Claiming Sunday, the Sabbath, as a time of leisure will be the topic of a presentation given on seven separate dates at local parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Pamela Patnode said the presentations — “In Defense of Leisure: Reclaiming the Lord’s Day (Year 2: The Mass)” — were organized by the archdiocese as a bridge between year two and year three of implementing Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s pastoral letter “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.” Year two focuses on the Mass and the Eucharist, and year three will focus on family, particularly parents as the primary educators of the faith to their children.
The series was organized by Laura Haraldson, the facilitator of implementation for Office of Discipleship and Evangelization in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. While studying in The St. Paul Seminary’s Catechetical Institute in St. Paul, Haroldson heard Patnode’s workshop on the topic of leisure. Haraldson later reached out to Patnode to make the series an archdiocesan initiative.
“The primacy of the place family plays in our weekly schedules is at-risk these days, but indeed it is foundational to the building up of our Church,” Haraldson said in an email about the effort.
Patnode, the former director of the Catholic School Leadership program at The St. Paul Seminary, is alternating the presentations with Michael Naughton, the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Patnode will also offer three sessions in Spanish in the spring of 2025.
Patnode continues to teach at The St. Paul Seminary Catechetical Institute after she semi-retired as director of the seminary’s Catholic School Leadership program in July. Additionally, she hosts speaking tours, retreats and workshops around the archdiocese and around the country. Her home parish is Holy Name of Jesus in Wayzata.
Patnode defined leisure as, “(t)hose activities that are considered meaningful in themselves. These activities help us to become more fully human, and they help us to strengthen our relationship with God, with others and with creation.”
IN DEFENSE OF LEISURE
Each 90-minute presentation includes time for questions. Adoration of the Eucharist is offered during Mass or at another point in the evening. Water, coffee and light refreshments will be available at each site.
All sessions are 6-8 p.m.
Feb. 13: St. Gregory the Great, North Branch
with Michael Naughton
Feb. 20: St. Hubert, Chanhassen
with Pam Patnode
April 29: St. Stephen, Anoka
in Spanish, with Patnode
May 1: Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Paul
in Spanish, with Patnode.
May 15: St. Helena, Minneapolis
in Spanish, with Patnode.
Such activities, Patnode said, can include painting, woodworking, reading literature, spending time outdoors, listening to music and other activities that “allow us to step into our humanity” and be “co-creators with God.” These activities are meant to strengthen individuals in becoming more fully human.
“We’re spending most of our time in leisure in front of a screen, and I think there’s something unhealthy about that,” Naughton said. “The world is not as I imagine it or not in terms of the images I’m seeing on the screen, because what the screen is doing is that it’s often preventing me from encountering reality. It’s manipulating reality, and so that idea of defense of leisure has the capacity to help us receive reality.”
Naughton, who most recently presented at All Saints in Lakeville on Nov. 19, said the underlying thesis beneath the presentations is that “if we don’t get leisure right, we won’t get work right. Then the second element of that is, if we don’t get Sunday right, we won’t get Monday right.”
At the heart of leisure, Naughton said, is the Lord’s Day. This is leisure for silence and leisure for meditation, he said. Naughton encourages fellow Catholics not to reduce the Lord’s Day to one hour of Mass. He attends Holy Spirit and the Cathedral of St. Paul, both in St. Paul.
“It’s an hour that should transform the whole day, but we have to try to live the Lord’s Day in a more holistic way,” Naughton said. “Sometimes people often see it (Sunday) as the last day of the week. But actually, in one sense, it’s the first day of the week. … It’s a way of recentering, and reclaiming, and reorienting the way we try to live our lives.”
During the first presentation of “In Defense of Leisure” at St. John the Evangelist in Little Canada on Oct. 29, Patnode witnessed families at different stages in life — such as a father and his teenage son, a pregnant mother and elderly parishioners — discussing how leisure could be incorporated into their families.
