Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.

So years ago when I was first ordained a priest I was living in, I don't know, Duluth

Hibbing somewhere in Northern Minnesota and I would listen to Christian radio to wake

up and I know people say, I don't like Christian music, I love Christian music, that's

great, wonderful, I use it to wake up.

On the first length, the first Ash Wednesday I remember waking up to the Christian music,

saying, I can't wait for them to talk about Ash Wednesday, I can't wait for them to

talk about, here's the beginning of Lent, let's all do this, Christians and move forward

to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Easter and then realized, no one said anything,

like in fact there was no difference.

And I remember thinking, oh, I didn't realize, not all Christians commemorate or enter into

Lent.

I mean some Lutherans do and some Methodists do, I think Method and Anglicans, Episcopalians

they do, but a lot of other denominations don't.

And it was one of those signs of like, oh, here's the body price divided, I didn't realize

that people didn't do this.

What I didn't expect and didn't anticipate would be that there's some animosity I think

of sometimes when Catholics enter into Lent, some non-Catholic Christians can have a little

bit of like a, so what's this all about kind of a thing?

And sometimes it's friendly and sometimes it's not.

And it's like, oh, I just didn't know about that and sometimes it's, hey, where's that

in the Bible?

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