Fasting
Fasting is an ascetically practice recommended in the scriptures and the writings of the church fathers. It is sometimes prescribed by a precept of the church, especially during the liturgical season of Lent, which is why we're doing it now. If you look through scripture, you'll see that fasting is mentioned throughout as an aid to prayer.
MC: Adam Hohn
Parochial Vicar: Tyler Arens
Presenter: John Domin
Deacon: Rick Freedberg
Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus
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participantOne:(37820-70660): Let's begin with a prayer. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Welcome to the second Saturday cord during the month of April. Amen.
participantOne:(71420-102700): You can see all the refreshments and things are behind me. The restrooms are right behind Maynard there. I did speak with Joseph. He's home. One of his daughters is in the hospital this past week. We are planning on having court next Saturday. So yeah. So anyway, plan on being here next Saturday.
participantOne:(103040-133079): if you can. I know it's this time during Holy Week, but we want to make sure that we touched on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving all together right before Easter. Maynard said he's got a few announcements. Yeah, go ahead. There's a gentleman at St. John's Church that's been having strokes and we've contracted with
participantOne:(133340-169140): a council out of the Irish Hills to build him a ramp. Right now we're looking at May 3rd, Saturday, May 3rd. These contractors have already measured, procured a lot of the lumber. They're very good at it. They're very organized. So the money's been appropriated, the supplies, things of that sort. What we're going to need is bodies.
participantOne:(170380-208700): So, there'll be a core that morning, and I'm kind of hoping that maybe people from here could over in, it's right back in the fairgrounds on George Street. And I'll get the exact time and location to anyone that wants to help out. We're going to need bodies that morning. Within a day or so, these guys are very organized, and they'll have a lot of people.
participantOne:(209280-240079): different people working on different sections and it goes pretty quick. The only thing that would sidetrack it is if in fact this gentleman's been having small mini strokes. If he's still healthy enough to make the RAM appropriate then we'll go ahead with it on May 3rd. So if you could kind of leave some time aside for that day it'd be nice.
participantOne:(240720-268740): Any questions? Yeah. Maynard, only because he's done this for years with Disability Connections, have they pulled all the permits if it's in the city? He's on that. This is Howell's man, Irish Sheldon. He's all about knowing exactly what, yes, that he said he'd look into that. Thank you. Thanks, Maynard. Anybody else? Announcements? Things going on?
participantOne:(270900-317080): I can announce, don't forget the St. Joseph's Council is going to have a Polish dinner on the 27th of April, 11 to 5, St. John's, Perry. Put it on your calendar. Come on out. Original Polish. All ceremonies like you remember it. Thanks, Dave. Yeah, that's Divine Mercy Sunday. So the week after Easter is when the St. Joseph's Council is hosting the Polish dinner. How much is the dinner today? Fifteen. Fifteen dollars. It's well worth it. Polish festival, right? Right.
participantOne:(317480-352740): Same ladies cooking it. Can't go wrong. There's extra, if you need extra bunky, there's a No. Hey Dave, is there going to be spaghetti? Also a reminder, this morning is the last penance service. They'll be upstairs at 10 o'clock. For those who haven't
participantOne:(354120-390020): gone to confession during the season of Lent, it's maybe your last opportunity before Holy Week to get a confession in. So 10 o'clock, having a penance service upstairs. So with that, I'd like to welcome up our speaker, John Domeen. Okay, if you all remember, this being the three meetings preceding Easter, we were gonna talk about Almsgiving, which was done last week,
participantOne:(390460-424100): Today is fasting, next week is prayer. You see the CCC's definition of fasting on those little handouts on your tables there. I just heard, what's the CCC? That's the Catholic Catechism. It defines fasting as refraining from food and drink as an expression of interior penance in imitation of the fast of Jesus for 40 days in the desert.
participantOne:(425200-451420): fasting is an ascetically practice recommended in the scriptures and the writings of the church fathers. It is sometimes prescribed by a precept of the church, especially during the liturgical season of Lent, which is why we're doing it now. If you look through scripture, you'll see that fasting is mentioned throughout as an aid to prayer.
participantOne:(451920-483219): Typically, prayer and fasting go together. We're just going to talk about fasting for Lent here. Is anybody doing any fasting here in Lent? Traditionally, good, I see a lot of you are. Traditionally, that's, I'm going to give something up for Lent, kind of thing. Just giving up something for Lent, you know, that's fine, that's good. It builds discipline. It shows our enemy Satan
participantOne:(483720-520200): that we have control over these bodies that he likes to control. So with fasting, we are first sticking in his face that he doesn't have control over us, we have control over us. So what's his next go-to? He tries to fool us into doing things we shouldn't be doing. Keep in mind that what you do with your body is a demonstration of what's going on in your heart. It's very important that you always keep that in mind.
participantOne:(520959-550900): What's going on with your body is what's going on in your heart. We should all be living exemplary lives as Christians, as Catholics. In fasting, we should be doing something that is meaningful. I know some guys, for fasting, for life, they give up whiskey.
