Preparing for Lent and Serving the Neglected
The conversation focused on preparing for the Lenten season, emphasizing the importance of giving up luxuries and performing acts of mercy. John highlighted the significance of the Lenten season and suggested activities like attending masses and giving up social media. Mark discussed ways to serve the neglected and poor, particularly through a rosary ministry at retirement facilities. He emphasized the importance of responding to God's messages and shared resources for starting such a ministry. The conversation also touched on the value of supporting spiritual needs at community hospitals. The speakers encouraged attendees to participate in these activities and to consult with their pastors for further guidance. The session concluded with a discussion on using the Lenten season to prepare for Easter.
MC: Joseph Gruber
Presenter: John Domin & Mark Schissler
Deacon: Rick Freedberg
Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus
Jackson Michigan & Surrounding Area Catholic Parishes
Queen of the Miraculous Medal: https://queenschurch.com/
St John the Evangelist: https://saintjohnjackson.org/
St Mary Star of the Sea: https://stmaryjackson.com/
St Joseph Oratory: https://saintjohnjackson.org/new-here/st-joseph-the-worker-oratory/
Our Lady of Fatima: http://www.fatimaparish.net/
St Rita: http://www.stritacatholicparish.com/
St Catherine: https://stcatherinelaboureconcord.org/
Audio Trasnscription
participantOne:(279-37820): Without further ado, we're going to be hearing from two gentlemen this morning. One to talk about the upcoming season, the season of Lent, and the other one to talk about ways to serve the forgotten, the neglected, and the poor, especially in the world today. So first we're going to have John Domene, and he's going to be talking to us about the season of Lent. John. Morning, gentlemen. Morning.
participantOne:(38339-68720): and anybody who thinks he's not. We're coming up into the season of Lent, as you well know. And the season of Lent is a time we use to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. We honor the passion that he went through in order to save us. And what do Catholics do right before something like that happens? We have a feast, Baptuesday, right? Yeah.
participantOne:(69500-100260): Okay, so looking forward, then between Valentine's Day today and Fat Tuesday, this is all your preparatory time to get ready to figure out what it is you're going to do for Lent. Traditionally, from the time we were back in elementary school, it was always, what are you going to give up for Lent? Right? Everybody remember that? Okay, giving things up for Lent, that is something to consider, giving up your luxury items.
participantOne:(100500-132120): I've known people who have given up social media. I think even giving up antacids on Ash Wednesday right after Fat Tuesday might be good. There's a lot of things you can do to help yourself focus on what it was that Jesus did for us. He left all his glory and majesty to be not just one of us, but among the poorest of us. And to be killed in the most horrible way.
participantOne:(133260-166359): for no reason at all. Just think about that. Let that matter for me. The other thing about Lent is you can step it up a notch. Besides giving something up, you can decide to do extra in Lent. That's what Jesus did for us. He didn't have to do any of that. Even our priests. Ash Wednesday, not a holy day of obligation, and yet...
participantOne:(166640-190700): Our priests are giving extra masses out on that day. Over at St. John's at 7 o'clock at night, we have an adoration hour where ashes will be distributed. But at 6.30 and 9 o'clock in the morning, we're having masses as well where ashes will be given out. I don't know what the schedule is for the...
participantOne:(191060-225780): other parishes here in town, whatever your parish is, but I'm sure your parish website and definitely your pastor will know the extras that they're putting in place, extras besides Fish Friday. Okay, during the period of Lent, we get a break. Does everybody know what that break is? That's right. The break is Sunday. Sundays are always feast days in the Catholic Church.
participantOne:(226380-256880): So you only got to make six days at a time of giving something up and doing something extra. Sounds not all that bad when you break it up into chunks like that. You can step up your game knowing you're going to get a break every week. There was a guy back when I was young. He was a magazine writer named Tom McHale. And he was a huge guy.
participantOne:(257100-290060): 350 plus pounds. And he went on a diet to lose the weight. And he had a hard time with diets. And then he came up with this idea. He called it the Never on Sunday Diet. He dieted six days a week. On Sundays, he just splurged to his heart's content. And he became less than half the man that he was when he started out. He got down under 200 pounds very easily.
