Letter From The Editor

Ash Wednesday 2025

Dear Friend,

I hope this Ash Wednesday finds you prepared for the 40 days ahead. A priest once remarked to me that people are always asked “are you ready?” for a big event, and that the best answer he ever heard was when someone replied, “I’m not ready, but I am prepared.”

Being prepared seems to have a little more allowance for the unknown, for the unpredictable, for the unexpected. Lent is, after all, a brief season in the desert—how can we be truly ready for the full suite of possibilities? Was Moses ready? Were the Hebrews?

So we prepare. We prepare with a mind to mortification. Lent is to Easter as Life is to Death. We can only prepare, and do our best, and hope we arrive at the end worthily.

I’m writing this note to you, among other reasons, to help me get prepared. I’m writing this on Tuesday, March 4th—I don’t feel prepared. I’m looking at the yawning desert ahead with a bit of trepidation. And so I want to share with you a few thoughts that I wish someone would tell me.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

Your Desert Is For You. Your Lent will go how your Lent is supposed to go. As Catholics we get pretty enthusiastic about this season. I’ve already seen a handful of How 2 Lent posts and the intention is always very good. We need it, like a phalanx, to help keep our brothers and sisters in the line. But I know in my life I am not in the front of the phalanx. I know there are other, common circumstances that necessitate a change from the highly penitential aspirations many people post at the start of Lent¹. So my advice is to focus on what you need and not what other people are doing. Mind your own Lent, and do as good a job as you can. If you feel like you are pushing yourself, that is good. Like stretching your muscles, you can feel it when you are going too far and when you are not going far enough. Seek that balance.

Pray For Pope Francis. It is not a coincidence that the Church will be starting this Lent with some fear and worry for our Holy Father². Imagine the fear the Hebrews must have felt when they couldn’t account for Moses. He went up on Mount Sinai so long that by the time he came down the Hebrews had worked themselves into a frenzy over the Golden Bull. While they couldn’t see him, neither Moses nor God abandoned the Hebrews. Don’t work yourself into a frenzy—pray, and trust. If you find praying for Pope Francis is something of a penitential act because you have found yourself in one disagreement or another—pray extra. Your prayers have an iota of added weight if you don’t want to pray but pray anyway. Remember that the Holy Spirit guides the Church. To paraphrase St. Josemaria Escriva—in what endeavor can we have greater assurance of success?

Choose Love. If there’s a distinguishing feature of a Catholic in the world, it is the ability to love with a Divine Love. Catholicism is beautiful for many reasons, and sets us apart in many ways. This Divine Love isn’t the cartoonish, soft, valentines day love the world wants us to think it is. This is a scorching love, a love that burns and consumes; a working love that gives beyond the point of depletion. Here’s a quote from the 1968 movie Yours, Mine, and Ours³:

“It’s giving life that counts. Until you’re ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won’t keep it turning. Life isn’t a love-in: it’s the dishes, and the orthodontist, and the shoe repairman, and…ground round instead of roast beef. And I’ll tell you something else: It isn’t going to bed with a man that proves you’re in love with him; it’s getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts!”

The Catholic loves his or her neighbor with this love—facing the drab, miserable, wonderful world every day, and rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. If you do nothing else this Lent, if you can say you loved with this love, then you will be able to say you did something different that stretched you and grew your spirit.

I will be praying for all of you during this Lenten season, and would be grateful if any of you could spare a prayer for me. I especially pray that you can accept the Lent that God gives you, whatever else your plans may be. And I further pray that, come Easter, we will all meet a little wiser and a little holier for the experience.

God love you all,

- Scoot

1. And right before Easter, get ready for the “how my Lent actually went” posts.

2. As I wrote this, I looked up the latest news—looks like he’s doing better. Doesn’t mean the worry goes away, but give thanks to God for prayers answered and keep praying for him.

3. Context: This quote is advice of a father to a teenage daughter who is receiving pressure from her no-good boyfriend to surrender her virtue.