CTD3 – Waiting in the Desert – Crossing the Desert: Lent and Conversion with Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcasts

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4.8 • 558 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

CTD#3 – "Waiting in the Desert" -

"The ancient image of Lent as a time of withdrawal is relevant to the formation of conscience if we perceive that our consciences have been inordinately attached to anemic sources of influence. Christians are called to transform the world of culture, work, and politics according to the truths learned through Christ in the Church. It is a powerful and dignified calling. Lent affords us a good opportunity to repent of those habits, attitudes, or behaviors that reflect a preoccupation with the secular. Thus devoid of the religious, we are then called to eagerly respond to our faith and imbue the secular with religious and ethical meaning. To do less than this is to render our baptisms impotent and meaningless."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Discerning Hearts.com presents Crossing the Desert, Lent and Conversion with Deacon James Keating.
0:08.2	Deacon Keating has a Ph.D. and is a professor of spiritual theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Lennon Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
0:17.9	He has led more than 400 workshops in areas of morality and spirituality and has
0:23.0	authored numerous books, including The Way of Mystery, Listening for Truth, and Spiritual
0:28.3	Fatherhood, Crossing the Desert, Len and Conversion with Deacon James Keating. I'm your host, Chris
0:35.2	McGregor.
0:39.4	Welcome back, Deacon Keating.
0:39.9	Thank you.
0:43.3	Over the last several segments, we've been taking a look at your book,
0:45.3	Crossing the Desert, Lent, and Conversion.
0:49.7	And it is so important during the period of Lent that we don't get too absorb in the to-do list that we set for ourselves during that time,
0:56.3	isn't it?
0:56.9	Right.
0:57.3	It becomes another series of failures that we've attempted.
1:02.1	Lent can be sort of like a religious New Year's day where we make all these resolutions.
1:07.5	And then because our list is so formidable, fail at them and then once we fail human nature
1:13.3	takes over and we say well since I've failed I guess I won't even try anymore and then we give up
1:18.7	the whole journey so no it's not a list of to-do items again it's more of this stance of making yourself available to be affected by God. I mean,
1:31.9	that's all Lent is. That's why God drove the prophets and took Moses and Jesus himself
1:39.4	went to the desert because it renders us more available to be affected by God. The desert is the symbol of complete
1:48.2	dependency and neediness and all the props that we have are stripped from us. And we get to the core,
1:55.1	we get to what is most basic in us, and that is what holds us in existence. And what holds us in existence is our deep being in God.
	...

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