Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
"Everybody Wants to Change...but is it Possible?" | March 2, 2025
A time for deep reflection and personal change invites listeners to explore the true meaning of the 40 days of Lent. We delve into the necessity for meaningful disciplines that cultivate growth and deepen faith and connection.
In this episode:
• Significance of Lent and its call to introspection
• Addressing distractions of the digital age
• Steps to ensure chosen disciplines genuinely resonate with personal goals
• The challenge of spiritual resistance during times of change
• The call to actionable steps beyond simple intentions
• Importance of preparing oneself for God’s presence and grace
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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolfe. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives and finding hope in His Word. And now your host, father Don Wolfe.
Speaker 2:Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Father Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Oklahoma City and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. We are come upon Lent again, the 40 days of Lent, as we turn our eyes and hearts to the Lord. They're important for us because from the earliest days of the Church it has been a time in which we pause and look at what matters to us and discern where we are on our journey with the Lord. When it comes to the hard questions about conversion and sin, 40 days is hardly enough time to get to the heart of things. Of course, if we're talking about enduring the pains of change, then 40 days is about as long as we can hold out. It all depends on what we want and on what we focus on. So, to be fair to ourselves and to this time, there are a few things to consider as we enter into this time. It's when the church invites us to consider the faith with serious intent. The least we could do is actually to pause for a moment and invest our interest in it. Most of the time, if we have any interest in our lives in any clinical sense, and look at who we are and where we are. We generally fantasize that there will come a time in which we can pause what we're doing and go in another direction. Even if it's a fantasy, it's reality, knowing that we think about it. I've hardly met anyone who's ever said to me you know, I'm perfectly content with my life and I don't want to change anything. If you are one of those persons who's thought about changing something, now's your time. Also, you might also pause for a moment and think about the great challenge of our age. Again, I'm appealing to those people who tell me they feel overwhelmed by the world in which they live and complain about how the world comes at them relentlessly. They find themselves, for example, going through social media or spending hours on their phones or tablets, scrolling from one thing to another it hardly matters what it is and when they're done, they feel restless and depressed. It doesn't have to be porn that we're looking at that makes us sad and forlorn that we've wasted another hour or several hours letting our time evaporate into the atmosphere and in response, we imagine that we could just take some time and allow ourselves to be free of that temptation of spending some time that we might find to be fruitful and pleasant and not weighed down with all of the noxious effects of sitting on our phones all the time. Well, now's the time.
Speaker 2:So let me tell you a story from many years ago, when I was on the executive committee of the National Federation of Priest Councils, a middle-aged priest from, I think, the Diocese of Detroit was telling me that he had just finished his annual physical. He was in pretty good shape for his age. He'd done all the blood tests in preparation for his physical. He took care of himself and did what most people do in his age range to be a decent, healthy citizen. And the doc came in and talked about the physical and what he'd found. It all looked pretty good. And then he turned to the blood work and the doc said I don't know what's going on here, but your numbers are off the chart in a couple of areas. What's happening? I'm not sure what I'm seeing here. And areas what's happening? I'm not sure what I'm seeing here. And this priest told me. I said to the doc well, I know what the problem is. Every night before I go to bed, I eat a bag of Doritos. He said. The doc looked at me for a minute and he said every night. And I told him yeah, every night. I'm guessing that has something to do with what you're seeing in the blood work I submitted.
Speaker 2:I tell that story because it's an analog of where so many of us have gotten to when it comes to the great distraction machine that is social media in our time. We really can spend our time and allow it to be taken from us in ways that are no more healthy for us than what happens in the world, than what happens in our blood work, if we spend an hour each night eating just about the worst things you can consume, and then doing that for months on end. Remember the design of phones and tablets and the succession of images and stories in the commercials and the graphics that you see, as well as the random images and stories thrown in your feed. All of this has been carefully massaged to keep you on your phone for as long as possible. 20 years ago, these elements of cyberspace were just beginning. We were being warned about how deleterious these things are for us. Now we find that we are as powerless over what's doing us harm as we are when we open a bag of Doritos and find we can't stop eating them until they're all gone.
Speaker 2:So, with the possibility of a 40-day invitation to change staring us in the face. Now might be the time in which we actually spend a moment divorced from what embarrasses us and shames us to admit that we spend too much time on the phone or too much time listening to too many other people, too much time wasting our time or too much time listening to too many other people, too much time wasting our time away from what we should really pay attention to Whether we've really thought all that much about Lent. Now might be the time in which we indulge our freedom, fantasy and just throw the dice and act out the freedom that we long for. While it's not necessarily a part of Lent itself, we might also attend to the images and feelings that we have when we think of these things that we'd for. While it's not necessarily a part of Lent itself, we might also attend to the images and feelings that we have when we think of these things that we'd like to change, whether we think of them as shameful or simply as wasteful. What we normally do is feel the moment and then think back to a time in which things were different.
