All About Lent, Part II: The Fast

Weekly Notes

As promised, here is the second round of answers to your questions about Lent. (Here is the first part in case you missed it.) Today, we’re talking about fasting and penance, which I feel like I have been doing since this past Saturday morning, when an old laceration on my cornea reopened (yes, I went to the doctor). It’s been fun times here ever since, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I would get this newsletter out. Nevertheless, a promise is a promise, so I’m getting sending this letter out this morning, with the hopes of it helping you through today’s fast and of me getting to rest my eyes the remainder of the day.

Also, just as a reminder, if you’re looking to buy children’s books for Easter Baskets and First Communions (or a grownup book for yourself for Lent), you can currently buy signed copies of eight of my books directly from me. I’ll have them available all through March, but if you want the books in time for Easter, make sure to place your order before March 27. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to buy directly from me and other authors. It matters!

Now, for your questions.

Question Box

Do you have any tips for approaching fasting when food restriction is triggering?

I wish I could give a one-size fits all answer here, but I don’t think that’s possible. So much depends on the individual. Generally speaking, though, if you are an American who is currently struggling with an eating disorder or in the early stages of recovery, you are not bound by the restrictions of fasting and abstinence. Although the universal Church sets the broad parameters for fasting and abstinence requirements (18-59 for fasting, 14+ for abstinence), Rome leaves it to individual bishops’ conferences to set the more particular parameters for their regions. In the U.S., the bishops exempt the physically and mentally ill, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers. (I‘m assuming most bishops’ conferences have similar exemptions.) So, if you fall into one of those categories, you are not breaking the rules by choosing to not fast or abstain. You are following them.

Not being able to participate in the fast now, however, doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to participate in it. I know plenty of recovered anorexics, bulimics, and binge eaters—including myself—who don’t find the Lenten fasts triggering. This is partly because we waited to participate until we were far enough along in our recovery. It’s also because we’re careful about how we do it.

Before you try it as well, you should first discuss your participation with your therapist or people who know your struggle. It’s important to get feedback from others and have some accountability in the first years you resume the Lenten fast.

It’s also important, when beginning to participate in the Lenten fasts again, to start small and slow, first by simply returning to the practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays (and only Fridays!). If that goes well and you don’t have any relapses, then a little bit further down the road you can consider doing the Ash Wednesday and Good Friday fasts. But if you do that, it’s important to not try and be more Catholic than the Church. You should do it exactly as prescribed—fasting only on those two days and allowing yourself two small meals, one normal meal, and plenty of water throughout the day.

Three, four, or five years down the road, if all is still well, you likely won’t struggle to give up something simple like sweets. But again, don’t try to be more Catholic than the Church about it. Make a point of breaking your fast and eating the sweets (or whatever small thing you have given up) on Sundays and on any solemnities that fall during Lent. Likewise, if at any point, you find that engaging in such fasts is causing you to struggle, it’s okay to stop. You don’t have to see the fast through simply because you committed to doing it.

Even years down the road, though, it’s generally not advised for someone with a serious eating disorder in their past to do intensive fasting or penances with food. The more fasting most of us do, the higher our risk of relapse. So, stick to the rules, don’t take on food related penances too early, and don’t fast from the essentials of a good diet ever. Instead, when you’re ready, fast with the Church, ease into small fasts—like from chocolate or alcohol—that don’t compromise your physical or emotional health, and primarily choose to fast from non-food things (music, podcasts, social media, television, etc.). You also can do food-related things that are good for you, but hard—like drinking eight glasses of water a day or eating a food you don’t particularly like.

Regardless, don’t feel guilty that you can’t fast like most everyone else does. The Church understands and wants you to be merciful with yourself. Do as she asks.

Breastfeeding and fasting? I’ve read about it but would love your thoughts on it.

My thoughts are much the same as they are about people with an eating disorder in their past fasting. Use common sense and don’t feel like you need to be more Catholic than the Church.

