![]() Why? To master our bodies in order to scrub our souls and prepare ourselves for an intense encounter with God. Lent is the time when we crank up our prayers, our almsgiving, and our acts of abstinence. Chesterton says, “The best kind of giving is thanksgiving.” Francis, for the path he helped pave to the Church, and fittingly the book is about thanksgiving. When we are devoted to a saint, he is first of all, a friend. He said that Francis had never been a stranger to him, which is to say he had always been a friend. Even before Chesterton came to believe in Christ, and long before he came into the Catholic Church, he felt a connection to this universal saint. Francis represented a bridge from the early part of his life to the later. This was the first book that Chesterton wrote after his conversion. ![]() I have to remember to do that next year, too. But this year we finished just before Lent. I was teaching it, as I do every year, to the sophomores at Chesterton Academy. I’m especially grateful for having had the best preparation for Lent: reading G.K. A very clear and poignant vision of the Cross. I couldn’t ask for more reasons to be focused on God, focused on others, and focused on my sorry soul. Each project pelted with slings and arrows and heavier artillery. One crisis after another, coming physically, socially, professionally, spiritually. It’s been filled with death, pain and suffering. How’s your Lent going? Mine has been awful. ![]()
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