participantOne:(290440-323680): because he was allowed to have a break Sunday is that break for us Sunday is that time when we can become close to the Lord we can celebrate everything he's done for us so think about what you're going to be doing for Lent this season and looking forward to Easter one of the things you can do is going to be covered maybe more than one of the things you can do is going to be covered by my friend here Mark
participantOne:(325600-359040): Come on up. Thanks, John. If you indulge me for a moment, I'm going to share a story with you or a joke with you that you may have heard in the past. There was a very faithful preacher down south and a flood was coming. And he knew that God would always save him. So the floodwaters were coming out on his front porch and a boat comes by. And he said, we're here to take your safety. He goes, no, no, no, I got this. God's going to save me.
participantOne:(359760-390400): A couple hours later, he's on the second floor window looking out. Another boat comes by, and we're here to take you to safety. No, no, no. God's got me. I don't need you. I'm good. Finally, floodwaters keep coming up. Somehow it gets up on the roof, and a helicopter comes by through the loudspeaker. Hey, we're here to save you. Let us take you out to safety. He goes, no, no, I got this. Well, floodwaters keep rising, and he drowns, and he dies.
participantOne:(391260-418520): He gets to heaven and he's there with God, and he said, God, why didn't you save me? And God said, look, I sent you three messages. What more do you need? So it's not just God being there. It's our response to him. I can, I'll confess that many years of my life, I didn't, I tried to do good things, and I did do some good things.
participantOne:(418940-446240): But it was in my heart I wanted to do more, but there was something holding me back because I didn't see myself as an evangelist, that I couldn't answer any of the questions that people would post me if I started talking about my faith. So I went about just doing small good things, and it was rewarding. And then I participated in a program a number of years back. It was this rosary ministry.
participantOne:(446980-478000): And there's a number of reasons that has been very rewarding for me. And John said there was a couple people that might be interested in starting a rosary ministry at some of the other retirement facilities here in Jackson, of which we have at least eight. So once I started doing it, I didn't even put these connections together until afterwards. But we look at the Beatitudes.
participantOne:(478500-507040): How do we put the Beatitudes into practice? How do we follow God's example and do good works of mercy? And it struck me afterwards that by being and spreading the faith to people that are isolated and in a frail stage of life, and sometimes they don't have families coming to see them,
participantOne:(507680-530160): That moment of joy on a Saturday morning when they get a full embrace of their faith by someone coming to them and then doing a group rosary. That is living the Beatitudes. Or take another example, the St. Francis prayer, make me an instrument of your peace.
participantOne:(530860-561600): That's another way that we can respond by doing an action. And it's a small thing. You don't need to be an expert in Catholicism. Most all of us know the rosary. There's different resources I'm going to make reference to in a moment. But there's even for the volunteers and the residents, we make these rosary guides available. So it's an easy thing to do. All we need to do is connect the dots.
participantOne:(561839-588180): We've already started an example and the people that have started the example at the Jackson County Community, the care facility, we're here to help you if you are interested in stepping up and doing something more at one of the community retirement centers here in town. There's other resources than just the ones that have been working on the current program.
participantOne:(589160-619220): hypothetically go back to St. John's and there's a couple guys from St. John's. We suggest that you talk with your deacon and your pastor because they're probably already doing something at one of the care facilities relative to confession, a communion service, or a mass. And the rosary service would be additive to that. But then imagine if there isn't something going on
participantOne:(619719-651680): at that care facility, you start the rosary ministry, and then it blossoms into the pastor or the deacons having more time and taking more action at the care facilities with the confessions and the communion service. Thereby, for those people that are isolated, they have that benefit of their faith and that blessing in their later years. Going back to why you want to do this is also that the
participantOne:(652079-668900): Works of mercy, both the corporal and the spiritual. Again, this is a physical thing where I mentioned earlier about people being confined and they can't get to church, they can't get to a rosary service, and yet it's on their heart and they don't know how to accomplish it.
participantOne:(669400-698320): You're taking the message, you're taking the opportunity to them. And that's sharing a blessing from God. The spiritual works of mercy is praying for their intentions, praying for their souls, and the other intentions that are in your heart. Because if you're doing a daily rosary every day, daily rosary every day is a little redundant there. If you're doing a daily rosary, as asked to, by God,
participantOne:(698520-717120): Our Lady of Fatima, this is an easy way to get extra blessings from doing that daily rosary. It's very easy to do. Some of the guys here have gone over to the care facility. We're not on a tight schedule, but it doesn't even take an hour.
