what to do for lent, ash wednesday 2022, what is ash wednesday, lent 2022 devotional, lent 2022 ash wednesday, ash wednesday, lent 2022, preparing for lent, ash wednesday explained, lent 2022 resources, lent 2022 what to give up

Id: LGCBstt4v5U

Length: 7min 55sec (475 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2022