Volume XXIX, Number 6
March 3, 2025
Your Best Lent Ever (2025 Edition)
Beloved Bold Baptized,
What I really appreciate about you is that you already know what to do for Lent. I'm just here to encourage you, "enjoy" Ash Wednesday with you, and to offer my own self-denials in union with you until Easter Sunday.
I have my classic Your Best Lent Ever exhortation, a Lenten preparation prayer, some great deathbed quotes, plus what I'm giving up for Lent.
Real quick, if you somehow missed my last two messages...
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Don't Waste Another Lent!
Note: Most of you have one or two days left to get ready for Lent, but the following will help you even if Ash Wednesday has already passed. (After all, late is on time compared to never, and God is not a bureaucrat.)
For new readers, what follows is a Lenten Exhortation I composed almost a quarter of a century ago. It includes the super-helpful and comprehensive Ultimate Lent List containing a kazillion things to give up or take up, so click the button at the end to read the whole thing:
An Organizing Principle
My only goal is to help your Lent get off to an excellent start this year. Let us begin with...a conceit. Huh? A what?
As some of us may recall from English class in the olden days, a conceit, according to the fourth definition of the third meaning of the noun in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, is (drumroll please): "an organizing principle."
A Lent well-lived needs an organizing principle. May we suggest that your conceit for this Lent be: Go for it!
Your Time is Running OutWe only have so many years on this earth and to waste another Lent (you know who you are—and I'm just as guilty, too) is just plain subpar for a believing Catholic.
Challenge yourself spiritually this year.
Choose difficult mortifications.
Give up your most favorite things.
Fast more often than ever before.
Give alms until you "feel" it.
Commit to prayer or daily Mass or Good Friday devotions like never before.
Pray the Daily Prayers to Save America to implore God to deliver our nation from evil.
Ignore Liberal ClaptrapBy the way, all the lazy, ridiculous modernist propaganda to not give up anything for Lent in recent decades and instead "just be nice and help people" is lazy, ridiculous modernist propaganda designed to rationalize not doing anything for Lent...
I sure hope you finish it. There's stuff about how to best determine what to give up, why you should be more Catholic than the pope, the super-helpful Ultimate Lent List, and your kids and grandkids.
We are Dust, Praying TogetherLet us prepare for Ash Wednesday with folks from all over the world in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
Oh Jesus, sometimes You feel far away.
Sometimes You feel close enough
to put your hand on my shoulder.
Show me how and give me the grace
to give you everything this Lent.
Please help me to do my best,
and by leadership or by example,
to help my family and friends do their best.
Because I love you
and I want to love you more.
Teach me that your grace
is the only wealth I need.
Please, dear Jesus,
you healed so many people
during your time on earth,
and during the ensuing centuries,
through the intercession
of your Immaculate Mother,
all the saints, all the angels,
all the relatives in heaven,
all the holy Masses offered,
and the prayers of all
Mary Foundation benefactors—
please give me the courage
to allow my Cross to carry me,
and to sanctify and heal me,
and everyone I love,
in mind, body, and soul.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Amen.
Lenten Quotations
"Fasting is better than prayer and almsgiving is better than both."
- Pope Saint Clement I
"Some demons can only be driven out through prayer and fasting."
- Jesus
"We also boast in our afflictions, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character hope—and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts."
- Saint Paul, Romans 5:16
"It is only by sacrificing and suffering, offered as penance, that you will be able, by the grace of God, to convert sinners."
- Saint John Vianney
"I have done my part. May Christ teach you to do yours."
- Saint Francis of Assisi, final words on his deathbed
"My Lord has suffered as much for me."
- Savonarola, final words on his deathbed
"I am neither ashamed to live on account of my behavior, nor am I afraid to die, because I have so good a master."
- Saint Ambrose, final words on his deathbed
"Almsgiving atones for sin."
Sirach 3:30
"Jesus! Jesus!"
- Saint Joan of Arc, final words at her death
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
- Jesus' final words on the Holy Cross
In case you're wondering, I'm giving up lazy distraction during my morning meditative prayer, maple cream donuts (not good for my diabetes anyway), sleeping in (except for medical reasons), and all music or entertainment-related podcasts during my long walks.
I'm also going to stock several nearby parishes with Mary Foundation materials (especially How to Pray, Going Back to Confession, and Father Rip's Three Angelus Cure cards).
'get my carcass to weekday Mass more often, too. I'm dropping an extra donation in the mail to all my favorite Catholic apostolates on Ash Wednesday.
What are you doing for Lent 2025?
Stay frosty. Stay the course.
Stay on the Holy Cross. That's where Our Lord's best friends are found.
With Saint Simon the Cyrene,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder
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