Speaker 2:When I think of disconnecting from my computer and living my life in a more fruitful and blessed way. I think of my time in the seminary, and what I think of is not going to mass every day or the books I read or the classes I took. What I think of in that recall is that in my seminary I never watched television. It wasn't because I was virtuous or that it was forbidden, far from it. It was because, in fact, the reception in the Ohio Valley where I was there was no such thing as decent TV. The reception was so terrible, so TV was hardly worth investing any time in. It just wasn't there as something to think about or to long for or to spend time watching. Instead, my days were full of the interactions and complications of life with all my classmates. That makes it sound boring, but it wasn't at all. Again, I wasn't especially virtuous and I wasn't surrounded by great saintly seminarians. We were all guys who knew that going to the TV room was bound to be boring and frustrating since the reception on TV was so bad. So we didn't go.
Speaker 2:We filled our lives with other things, other concerns, other measures, and when I look back on that time, I long for the moments in which my life was nurtured by the long stretches of time I had in conversation and prayer and fun that I would never have had if I'd spent as much time then looking at the million interesting things on my computer which didn't exist then as I do now. Oh and, by the way, all those years ago we didn't make phone calls. Our lives were not engaged in the exterior in the way they are now. When I look back, I feel the focus I had on the moment, on what was present and immediate right then. It feels so much more alive when I think back to then than now. Again, I'm not a Luddite thinking that our lives would be better if we threw our phones away and walked around with our face in a book.
Speaker 2:I only use that example to invite anyone who's felt uneasy about how his life is now to pause for a moment during these 40 days and imagine that it might in fact be possible to break the bonds of frustration with how his time is spent and maybe then do something different. More than anything, lent is a 40-day break from the normal and the ordinary. It's the chance to engage the hunger for difference and the hope for change. Just lean into the time. It can be fruitful for all of us. The 40-day measure comes from the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness when he was preparing for his public ministry. From the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness when he was preparing for his public ministry. According to the Gospels, he spent his time in prayer and fasting, getting ready to plunge into the public proclamation of his mission to announce the coming of God's kingdom. He separated himself from the ordinary and the everyday and submitted himself to the discipline of penance in order to encounter the truth of himself and his life, as well as to hear the voices in his head buzzing with the weight of his decisions. Even the Son of God needed some time away in order to be ready to confront what was happening in his life.
Speaker 2:The point's clear it's good to take some time to ready ourselves. Now that we know that it is a lively option for us, there are a few things that we should know and prepare ourselves for as we enter these days, especially because these days are not the kind of thing people talk about or share. Very often, in different ages, the understanding of such a time was different and people knew what to expect. It's not so much the case in our time. We do well to pay attention to some obvious aspects of this time so as to make it fruitful, as fruitful as it could be. The first is that we should choose a discipline for these days that matters to us. That might seem a little odd at first, but if we're focused on some notion of fasting or sacrifice that we've heard about, that doesn't really matter to us, then we're likely not to be invested in it long enough for it to be much of a discipline at all. And in addition to this admonition, it's also helpful to be specific in terms of what we identify and what we know of ourselves.
Speaker 2:If we want to do something for Lent that's going to matter in the long run, it's going to have to matter to us. For example, if I feel like my life is unbalanced and too distracted, I could choose to spend this time getting, say, for example, more exercise. That's certainly a spiritual option. There's no part of what I do that does not respond to the truth of my spirit. But if I just say I'm going to get more exercise, ultimately I'm not going to do anything. And if I think that I should and if I think I should get more exercise only because I've seen the advertisements for running shoes or heard about all the health benefits of walking 5,000 steps a day, I'm probably not going to do much of anything either. First of all, I have to want to act, to do something. Certainly, I have to do more than say to myself that I'm going to exercise for Lent. That resolution will last from about Ash Wednesday to the first Monday, then it'll be gone. No, what I have to do is to plan to go walking or jogging or swimming or chasing pigeons, or however we're going to get the exercise we truly want.
Speaker 2:The discipline of the season is in the choosing and then acting. Lent is a time of actual doing, not just thinking the right way. Unless we are involved physically and materially, all our thinking and intending is going to go by the wayside. We have to choose and then choose how to act. Now I'm not someone who responds to the soft insistence that Lent should be a time when we say focus on helping people, as so many people comment. Nor do I want to pray more, as lots of people say to themselves and to me. Those are all good intentions, but they don't go to the heart of what real commitment are all good intentions, but they don't go to the heart of what real commitment, real discipline and real change look like. They're sentiments and nothing more. Sentimentality isn't going to make a person pray more or make him more charitable, or make him get more exercise or whatever.