I can’t speak to the exemptions provided in other countries (there are too many to research), but if you are in the U.S., you don’t need to fast and abstain while pregnant or nursing. If you need to eat frequently to not feel nauseous, eat frequently. If you feel faint without eating massive quantities of protein daily and can’t handle fish or non-meat proteins, eat meat on Fridays. You have the Church’s permission to do that. It’s okay. You’re not breaking the rules.

If, however, you can abstain from meat on Fridays or do some small fast without it compromising your health or your baby’s health, it’s also okay to go ahead and do that. The Church doesn’t forbid you from eating fish or beans on Friday, nor does she say that you must eat chocolate every day of Lent. She just lets you decide what to do.

Again, this is where common sense comes in. Don’t be scrupulous or foolish. But do find some small way to still enter into Lent. Even if you’re exempt from the stricter fasting requirements, Lent still matters. It’s good for your soul and your relationship with Christ. So, figure out a way to observe this season that strikes a balance between the two poles of foolish scrupulosity and casual neglect. Make good decisions for you and your baby and, to the extent you can, embrace some penitential practice with the Church, even if that’s only being more intentional about offering up your pregnancy related sufferings and asking Jesus to put them to good use for someone in need.

I am four years post-partum, and I am just feeling like I could possibly fast. What are your thoughts on that?

I think fasting is hard. It asks us to give up, for a time, the consolations and comforts that we rely upon to get us through our day. It also reveals to us how much of our virtue and good temperament is not deeply rooted in our souls, but rather dependent on the material conditions of our life, like how much we’ve eaten that day or how well we’ve slept the night before. Fasting shows us the depths of our littleness and selfishness, as we struggle to abstain from something as small as breakfast or meat. It reveals how weak and fearful we are in the face of even minor physical suffering. And it sends up a flare to Satan, attracting his attention and becoming the occasion for spiritual warfare.

Because of that, most of us don’t want to fast. We rationalize away the need for fasting, saying that it’s so much more important to do things rather than give up things. Or, we use our own ill temper as an excuse not to do it, telling ourselves that because we can’t fast cheerfully, then fasting must not be spiritually beneficial to us.

But consider again what the Church asks of us this Lent. In the Latin Rite, she asks only that we abstain from meat on Fridays and limit ourselves to one normal meal and two snacks on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. That’s it. It’s truly not much.

Yet even this seems so hard to so many of us. Intellectually, we know no one ever died from going one day without eating three square meals. If we stop and think about it, we also know that countless people throughout history and around the world today (including in our own neighborhoods and cities) regularly have not eaten that much. But emotionally? Emotionally, that knowledge doesn’t outweigh the fear we feel in the face of our own hunger.

Last week, over 100+ people messaged me with questions about Lent. A solid half of those questions were about fasting, and more than half of those questions expressed some degree of fear, reluctance, or hesitation about it. As I wrote above, there are very good reasons for some people to not fast during Lent. Those reasons include sickness in body or mind, advanced age, and being a pregnant or nursing mother. But they don’t include our fears. They don’t include our bad tempers when we fast. They don’t include our reluctance to let go of the consolations to which we cling throughout the day.

If you are not in one of the specifically exempted categories and are feeling scared, reluctant, or overwhelmed by what the Church asks of us regarding fasting, I think it’s important to spend today wrestling with where that fear or reluctance or sense of overwhelm comes from. Look at how you’re using food in your life. Do you seek more comfort from it than you do from God, your spouse, your friends, or meaningful work? Do you go to food first, last, and most often? Are you scared of discomfort? If so, why is that? What do you think will happen? What in yourself do you not want to face? With what in the world do you not want to reckon?

And let me be clear, I don’t like fasting either. I like my comforts and consolations, too. But I know my fears and low blood sugar induced crabbiness are not reasons to avoid fasting. They are the opposite. They are reasons to fast. They are the whole point of it.

Fasting is supposed to help us see who we truly are when some of the comfortable circumstances of our life are stripped away. Fasting is supposed to remind us that while it’s not wrong to take comfort in food, we shouldn’t take inordinate comfort in . it. We shouldn’t lean on it more than we lean on God. And fasting is supposed to help us confront our fears, weaknesses, and sins. Stripped of our ability to numb ourselves, even for a day, we can finally come face to face with problems that we must give over to God if we ever want to live the lives for which we were made.

