As Lent begins, we ask God for a double blessing this year: that the season of Lent, the annual opportunity to intensify our love for God shown in prayer, fasting, and acts of charity, may be even more efficacious in this Holy Year of 2025. At New Year, I proposed three concrete ways we might keep 2025 holy: prayer every day, Mass every week, Confession every month. If you did not take this up at New Year, why not take this up now, for Lent. It will be an enormous help to you in your spiritual life and have a positive impact on your heart and your working and family lives, too. If we get the basics of our spiritual lives set in place and working well, it is wonderful to see even more clearly the presence and power of God’s grace in our lives. My hope for the parish this Lent is that if we put in place the foundations of daily prayer, weekly Mass, and monthly Confession, God’s grace will build on these firm foundations and help us be nearer to God and more like Jesus.