The Holy Week homestretch

Sister Maxine  
This podcast is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. So Sister, can you believe we're already in Holy Week?

Sister Julie  
I know. It's an amazing thing. I do feel the holiness.

Sister Maxine  
You seem holier to me.

Sister Julie  
I don't know, we'll have to talk about that.

Sister Maxine  
We'll look at those metrics for holiness.

Sister Julie  
I know my metrics are off the charts, Sister.

Sister Maxine  
I know Lent seems to have gone fast, even though there's more days in length than you might typically think of.

Sister Julie  
Forty?

Sister Maxine  
Well, actually, the season spans 46 days. Spans is the key word.

Sister Julie  
That's crazy. Is that because of Leap Year?

Sister Maxine  
No.

Sister Julie  
Is there a liturgical Leap Year?

Sister Maxine  
Well, it'd be like a lot of liturgical leap years together.

Sister Julie  
Like liturgical Leap Month.

Sister Maxine  
Well, actually, it's because Sundays are not technically in the 40 days of Lent count.

Sister Julie  
Oh, so if we'd had 40. And then we would have six days. Well, that would make sense.

Sister Maxine  
The early church saw Sundays as that day to celebrate the resurrection. And so there was no fasting and no penance.

Sister Julie  
Wow.

Sister Maxine  
On Sunday.

Sister Julie  
Does that mean no not giving up things? Not? Not? No giving?

Sister Maxine  
Try that triple negative again. There's no not giving nothing up. (laughter) We're gonna give up bad grammar for Lent.

Sister Julie  
But on Sundays, I can use bad grammar. So on Sundays, it means that if we gave something up, we can--I can't do it again, the not never. All right, well, let me give an example. So when I was a kid, our family totally loved doughnuts. Well, I shouldn't use that in the past tense. And so I always remember that after Mass on Sundays, during Lent, we would always go to the local bakery, and get doughnuts and enjoy those doughnuts that morning. And I always used to think it was curious that, even though I'd given up doughnuts, that my parents were like, you know, "Eat up, honey." And I love them. And so I always wondered why and I knew it was Sundays were the only day that we could do that. We weren't allowed to do that, obviously, during the rest of the week. But I always wondered why that was. I mean, I didn't ask a lot of questions.

Sister Maxine  

Because you didn't want that doughnuts to go away.

Sister Julie  

I know!

Sister Maxine  
Well, you know, and especially because your folks are good church people. You were probably scandalized.

Sister Julie  
I know. Well, I don't know. But it was a doughnut. So yeah.

Sister Maxine  
See, that's the whole thing. Like for me, I just keep on going. Whatever I set off to do when it comes to fasting, whatever it is, I set off to do it at the beginning of the Lent, and I tried to carry it through even on Sundays.

Sister Julie  
Wow, why did you do that? When you knew you could have aten that doughnut-- Oh, my gosh, today must be Sunday.

Sister Maxine  
You're giving up your ability to speak correctly!

Sister Julie  
So if you didn't eaten the doughnut...

Sister Maxine  
Well, it was sort of like I thought if I would indulge on Sunday, then I'd be like, "Well, so what's such a big difference between Sunday and Monday?"

Sister Julie  
It'd be the slippery slope.

Sister Maxine  
Slippery slope. So I just thought you know what, I'm going to start and I'm gonna go all the way through.

Sister Julie  
Yeah.

Sister Maxine  
So I won't be tempted. It's a big theme in Lent, you know.

Sister Julie  
That's beautiful. Well, I'm gonna continue using bad grammar and eating doughnuts on Sunday.

Sister Maxine  
Maybe I'll join you this Sunday! Here in the chat room, Judy asks, how our community is observing Holy Week, and do you have any favorite practices?

Sister Julie  
Well, one of the things at least in our community as IHM sisters--and I'd love to hear from sister Julie with the Franciscans--but one of our customs is to have a special retreat. And so I think our sisters are already in retreat at our motherhouse. And certainly the rest of us are encouraged to sort of be in spirit with our community. It's a wonderful time to take a retreat. You know, all through Lent, we have been preparing our hearts, we've been taking spiritual inventory. And as a community, we now get to sort of pull together and be in communion with one another, and of course, the whole church.

Sister Maxine  
As we continue this journey of Lent into Easter, here we are on Easter Week--our blessings to you as always. To hear full episodes of A Nun's Life podcasts, visit the podcast page at anunslife.org/podcasts.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.