Well, Lent is here. Hooray.

To be honest, it feels like the last thing we need right now is 40 days of fasting and penance and just the general heaviness that comes with this season. We’ve been living in a perpetual state of Lent for two years now.

So host Mike Jordan Laskey called up his friend Fr. Paddy Gilger, SJ. Fr. Paddy is a sociology professor at Loyola Chicago and a super thoughtful person. He suggested we reframe what the season is all about in the first place. His insights are so helpful and consoling if you’d rather just skip straight to Easter this year.

Fr. Paddy was also the founding editor in chief of the Jesuit Post back in 2012, the wonderful culture and religion website that’s run by young Jesuits to this day. So we had to get his music and movie and reading recommendations for Lent. His picks are linked below.

All of our hearts are especially heavy as this Lent begins due to the horrifying war underway in Ukraine. Pray and act here: https://www.jesuits.org/stories/pray-and-act-for-ukraine/

Fr. Paddy’s Lenten picks:

“Come Healing” by Leonard Cohen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUB1O2cT2gM

Springsteen on Broadway: https://www.netflix.com/title/80232329

“Ecce Homo” by Xavier le Pichon: https://onbeing.org/blog/xavier-le-pichon-ecce-homo-behold-humanity/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.