So, that is my long way of saying that unless there is a serious medical reason for you to not fast, then yes, it’s probably time to fast again. Just a little. Just for two days. Even if it makes you tired. Even if it makes you crabby. Even if it makes you feel a little lost or a little scared. You may not feel the benefits today. You may not feel them this Lent. But if you enter into the fast with the right spirit—with penitence, prayer, trust, humility, and love—you will feel them in time.

Any advice on how to manage days of fasting? I get hangry.

Me, too! Hanger is real. And it can’t be completely managed away. Although there are things you can do to help.

First and foremost, pray. Ask God for help. If we are just trying to power through a fast with our own will power, we are missing the point of the fast. As I mentioned above, fasting is hard. It pushes us and tests us. But it also creates the space for us to lean on God more than we usually do. Our rumbling stomachs and unstable moods are supposed to be a reminder to call on God and say, “Help me, Lord.” Or “I love you, Lord.” Or “Forgive me, Lord.” Or “I need you, Lord.” Or “Have mercy on me, Lord.” A good fast day is jam-packed, from first to last, with aspirations.

There also are things you can do to minimize the blood sugar instability that leads to hanger. For example, drink a lot of water throughout the day—at least a small glass every hour. It also helps—as mentioned above—to not feel the obligation to be more Catholic than the Church. You are permitted two snacks or “mini-meals” in addition to one normal meal today and on Good Friday. Go ahead and eat those snacks. It helps if they are protein packed. Maybe have a protein shake in the morning, but make it with cold coffee or water instead of milk. Or grab a protein bar, a couple boiled eggs, or some cheese and crackers for your second snack at lunch time. Not everyone needs to snack. My husband stays wise and charming with nary a bite to eat all day long. But, if you are prone to hanger, a little protein goes a long way and you should take advantage of the permission the Church grants you to snack.

All those things help me on fast days. But what I have found perhaps most helpful of all is choosing a particular prayer intention to go with my fast. I pray for the person or intention first thing in the morning and then throughout the day—when I’m drinking water, when my stomach grumbles, and when I start to feel edgy. Every pain, irritation, and inconvenience resulting from my fast gets offered up for that intention. And it makes a difference. Now, I’m a choleric, so maybe this is temperament specific, but I do always manage suffering better when I feel like it has a specific purpose. This is true when I’m undergoing surgeries, and it’s true when I’m fasting.

Lastly, even if none of this helps, just remind yourself that your family and friends are not going to stop loving you because you get a little testy on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Getting hangry is not the worst thing in the world. If you snap, you snap. Apologize and consider it an opportunity to grow in humility and compassion. Seeing how we crumble in the face of a little hunger shows us how much of our own seeming virtue is rooted in health and comfort. But it also can help us have more sympathy for those who don’t have what we take for granted—who are hungry or in pain all the time—and treat them more charitably even when they are being less than kind to us. Even if the only fruit that comes from your fasting today is more sympathy for the hungry, that is a good thing.

I hate meat and much prefer fish. It feels weird to give up meat on Fridays, but I still do. Is that okay?

Is it okay to give up meat on Fridays? Absolutely. It’s more than okay. The Church doesn’t just ask Catholics who like meat to abstain from it on Lenten Fridays. She asks it every Catholic over age fourteen. For some of us, this is hard; giving up the meat is the sacrifice. For others of us, it’s easy. In these cases, our will, not the meat, is the real sacrifice; we sacrifice through obedience.

Either way, it’s always a good thing to do. Abstaining from meat is an act of solidarity with the poor who can’t afford meat, and it is an act of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s also a participation in a shared cultural practice that goes back to the first century of the Church, when all Christians fasted from meat (and other food) on Wednesdays and Fridays. When we don’t eat meat, we’re doing what Christians have always done in penitential seasons. Whether it's difficult or not, it still connects us to twenty centuries of disciples, uniting us in one common act of sacrifice.

