Dear Readers
Happy March! How is life treating you? Are you well? Are you having a fruitful Lent so far? Where are you reading from? (Bonus points if you tell me in the comments!)
Sincere apologies as well to any Catholic Peasant Penguins reading in Antarctica. My stats tell me there are none, but I can dream! I am writing in good ol’ USA, but I recognize there is a burgeoning international audience. I would love to hear from you! American Catholics represent a small but vocal portion of the universal Church, and I have absolutely NO exposure to what is going on in the Church in your country. If you don’t feel like leaving a comment, you can always respond to this newsletter received in your email, it will come to me. Again: I would love to hear from you!
Life Goes On
March has arrived, my friends! Almost two weeks ago now we celebrated Ash Wednesday and have entered a season of preparation, penance, repentance, fasting, and almsgiving. It is a somber season, initiated by memento mori and culminating in our murder of God himself, incarnate in Christ.
Something that is on my mind as I write this though, is that life has a way of keeping going. “And the Evening and the Morning were the second day.”1 There’s always something that comes next, something that comes after. Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, maybe you got up and you went to work. Ash Wednesday, maybe you got up, went to Mass, got your ashes, and went to work. Thursday, maybe you got up, and went to work again.
There’s a regularity to life, and it pushes us inexorably forward.
This can be a hard thing to grapple with. Grief is especially difficult—some traumatic event happens, and then—what, do we go back to our daily lives? We feel like everything has changed, and yet we are expected to go about our business? Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, on the day he lost both his wife and his mother, famously inscribed in his journal a big bold “X” followed by, “The light has gone out of my life.” He lost his wife in childbirth, so not only had the love of his life died in his arms, but he also had a newborn baby to care for—a reason to keep living, to keep going. The evening and the morning were the next day.
Things can feel heavy for no reason—maybe the light has not gone out of our lives, but life is certainly full of challenges. Life will always be full of challenges. But life is not only challenges. The evening and the morning were the next day. The sun always rises.
In this season of preparation, it is helpful to remember that after Christ was crucified, the evening and the morning were the next day. And another day. And another day. Three whole days that the apostles held their breath, before Christ revealed his resurrection to us—his conquest of death.
So I hope the light has not gone out of your life, I hope you are guarding your light jealously. But if you are struggling to keep your light alive, remember that the evening and the morning were the next day, and there is some miracle, great or small, that God is waiting to show you. Look for it! See it! Live for it!
Thank You
Thank you as always for reading. I pray for a fruitful lent and for abundant blessings on you all. May your light be ever shining!
God bless you all!
-Scoot
Ad Jesum Per Mariam