Jeanie Hannaman

By Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., The Stream - It’s a silly argument. Just because something isn’t named in the Bible, it doesn’t follow that Christians should avoid it. On the contrary, a practice could still very well be grounded in Christian theology and history. It could still have great spiritual benefit that has stood the test of time. And it could help Christians work together for a common good... Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday and ends just before Easter, is surely at the top of the list of such practices. Christians have been observing this long period of fasting and penance before Easter for many, many centuries.

By David Mills, Human Life Review - She tried the “Where do you draw the line?” argument. A young Facebook friend reported that she’d just got home from a college class that had taken up abortion. Most students treated it as self-evidently good... If aborting an unborn child is all right, she asked them, what about killing a five-year-old? Classmates argued that yes, if a mother found her five-year-old too difficult to raise, killing him would be “more humane.” More humane, apparently, than letting him live with imperfect parenting. Or giving him to a family who wanted him.

Catholic News Agency - What is Lent?... After Jesus was baptized, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the Holy Spirit descended upon him “like a dove,” and a voice from heaven said “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”… People were amazed, but Jesus immediately went away by himself into the desert. There he fasted and prayed, and while he was there, Satan appeared to him three times, tempting him.

By Bl. John Henry Newman, The Catholic Thing - The season of humiliation, which precedes Easter, lasts for forty days, in memory of our Lord’s long fast in the wilderness. . . .We fast by way of penitence, and in order to subdue the flesh. Our Saviour had no need of fasting for either purpose. His fasting was unlike ours, as in its intensity, so in its object. And yet when we begin to fast, His pattern is set before us; and we continue the time of fasting till, in number of days, we have equalled His.