Turn your back on the tube

How much television do you plan to watch during Holy Week? On Good Friday? How about Holy Saturday?

Those are questions I haven't asked in a couple of years. But the last time I posed them in this column, they inspired many people to reflect on how many hours per week they spend (or waste) in front of the tube -- and how the Triduum can goad them to change their habits.

The original notion was simple: Catholics should do without television at all during the 24 hours of Good Friday as a sign of joining more fully with Jesus on the day marking His ultimate sacrifice for us. Shutting down the family Magnavox for one day is a small, indeed infinitesimal sign of our recognition of His love for us.

Suggestions

* Stop watching TV totally from Holy Thursday through Easter morning;

* Pick out our three favorite hours of television that air regularly during the week and sacrifice those shows during Holy Week to match Jesus' three hours on the cross;

* Give up the tube from just before noon on Good Friday until Holy Saturday services end in the evening, expanding our 24 hours by a little bit more.

In previous years, many readers who went along with this idea wrote me afterwards to tell me how well they did, what it was like for them and their families, what they gained and even how it inspired them to curtail their television viewing beyond Easter.

Rules

In place of television watching, I invite readers to select one or more of the following activities:

* Pray more often or more deeply. This can be done by joining with others in praying the Rosary, for example, or by going off alone to meditate. Houses of prayer and retreat centers are resources to turn to for help in making a choice.

* Take part in a religious service you otherwise would skip, such as the Stations of the Cross or daily Mass.

* Read a portion of the Bible that you haven't spent time with recently, or turn to the Passion narratives in the Gospels and proceed through them slowly, reflecting on the sacrifice of Christ.

* Get into some spiritual reading. Articles in this newspaper, suggestions from parish librarians and staff, and magazines found in the back of your church can provide material that will enhance your understanding of faith, prayer or some other aspect of spirituality.

* Gather as a family to talk about the ways in which you do and don't pray together, how you feel about Holy Week, your Easter memories, and how all of you can improve your common prayers and faith life.

I hope you go along with one of these ideas. As the millennium winds down, it seems all the more important that we come into closer contact with the Son of God from whose life we date our times.

(If you want to tell me how you did, write me at The Evangelist, 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203, or email me at [email protected].)

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