Catholics participate in a reenactment of Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) in Columbus Junction March 29, 2024. Stations of the Cross is offered throughout Lent at many parishes.
By Barb Arland-Fye
The Catholic Messenger
Ashes have been distributed, a physical sign of the entry into Lent, which brings together many Catholics — regular and infrequent churchgoers. “We’re incarnational. We like things. Things mediate the presence of God and the presence of Christ,” Bishop Dennis Walsh said during a Catholic Messenger Conversations podcast focused on Lent.
This ritual taps into “the Catholic imagination of (our) childhood and the whole history and memory of the sacrifices we make as a family and the prayer time we do as a family. It’s a physical sign that we intend to enter this time of penance and sacrifice,” he said while recording the podcast Feb. 19 at KALA radio station on the St. Ambrose University campus in Davenport.
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving — three practices of Lent — are practices of spiritual growth for almost every major religion, the bishop said. For Catholics, it is not a multiple-choice option. “Everyone should commit to an enhanced prayer life during Lent. Everybody should be giving alms and doing acts of charity and kindness and giving something up,” Bishop Walsh said.
“Sometimes it doesn’t go so well, sometimes our Lenten sacrifice and our almsgiving and all those things only go for a couple of weeks and then we kind of peter out,” he said. He joked about a former parishioner who told him she gave up cooking one Lent and hadn’t cooked in 40 years!
So, how does a new bishop who served 32 years as a priest incorporate these Lenten practices in his life? “They should be regular practices throughout our entire lives. As priests and bishops, we are accustomed to some sort of fasting that goes on throughout the year. Fasting for the protection of life, fasting for various reasons that bishops ask us to fast for, such as vocations and those sorts of things. Prayer should be a regular part of every priest and bishops’ daily life,” he said.
Fasting
During Lent, Bishop Walsh gives up something enjoyable. “I like candy. Some years I’ve given up candy. I like my Diet Coke and some years I’ve given up Diet Coke,” he said. “For Catholics, I would recommend looking at social media fasting, giving up social media and the whole digital environment we seem so addicted to now.”
During a visit to The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota recently, Bishop Walsh spoke with seminarians in their propaedeutic year (first stage of formation), who are fasting for the year from social and digital media. “I asked the students there how that was going and they said it was wonderful. They said it’s the best part of the year, fasting from their phone and fasting from social media. They didn’t realize how much a part of their lives that whole digital environment had been for them.”
Fasting from gossip is another alternative to giving up a food item, Bishop Walsh suggested. Whatever you choose to give up, “Fasting should be a real fast rather than a resolution or a goal.”
In the difficult moments of fasting, “that’s when it becomes real to me,” Bishop Walsh said. It reminds him of the sacrifice Christ made. The bishop admitted he has failed his fasting commitment a number of times. However, he believes “God is grateful for the efforts that we make. One of my favorite prayers in the preface of the Mass is that God has no need of our thanks but our desire to thank him is itself our gift… He has no need for our sacrifice but our desire to offer it up in sacrifice is itself our gift.”
Almsgiving
Among the almsgiving practices Bishop Walsh appreciates most is Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl. He remembers participating in the Lenten tradition during religious education class in his youth. “Whoever thought of the Rice Bowl project was a genius,” he said. People “fill their Rice Bowl with their offerings and their sacrifices represented by the monetary offering. … It takes us out of ourselves” and “focuses our attention on starvation throughout the world and the work of charity throughout the world.”
One of his favorite Rice Bowl stories involves a family whose children attended a parish school but were not Catholic. The mother returned the Rice Bowl at the end of Lent — filled with rice! She didn’t know the purpose of the Rice Bowl collection.
Catholics can participate in almsgiving in numerous ways. “It doesn’t have to be giving money to an organization, that’s part of it certainly, but it’s also sharing your time and talent, looking in on your neighbor, an elderly neighbor, or doing something kind and charitable for somebody…. People often say, ‘I don’t have time to do these things’ and that’s exactly why we should do it. That’s why we should be looking out for our elderly neighbors and volunteering in some capacity.”
Catholics pray during Eucharistic adoration at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Iowa City in this Oct. 31, 2024, photo.
Prayer
The practice of prayer and reading Scripture requires intentionality. “St. Alphonsus says every prayer should end with a resolution and to pray for the grace that the resolution will happen,” Bishop Walsh said. “Be realistic about your prayer … start with five minutes of prayer and work your way up. If you say you’re going to do an hour of prayer and you don’t do it, you’re going to beat yourself up for not doing it … I say go in the other direction and start with five minutes and start working your way up. I think the Lord is as grateful for five minutes of prayer as much as he is for 10 or 15 minutes.”
Bishop Walsh recommends prayer resources such as the Hallow App (hallow.com), which offers Christian and Catholic Prayer and meditation and is becoming popular in the U.S. Church in helping people to pray, providing them with spiritual reading and presenting good Catholic speakers.
In his prayer life, Bishop Walsh often uses the Ignatian form of prayer, which taps into the imagination. “I generally stick with the Synoptic Gospels and get the stories that are relatable. We all love stories, we all love narratives,” the bishop said. “It’s not by accident that the Lord teaches through parables and through stories. Find those concrete situations that Jesus finds himself in, to imagine yourself in the scene … Using your imagination in those moments of prayer is helpful in terms of trying to understand what is taking place.”
He also recommended Lectio Divina, a form of reading, meditating and praying Scripture. “It’s about meditating and chewing over the words,” he said. Distractions come during any form of prayer. “I think it’s part of the temptation,” he said. “You almost have to train your mind to relax and focus and it takes time to do that.”
The sacrament of reconciliation is another important element of Lent, which some Catholics avoid because of fear. “Every time I’ve left the sacrament of reconciliation it’s been a great sense of joy and a great sense of relief. I would tell people not to be afraid,” Bishop Walsh said. “Our fears are often disproportionate to the reality.” The priest hearing your confession isn’t hearing anything he hasn’t heard before. “If anything, a priest would think of you with a sense of rejoicing that you are able to unload the baggage you’ve carried for so long.”
The life of grace God calls us to is extraordinary, Bishop Walsh said. “The expectation the Lord has for us is to be a saint. Recognizing that we fail, he also gives us the remedy, the grace that comes to us in the sacrament of reconciliation. The chance to start over again.”
