STAMPED WITH BLACK ASH, MY LENTEN PILGRIMAGE BEGINS

On Wednesday, February 17th, we queued in a parking lot for a little baggie containing a pot of black ash and a cork stamp. The cork was wrapped in purple satin and the top of the pot was a matching magenta. A great deal of thought, time and care went into the production of this kit, and I asked Our Lord to give a special blessing to the hands that made it. 

When I got home, I laid out the little kit on the dining room table, and was prayed over while my forehead was impressed with black ash. I ran to take a photo to send Catherine Collins, which I share with you. The flash in the mirror made a second cross of light refractions. Catherine is very into arts and crafts, she is so good with her hands, and I thought she would get a kick out of the neat cross. 

This Lent, I am doing some tough study of books in Italian for the re-writing of my own book on Padre Pio. This usually gives me bad migraine, and I'll offer up the pain as opposed to taking my usual remedies. I'm quite the insomniac, and during the night I offer the novena to the Sacred Heart for various people and listen to recordings, but this Lent I am listening less to audiobooks and podcasts. More prayer, less podcasts...

I am giving up all alcohol, which mainly means wine, and I'm also giving up the songs of the rocker, Tom Petty.  I am making a few onerous personal sacrifices for loved ones, that the Lord may reward them with special graces of healing. Please, of your charity, pray for me, a dreadful sinner that I may keep my Lenten fasts and live an honest Lent. 

I have requested several Traditional Latin Masses be offered for some "difficult people", and throughout Lent the intention of their salvation will be offered by a good and holy priest. Last March, I requested Holy Mass be offered for a chap's conversion. This chap might have several sins against justice, perhaps he has defrauded a laborer of their wages on occasion, and I was astonished when I found out that the fall-out from covid put him in a vaguely similar situation to the one he has visited on others. The Mass was not offered that he experience money loss, but rather that he see the error of his ways. Then again, many people went through harder than hard times, and in the past they had never cheated anyone, and I'm not saying the chap got his comeuppance, but he had no one to lend him any sympathy because the same people he wanted to comfort him could not give him another chance because their own predicaments meant they could not risk it. 

Traditional Latin Masses will also be offered for dear people who are not "difficult" and hard to be around because of their attachment to sin, but who have difficult lives. And rather they need some consolation and encouragement as they fight the good fight.