participantOne:(717600-749480): with the team bringing the residents to the community room. We do the rosary, we get them back, and we're done within an hour. So it is, it doesn't take all morning. So it's a beautiful thing to do. So what we're looking to do, and at the care facility, it's we're transforming it from just a place where the agents are some might even say wasting away. Now we can actually transform it into
participantOne:(750100-771060): a place where grace is thriving. Now, those of you that work with the elderly, you won't see them jump out of their wheelchairs and get excited. And you have to rely on the fact that each one of them has a different degree of mental engagement and vocal engagement.
participantOne:(771800-790600): but you're doing a blessed thing and it's touching their heart and their mind. And there's been a couple of exciting examples that have happened there already. We have a couple of periodic ladies that because they enjoy the peacefulness of it, even though they're not Catholic, I don't even know if they're Christian,
participantOne:(791000-819560): They like attending the rosary. They ask if they can attend just because of the peaceful environment, the drawing nature of a group doing a rosary. So those are some things I would ask you to contemplate. It was interesting, Father Tim and his homily yesterday for the daily mass, he was talking about how even Jesus in his own time, his own...
participantOne:(820180-846280): people in his own town and in Israel, they couldn't see God in Jesus. They just couldn't wrap their head around it. And as my wife loves to say, and I steal her comments a lot of times, is that as we walk through our life, we might be the only mirror of Jesus that they'll ever see.
participantOne:(846860-872620): And by doing this rosary ministry, you're going to have tons of opportunities to do that. So those are some of the reasons why, but the how part is actually easier. Because the how part I mentioned earlier, the support, the team that has put this one together here at the facility, we're here to help you. If you're contemplating it, if there's an ember in your heart that you might want to do this,
participantOne:(872920-896000): Talk to your pastor, talk to your priest, find out what their thoughts are. See if there's already an association with a retirement community somewhere in Jackson. And then either, and you can pick where you want to go. There's not geographic boundaries. It's not like St. Vincent de Paul. How many of you are familiar with St. Vincent de Paul?
participantOne:(897040-926440): And some of you know that within the city of Jackson, it's divided up sort of in unofficial districts, where St. Mary's serves the southeastern quadrant of town. Queens serves the southwestern quadrant. So we all have areas that we cover. Not so with retirement communities. It's sort of haphazard. The priest will go there upon request, but as far as anything regular, it doesn't happen.
participantOne:(926699-954140): One of the reasons is that the deacons and priests, they are busy and they can't get to everything. But we as lay people can support and complement by doing spiritual works of mercy through the rosary. So either yourself or someone you know has a family member or a friend that might be at another facility. Or there might be a...
participantOne:(955079-969680): the priest or deacon might have a facility that they've been wanting to establish some services at. So there's a number of ways you can get common denominators, and it's just you connecting the dots. The need is there.
participantOne:(970100-991720): We have a lot of Catholics in these retirement communities. At the medical care facility, it's 10% of the residents are Catholic. And we have others, I mentioned earlier, there's some that I don't know if they're Christian or Catholic. I know there's a couple ladies that are Christian and they attend, even though they're not Catholic.
participantOne:(991980-1025700): It's free for anyone to attend. So I have a lot of resources. I'm not going to get into all the details because I haven't laid out for you, if you would like. But it's a very easy thing to do. As John said, during a time of month, it's not a matter of giving up, but it's a matter of doing more. And this is a pretty easy one. So if you have some questions afterwards, I'll be around. So thank you for your time, gentlemen. I'm going to look this up for them. Tom, let's take a pic of this.
participantOne:(1026200-1055120): We're going to have some resources out for St. Mary's Parish, what they're doing for Lent, St. John's Parish, what they're doing for Lent. Couldn't find anything on Queen, so ask Joseph. Ask me. Okay. What's up, Mike? I want to say one thing. Go ahead. The woman at St. the Hospital, which means does a great job.
participantOne:(1055520-1086440): And I'll tell you what, those people there, they love us there. And when you go there, you get something out of it. Yeah, yeah. And I'll tell you what, if anybody can go there and help out. We have a long tradition of going to our community hospital here and helping out there spiritually. What's his name here? He got, you know, it's a blessing. Me and Brandon go there every time and it's a blessing. Anybody else go to that?
participantOne:(1086940-1121941): People, they realize part of you. Thanks, Mike. Okay. I guess it's time to refill our coffee cups and our donut cups, I guess. And then we can meet in the back and kind of brainstorm as to what we're going to do to use the season of Lent to prepare for Easter season coming up after.
