[Although I meant to write "pulvis" in the title and the text of this reflection, I wrote "pulveris," only noticing the error when resuming work on my next commentary a short while ago this evening, Ash Wednesday. I looked at that title and said to myself, "I couldn't have done this." To quote the late Richard "Red" Skelton, "I dooed it." Mea culpa!]
Our annual Lenten journey into the desert has commenced anew. Deo gratias!
This is the time of penance. This is the time to withdraw from the world. This is the time to be earnest about relying upon the ineffable graces that were won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, during His Passion and Death and that flow into our sous through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.
This period of six weeks, four days until Easter Sunday (six weeks, three and one-half days until the Easter Vigil) is nearly one-ninth of an entire calendar year. May we beg Our Lady to help us make the best Lent of our lives as we do not know if it will be our last. Indeed, we do not know whether we will live to see Easter Sunday in this life on Sunday, April 16, 2017.
Although the next commentary for this site is still being written, we had to go for chiropractic treatments on Monday, something that ate up almost all of the daylight hours and the little bit that remained of our financial means for the coming. As I was in a particularly bad way with arthritic lower disc disease, the trip for the treatments was a necessity as writing for long stretches has been very difficult lately. This is, of course, a great penance, and I accept it as such.
Additionally, this site was down last night. I did not know it at the time, but the hosting company was doing an update. This prevented me from doing necessary work to save a formatted copy of the next commentary, which deals with some of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's recent words and deeds. Only some, mind you. Only some, but even that requires a lot of work.
Thank you for your patience. The work continues, and I am also working on four different book projects while I continue the work for this site.
Our Lady of Dolors, pray for us.