#12565 Is Lent Works-Based Superstition? – Why Aren’t You Catholic? - Joe Heschmeyer
Catholic Answers Live
Catholic Answers
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
“Is Lent works-based superstition?” This question opens a discussion on the nature of Lent and its significance in Catholic practice. Other topics include guidance for those considering confession, the complexities of excommunication related to abortion, and the relationship between Tradition and Scripture.
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Questions Covered:
- 01:24 – Is Lent works-based Catholic superstition?
- 04:41 – I’m leaning towards Catholicism. If I decide to go to confession, what’s the best way of going about it?
- 12:18 – Why if you help someone get an abortion, you’re automatically excommunicated but not if you murder someone?
- 15:21 – How can I bring the gospel to my family?
- 29:48 – If Tradition and scripture are of equal authority, then why can tradition change and evolve but scripture can’t?
- 42:38 – I’m looking into Catholicism, but my Catholic friends won’t talk to me about it. I even went to a Catholic Church and even the priest wouldn’t give me more resources. Can you shed some light on this?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate |
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| 0:17.7 | Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers Live. I am Cy Kellett, your host. Why Aren't You Catholic? That is what we are asking you today. And you know, we've been doing more of these, Why Aren't You Catholic? They've allowed for wonderful conversations. And one of the guys who loves doing them and is really good at doing them is Joe Heschmeyer. Joe's here with us. Hi, Joe. Hey, good to be here. It's always good to have you. Joe, of course, the author of some of the books we give away to people who are not Catholic, like the early church was the Catholic Church and Pope Peter and the Eucharist is really Jesus. So, you know, I'm not trying to entice you, but if you call you, you might get a book. I don't know. |
| 0:54.3 | But you might. |
| 0:55.1 | You might get a book. |
| 0:56.0 | The number is 8883187-884, triple-8-387-884. |
| 1:05.7 | Joe, I want to ask you as we start about Lent. |
| 1:10.6 | And is this, I see actually more – it seems to me, |
| 1:16.2 | and I could be misinterpreting this. More and more non-Catholics are going for Lent a little bit. |
| 1:21.7 | Like they're going in for the Lent. But there persists this argument that this is just more that Catholic's workspace superstition type stuff. |
| 1:32.5 | So since we're asking, why aren't you Catholic today, give me the Catholic response to, |
| 1:37.8 | I don't like that Lent stuff and Advent stuff and all that they do. |
| 1:42.0 | Yeah, there's a lot of things that could be said, but maybe it would suffice to say this. |
| 1:46.0 | Lent is a penitential season marked by three spiritual disciplines, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. |
| 1:54.0 | And it's for 40 days. |
| 1:57.0 | And literally all of that is biblical. |
| 2:00.0 | In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says, when you pray, when you fast, when you give alms. |
| 2:05.6 | And the important detail to note there is he doesn't say if you do those things. |
| 2:10.2 | He specifically says when you do those things. |
| 2:13.2 | So this is something that's not works righteousness or anything. |
| 2:16.9 | That's one of the most deeply misunderstood biblical topics. |
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