“The way you live the Lord’s Day, the way you live and practice leisure, looks different when you’re a young parent or a single person or a parent of teenagers or an empty nester,” Patnode said. “It’s so beautiful to see the conversations that the people are having. … It opens your eyes to the possibility that we could do things differently. It doesn’t take a lot. It’s not saying you have to revamp your whole schedule. It’s just pausing long enough to pray and discern, ‘How could we incorporate some leisure? And what does worship look like for our family or for me personally?’ … I felt like it was a very exciting evening and just really the beginning of a lot of great conversations.”
Haraldson, a mother of four, wrote, “I know parents are desperate for true ‘leisure’ in their lives — yet the opportunity to find time for it eludes us. Or does it? Throughout history (and again in recent psychological study), taking intentional time to pause, to rest and to focus in on the things that are most meaningful in life has been proven essential to living a holistic, balanced life. Leisure is a key to mental health, decreased anxiety and increased productivity. It is so beautiful to me that the Lord has always gifted us this gem of self-help and wellness, dating all the way back to biblical times.”
The idea of defending leisure, Patnode said, comes from a German Catholic philosopher named Josef Pieper, who said leisure, which includes worship, has to be defended.
“The timing of these talks is really beautiful because we’re coming off the real high energy that has been generated by the National Eucharistic Congress, just as our archdiocese is moving into year two (of implementing Archbishop Hebda’s pastoral letter),” said Patnode. “He (Pieper) said (leisure) is something that has to be defended in our culture today. Not only leisure, but even the Mass.”
Patnode explained that there is a lack of understanding of true worship, true prayer and leisure, especially in a “culture saturated with screens and all kinds of mindless entertainment and busyness.”
“These talks really are an opportunity not only to clarify and to provide some understanding on what worship is, what is the Third Commandment and why does it matter in our lives, what is leisure and why should I care?” Patnode said. “It’s to provide that kind of information while serving as an invitation to live differently than what we see in the culture today. It’s an invitation to step out of the hustle and grind culture, the constant busyness, to step away from just mindless entertainment, binge watching, scrolling through social media, and it’s an invitation to enter into a richer, fuller life. That is a life of relationship, a life of worship, a life of leisure and a life of love and joy.”
ADDITIONAL YEAR TWO EVENTS
See with New Eyes: A Byzantine Iconography Primer
Nov. 17 at 11 a.m.
Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis
Iconographer Nick Markell leads a presentation on Byzantine iconography in Teresa of Calcutta Hall. Hosted by the Basilica of St. Mary, the event is open to anyone to attend and will be presented in English. For more information, visit archspm.org/iconography-101-year-2-the-mass.
Jesus’ Pilgrimage to Us: Holy Hours Around the Archdiocese
Held according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ newly revised rite for exposition, adoration and Benediction, the holy hours will be at a different parish each month. All Catholic faithful, including those in adoration ministries, are encouraged to communal prayer to bring more people to know and love the Lord in the Eucharist.
All sessions are 7-8 p.m.
Nov. 21: Sts. Joachim and Anne, Shakopee
Dec. 19: Our Lady of Grace, Edina
Jan. 23: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Hastings
Feb. 20: Divine Mercy, Faribault
March 27: St. John the Baptist, Dayton
April 24: St. Therese, Deephaven
May 22: St. Charles Borromeo, St. Anthony
June 19: St. Michael, Stillwater
The New and Eternal Covenant
Speakers will highlight God’s desire for covenant and relationship with humanity to inspire the faithful to “enter the celebration of the liturgy with a more intentional sense of belonging to God’s plan for salvation” and to “rediscover God’s call to live out our baptismal priesthood as a holy and chosen people,” according to officials with the archdiocese. To register, visit archspm.org/new-eternal-covenant.
All sessions are 6-9 p.m.
Nov. 25: St. Rose of Lima, Roseville, with Father Ryan Glaser.
Jan. 16: Mary, Mother of the Church, Burnsville, with Father Glaser
Feb. 5: Epiphany, Coon Rapids, with Father Glaser
March 20: St. Odilia, Shoreview, in Spanish, with Father Evan Koop and Marta Periera
May 15: Pax Christi, Eden Prairie, with Father Michael Joncas and Vicki Klima
June 11: Ascension, Minneapolis, in Spanish, with Father Koop and Periera