Speaker 2:If we're going to take this time as a time of preparation, it has to be a time in which we envision, act, decide and then do. If I say that I want to pray more, then I have to decide when and how it's going to happen. I have to set the time aside and then focus on it, and I have to discipline myself to keep my commitment. If I don't do all these things, my sentiment will dissolve in about 10 days and I won't have done anything. If I want to disconnect from social media as part of my discipline, for example, I'd have to envision and then act to keep away from my phone and my computer. I have to put in place a deliberate protocol of how to go to my screens and use all my apparatuses without falling into the abyss of clicking on the tab that will lose me for an hour. If I just imagine I'll stay away, my resolution will be gone in no time. I have to decide to act. Negative of such a decision is to decide not to change anything, and nothing will change.
Speaker 2:The second thing to note is that it doesn't really matter what you choose to change, as long as it matters to you, which is another way to say that the discipline you choose doesn't have to be approved by what lots of other people are doing or what other guys talk about. It only has to be what you want to see of yourself. Your friend, fred, might want to pray each day for an hour and has a plan to do that. It doesn't mean you have to. Real discipline could be to pray the rosary every day and to plan to do it, say, on the way to work it only takes about 20 minutes after all or you might want to spend your time getting that exercise you talk about. So you're going to walk in the neighborhood, just as you've told yourself that you would do for the last 20 years. Fred's commitment isn't necessarily better than yours. You can make your discipline whatever you want for yourself and your situation.
Speaker 2:The focus and the whole reason for Lent is that you might come to know yourself and your relationship with God in a more complete and a more wholesome way. The first way to achieve this is to walk through the open door of change. Committing yourself to interrupting the norm, to distance from the normal and the ordinary, is how to put yourself in a place in which you can begin to see what you haven't seen and feel what you haven't felt. It might even be the chance to hear what you haven't seen and feel what you haven't felt. It might even be the chance to hear what you haven't heard before. Step out into the wilderness where the normal and the everyday is outside of the comfort and the ease of everyday. Once you do that, then the rest can follow.
Speaker 2:Here's a hint Sometimes the more extreme a challenge or a discipline is, the better it is. I say that with a kind of whispered voice because it can be misunderstood and misapplied. The history of the church is full of people who carry things too far, and they do so because there isn't anyone there to remind them that even good intentions have to have good boundaries. But what I mean is what we all know to be true of ourselves, which is sometimes we're more likely to do what is extreme and completely different than to do what is only some slight or simple thing. We might be more likely to be serious about getting in shape to run the Chicago Marathon than to commit ourselves to quote get more exercise unquote Just because it's extreme. We're moved to commit ourselves to quote get more exercise unquote. Just because it's extreme. We're moved to bring ourselves to it and stick with it in a way we'd never really pay attention were it not so extreme.
Speaker 2:I ran into this when I was surrounded by guys who had decided they were going to go all out and do an extreme 90-day challenge. They gave up alcohol, meat and caffeine for three months. They also took cold showers, exercised every morning and evening, prayed the rosary and did morning and evening and night prayers. It was an amazing set of commitments and an astounding set of expectations. I know most of the guys involved. I also knew that if I had suggested they spend their Lent I don't know just praying the rosary every day, they wouldn't have done it, and they wouldn't have done it because it wasn't radical enough, it wasn't hard enough to capture the focus of their discipline. Sometimes the best option is the most extreme one. Just remember that.
Speaker 2:The third thing to keep in mind is that we're not impressing God with what we do or don't do. We're not giving God what he doesn't already have. We're exercising our discipline and entering into the wilderness in order for us to open our lives to God in a new and more comprehensive way. By changing the context of our everyday, by opening a doorway of change in our lives, by hastening to deny ourselves in ways we haven't done before, we're allowing our bodies to enter into a new relationship with the surrounding world and we're permitting our souls to absorb some of the promise that God gives us. Our discipline is so that we might sharpen our capacities and refine our awareness. So that we might sharpen our capacities and refine our awareness, not to make God a gift of our sweat or our longing or our conviction. God wants to fill us always. It's up to us to allow it to happen. That's not to say that God is indifferent to our striving. We believe God is a continual presence among us and is waiting for the chance to respond to our needs.
Speaker 2:Entering into a time in which we can ready ourselves is to open the door for God to come in. I imagine it's something like turning the coffee cup right side up, so the open part is standing up. If it's upside down, coffee can be poured over the cup by the gallons, but there's nothing to drink. Turn it right side up and the cup is filled and we have all the coffee we want. That's what the discipline of Lent is, for. God simply wants to give us all we're ready to receive. The secret is in getting ready.
