You're invited to pull up a chair on Lisa Harper's Back Porch, where faith meets real life. Welcome to Back Forch Theology. Each episode helps you dive deeper into God's word and discover that the gospel isn't just good news for eternity. It's great news for everyday life because God is for you and he's always been restoring our value and drawing us closer to him. With honest conversations, a few laughs and guests ranging from close friends to brilliant theologians. Back Forch theology is thoughtful, meaningful, and never stuffy.

So grab some coffee or sweet tea and join Lisa Harper on Bat Forch Theology. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale at Hillsdale. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And, of course, I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale.com, or just Google, Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Great, America. I'm Hugh Gilley. It's Ash Wednesday. I hope you are observing the day, if you were Christian. If you're a Catholic, go get your ashes, go to Mass.

I have a word of advice for my friends in the priesthood.

Lenton Masses need to be short.

They don't need music.

People have to go to work.

They don't need sermons.

They just need to happen.

Now, there are Ash Wednesday services late in the day after work that are fine that can go longer and can have music.

But really, the morning mass, the noon mass, they need to be 35 minutes.

We don't need music.

People want to go to mass and Lent. Just let them go to

Mass. It's not Sunday. And I understand a lot of people are in the liturgical music business,

and they want to perform for the Lord and for the congregation, but that's not the way to do Lent.

You know, the very best description of lead,

and I'm going to come to the war in a second,

I've ever read was in Wolf's Hall,

which was an upside-down novel that made Thomas Moore,

the bad guy, and that was bad.

But they did talk about Lent in the era of Henry VIII.

And they really went all in back then.

Now it's like Lent Light, even for Catholics.

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