Brian McCallMarch 2022 Edition Now Available – Preview HERE
Ash Wednesday
March 2, 2022
Dear Friends of Catholic Tradition,
Every year on this day, Holy Mother Church throws into the fire the palms that were used to honor Our Lord on Second Passion (Palm) Sunday and traces with their ashes the Cross on the head of penitent Catholics. It is a sobering reminder each Lent — everything comes back to the Cross. Our Lord’s entire instruction for our salvation is simple: take up your cross and follow Me (cf. Matt. 16:24). Only in our pride do we think we are greater than our Master and thus can avoid the Cross.
These forty days are an important time for us to show Our Lord that we are ready and willing to embrace our cross. By “our cross”, we should not mean the cross of our choosing, but rather the one He has chosen for us. Certainly, we should plan during the “pre-Lenten” season of Septuagesima for some regimen of penance to practice during Lent. But more importantly than any plans we lay, we should be vigilant to recognize and embrace the crosses Our Lord will send us this Lent. We would utterly miss the point if we scrupulously fulfill our chosen plan of penance and sacrifice but then fight tooth and nail to avoid the crosses sent to us during these forty days. After completing decades of Lent, I have come to realize that each one will bring a unique cross, one I never foresaw and which was really for my spiritual good.
All of us at Catholic Family News pray that your forty days are spiritually efficacious. Whether you have been in the fight for Tradition for decades or have just discovered the beauty of Tradition, we pray that Our Lady will strengthen you to stay the course and keep up the good fight even when, and especially when, you are tempted to throw in the towel.
Two Lent’s ago, Our Lord permitted the COVID penance to be unleashed on us. Yet, for all the pain, oppression, and trauma it unleashed, we can already see only two years later all the good it has worked. It opened the eyes of millions around the world to the shadowy plans of the enemies of Christ and the human race for world domination in anticipation of the end times, during which their true leader will make his last futile attack on the Church. This Lent, think of all the people (perhaps you are among them) who found refuge in a traditional chapel when the globalist hirelings in miters slammed shut the doors of parish churches in their faces. God always brings good and salvation out of evil and suffering. Let us all remember that as we embark on Lent 2022.
The three hallmarks of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I humbly ask you to consider including CFN in your almsgiving. Perhaps you can even give twice by buying a gift subscription for a friend or acquaintance. In this way, you give to CFN financial support to help us continue our work, while also giving the gift of the newspaper that has been publishing each month, against all odds, for nearly three decades.
With my most sincere wishes for a holy Lent,
Brian M. McCall
Editor-in-Chief
Matt Gaspers