Speaker 2:We might also mention, fourthly, that we're not only opening ourselves to the presence of God during this time. We're also opening our lives to the reality of the spiritual life, and this means that it's not unusual to encounter the temptations and attractions that Satan places in our way. This shouldn't be a surprise. It happened to Jesus just this way. He was in the wilderness and Satan came and tempted him. It's natural that as we turn more resolutely toward the graces of God, the forces and currents of life will respond by amping up their effects in us. In the great spiritual insights of the church, we've always acknowledged the reality of Satan and the truth of the demonic resistance we encounter when we turn our hearts toward a holy reality.
Speaker 2:We should be ready for such a thing. We won't have to be visited by a figure in horns and a pitchfork in order to encounter the demonic in us. In fact, what we'll feel as we begin any of the disciplines we're serious about is a kind of force, a powerful current in us that we have to push against as we change. It will feel physical, a kind of actual power that pushes back against us as we act. That'll be accompanied by a sort of dialogue on the inside, subtle and quiet first, as it whispers that we'd rather not really start our discipline, or that it doesn't really matter if we skip it today, or that it's all foolish to begin or to continue such a thing. If we push through that and we carry on, it will seem as if a voice is commanding us to stop, to put off to the side whatever change we're carrying out. In the most extreme cases we'll find ourselves hearing that what we've chosen is not only difficult but actually harmful to us All those voices will sound in our ears.
Speaker 2:If you want to get a sense of what that's like, if you don't already know, read the opening pages of the CS Lewis novel Paralandra. That's the second of his trilogy, his science fiction trilogy. That's the second of his trilogy, his science fiction trilogy. It's a perfect description of what it'll feel like about the seventh day of your Lenten discipline.
Speaker 2:There are many forces in the world at work in our lives. We shouldn't be surprised to feel them when they surface. Of course we should resist them, as Jesus resisted his temptations. We cling to the truth of what we know and we trust in the goodness of God's presence with us. Remember it says in the scriptures that after the time of Jesus' temptations, the angels waited on him, pushing through the barrage of untruth and foolishness that always goes along with any of our resolutions. We can expect to know the consolation of the messengers of God, or at least the consolation of the message of God. There is help at the end of things.
Speaker 2:Finally, as I say every year, it's not too late to start. If you've already started, good for you. If you started and failed, then begin again. No one is measuring the efficacy of your discipline and openness to God by counting up the days and weeks, but by how responsive you are to God's voice. If you get to Holy Week and you've not done anything, it's not too late to begin. Then the desire to open yourself to God is the desire that's measured in the wilderness. We can take a lesson from the ministry of Jesus. He spent 40 days in the desert to prepare himself for his public ministry, but when he was doing his ministry, nobody asked him how long he'd gotten ready for it. The measure of the ministry was in the doing and in the saying, not in the preparing. He did as much as he needed to do and we're invited to do the same.
Speaker 2:Take these 40 days if you have them. Take 20 days if you have them, Take 10 or whatever is available to you. Oh, if you're going to separate yourself from the temptation of social media, fill your time with something valuable and good. Read a book, sit down and write something, maybe a thank you to someone who deserves it. Or get up and rearrange the garage, or clean out the closet or whatever is needful and necessary, without filling the time. It won't take long before you're whiling away the hours and losing the days because you're right back at what has captured you before. If you want to break the bonds, you have to keep from putting your hands right back into the same spaces. Just an admonition. Reclaiming your life isn't easy, no matter how much you want to. It's always that way.
Speaker 2:Our 40 days is so that, when the time to remember Easter Sunday comes, we're ready to hear a message of hope and promise we may not have heard before. That's what we're getting ready for. Even the apostles had a hard time hearing of Jesus risen from the dead. They had to get ready for it, and so do we Getting ready. That's called Lent, back in just a moment. Welcome back to our final segment, faith in Verse. We have a poem today called Screenshot.
Speaker 2:Nothing on the screens entrances me like it used to when I sat watching drama and comedy on view. Then it was a window to a wide world, a carnival. Now the dialogue and action presses in like a barn stall. I'm older. That takes its toll of interest and energy. The new programs don't create for me much synergy. I'm left to wonder where the real source of life and hope lies and that I might fully view its secrets before I die.
Speaker 2:Not on screen, for certain, does our future beckon us, nor in the burlesque of hidden revealed they encompass, but only in the person of the one who has promised us all, who enlivens and invites us in the drama of his call. I suspect I'm hearing it all now, as the screen dims. What can compare to the surging voices sounding within, plus in the silence of the evening, darkness now falling? I'm more likely to be captivated by the promises now calling. That's Screenshot. Living Catholic is all about living the story of the life of Christ among us. That's what we do here on our program. I hope in the weeks to come you can join us. Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio here on our program.
Speaker 1:I hope in the weeks to come you can join us. Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.