What did Jesus mean, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” Could our Lord, by means of this haunting cry, be admitting defeat? Furthermore, Our Lord appears to be saying that He believes that God His Father has left Him. However, Jesus, to be a perfect sacrificial offering to God, was intent on identifying Himself as sin, though He had sinned not. Our Lord willed to embrace the experience of abandonment that the sinner experiences when separated from God. Indeed, Jesus deemed it necessary to endure the abandonment caused by sin for the purpose of fully redeeming all sinners.

John Hienen, owner of The Catholic Gentleman, said that often men treat Lent as though it is “extra credit,” as though we are being kind to God by offering Him a little extra. How nice. Lent is not an add-on feature, a bonus segment on a liturgical app, an extra rep, or an extra lap around the track.Lent is essential.You will only have so many Lents—perhaps seventy or eighty for those who are granted a longer life. “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)Indeed, how many of these Lents have we embraced to the fullest?

John Hienen, owner of The Catholic Gentleman, said that often men treat Lent as though it is “extra credit,” as though we are being kind to God by offering Him a little extra. How nice. Lent is not an add-on feature, a bonus segment on a liturgical app, an extra rep, or an extra lap around the track.Lent is essential.You will only have so many Lents—perhaps seventy or eighty for those who are granted a longer life. “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)Indeed, how many of these Lents have we embraced to the fullest?

John Hienen, owner of The Catholic Gentleman, said that often men treat Lent as though it is “extra credit,” as though we are being kind to God by offering Him a little extra. How nice. Lent is not an add-on feature, a bonus segment on a liturgical app, an extra rep, or an extra lap around the track.Lent is essential.You will only have so many Lents—perhaps seventy or eighty for those who are granted a longer life. “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)Indeed, how many of these Lents have we embraced to the fullest?

Women who stay home do so from a natural and holy urge, but they are made constantly to feel as if they should be doing something of “actual value” out in the world.  Obviously, to a Catholic with even the slightest formation knows the dignity of motherhood is above all other vocations.  There is not a higher work.

Through the psalms, we were reminded of our constant reliance on God; through the silence, our mortality; through the minimalist architecture, our tendency to excess; through reading, our ignorance; through the monks, our pride.

If we neglect the little things, we neglect everything. The big things (marriage, careers, friendships, children) are made of the little things (an unnoticed good deed, a phone call with a friend, sharing a compliment just because).

We cannot be severed from the body of the Church without falling into the danger of hell, and we cannot neglect our mission to love and convert the world lest we fall into impotence and lukewarmness.