participantOne:(551620-587060): but they don't drink whiskey. So pretty easy to do that, right? But it's not really fasting. It's just giving the give something up for Lent thing lip service. So with fasting, this is something that's supposed to be uncomfortable for us. And when your body's uncomfortable, prayer becomes more central. When your body's uncomfortable,
participantOne:(587380-616800): In order to escape that discomfort, the only place to go is into prayer. You can do other distractions, but as soon as you quit those, you're right back to uncomfortable again. Prayer, the comfort, hangs with you. Everybody knows this, right? I'm not saying anything that anybody doesn't know. Just putting it all together. Because next week, we're going to be talking about prayer.
participantOne:(618000-645360): and the different prayer methods and how that works in getting us and our hearts to be more like the heart of Jesus. Any questions that have come up so far? Yes. So can I extrapolate that? My body is where I was. My body is where I was. So if my body is racked, does that mean...
participantOne:(645560-678240): and I can't rest from pain, does that mean I have a restless heart? And does that mean that if I pacify my heart, the pain in my body is going to stop? And the answer to that question is prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit, what's going on with all this pain in your body? This is all about focusing you on your relationship with God. I understand that, but... Yeah, and God knows why you have the pain. I don't know why you have the pain.
participantOne:(678660-714100): God knows why you have the pain. Okay, so I'm a senator, so I possibly could be very much at peace in my heart, and my physical condition could have nothing to do with what's going on in my heart, is that correct? Run it by me again. I could be, I could be, I could have just got hit by a train and my legs were cut off, but I was just so unified on that I could be so in my heart at peace. Okay. My legs could still be... That's true. Or I could have a disease, so my body could really not be reflecting the condition of my heart.
participantOne:(716520-742000): Is that correct? I'm trying to follow logic, what you're telling me. So, right, I mean, because there's people that, in fact, aren't I told to offer my suffering up? So then again, if my body is suffering, and I'm offering up love, so is my heart suffering? But are you pursuing that pain? I think that's the thing you said, with your body pursuing that, you're trying to reflect it. Well, if I misunderstood a lot of what I was taught, I would pursue the pain.
participantOne:(742579-775460): to prove I love, I have to suffer. No, I wouldn't be pursuing. They had to pursue me. All of a sudden, I have a genetic disease that says I can't control my body. But I've been praying, and I've been one with Christ in my perception. My heart's the one. So if I was to say my body's telling me something about my car, or my heart feels peaceful, my body's doing all this, and I go, let me evaluate my heart. Now you're thinking of like faking it.
participantOne:(775699-806300): Okay. So at this time, keep going. Okay. Thank you for your information. Yeah. I was just going to say that, you know, me, I'm no theologian. I'm no expert. But we have a lot of people in here that know about some theology. They know about God.
participantOne:(806660-838660): and everybody's coming at it from their personal perspective. So, this question here, I'm just, I'm not going to not answer it or anything. I'm just going to say we're going to put this off until it's discussion time at the round tables. That is a much more appropriate area to delve into the question that you've asked. Okay? All right. I got a little sidetracked on that and I'm not firing on all eight this morning.
participantOne:(839699-871580): Okay, so types of fasting. We can give up our favorite foods. We can give up categories of foods. We can give up drinks. We can give up things that we normally do, like Saturday morning golf. Or I don't want to say give up core, but if core is the high point of your week, you may decide to invest more into core.
participantOne:(872720-894680): We can always use help. We can use more speakers. So typically fasting, though it's normally applied to food and everything, it can also have to do with your activities and what you're doing with your life. Next week, your fasting could be carrying lumber around for the ramp.
participantOne:(898199-931160): I happen to know of one deacon this Lent. He has decided that his fast is going to be one of control. He's not given up anything in particular, but all his favorite things he's going to only do a little. And I don't know about you guys, but when I get started doing something I like, it's really hard to stop. So that's something to consider for fasting too. Thank you.
participantOne:(931579-977960): keeping it very moderate whatever it is that you like to do because Jesus was in the desert for 40 days, and I imagine he wasn't just sitting there I imagine he walked around he prayed a lot and then at the end of the 40 days The enemy came to him and started messing with him Bless you. This is the process that we're emulating with fasting so in conclusion
participantOne:(979120-1021640): Any other questions that have been raised? We're about ready to take a break and then go over to the round tables. Go ahead, Maynard. My opinion, you hit upon it and said it briefly. I think we need to stress it a little bit more. It's a discipline. And a discipline is something that you have to be conscious of what you're doing. It's not just something you do haphazardly or unwillingly. A discipline is something that you have to really think about and make it part of your fasting.
participantOne:(1022500-1060800): Especially with the type that you're talking about, like Christ did. That takes a little work. Okay, so if there's no more questions, we'll go ahead and we'll take our break. And you can either fast or not. Use the restrooms or whatever. We'll meet at our tables and we'll discuss how our fasting is going and our own views as to...
participantOne:(1061100-1073920): as to fasting. And then remember all that stuff next week when prayer comes, which is goes hand in hand with fasting. All right.