I suppose if you feel like you’re getting off a bit easy, you could opt to eat meat on another day of the week and offer that up as a penance. I’ve known a couple people who cured their picky eating by each year choosing to repeatedly eat one food that they disliked throughout Lent. By the time they would get to Easter, they often discovered they had acquired a taste for the once disliked food.

You obviously don’t have to do that. It’s just a penance I have always admired. Not enough to make myself eat beets every week in Lent, but still, it’s a good one.

Either way, yes you are doing the right thing to continue abstaining from meat, even though you don’t like it. It’s okay that it’s not difficult for you. The good, for this particular fast, is in the doing, not how much we like or dislike the doing.

How do I deal with resolutions as a perfectionist?

By remembering that Lent isn’t an episode of Survivor. You don’t get kicked off the Lenten island for breaking one of your resolutions. It might happen. It might not. But if you break down and eat chocolate or sleep through your alarm or have a cocktail, just thank God for showing you your weakness, ask Him for the grace to not do it again for the remainder of Lent, and start over again the next day.

Really, just keep going. And every time you waver or fail, let it be a reminder of how very not perfect you are. Then, go search out a cross and look at it—literally look at it—contemplating the incredible love that the God who created the world has for very-not-perfect you. He went to the cross for very-not-perfect you. He died for very-not-perfect you. His love is not conditional on your perfection. It’s not conditional on anything. He wants you to become perfectly you—perfectly who He made you to be—but that takes time and grace, plus a whole lot of trust from you. Work on trusting Him. Lean into your littleness. And keep asking Him for help. He will take care of the rest in His own good time.

My 6-year-old had a meltdown about giving up something for Lent and seemed really scared. What should I do?

Honestly? I don’t think you should be asking your six-year-old to give up anything for Lent. I think that’s too young. Maybe not for every six-year-old, but definitely for most. Your average six-year-old doesn’t have a mature relationship with Christ. Your average six-year-old doesn’t have any relationship with Christ. They’re learning about who God is and how He loves them, but they haven’t yet reached the age of reason, which means the whole idea of making a consistent sacrifice for Him—something that is hard even for adults to do—can feel frightening, overwhelming, and incomprehensible to them.

The goal of this season in your child’s life is not to have her participating in Lent like a full-fledged adult. It’s to lay a foundation of faith so that someday, in the not too distant future, she understands what Christ did for her and wants to make a sacrifice for Him in return. Asking her to do that before she’s ready can be a recipe for disaster.

This doesn’t mean you can’t introduce your young child to the concept of sacrifice. You can. You can model the sacrifices you’re making, telling her a little bit about why Mommy isn’t having meat or dessert or chocolate. You can listen to a Saints Alive podcast with her and talk about the sacrifices different saints made and why they made them. You can give them a baby bottle or Catholic Relief Services “Rice Bowl” that they can fill with any change they find and then help them donate that money. And you can do a fun activity to encourage sacrifice, like one of the two I mentioned last week: sacrifice beans or a crown of thorns.

That is, you can do this if she wants to do it. But don’t force it. Encourage your child to make sacrifices or see the good of sacrifices through those games if she enjoys doing it and it works for your family. But don’t require a Lenten sacrifice from a six-year-old in Jesus’ name. The Church doesn’t do that. She doesn’t require anything of children that young. Parents shouldn’t either.

As your child gets older, you can ask her if she is interested in sacrificing something for Lent and encourage her in that. I’ve seen this work best when parents start with letting the child pick one thing each day to sacrifice, instead of picking one thing for 40 days. That feels a little less intimidating to children and is just more doable. You can also do something as a family, like Stations every Friday or no television on weekdays. But for now, just focus on helping her understand who Jesus is, how much He loves her, and what He did for her. Teach her about the story of our salvation. Introduce her to the angels and saints. Help her to grow in her understanding of Mass and Confession in preparation for her First Holy Communion. Do small things in the home to help her understand the liturgical year. And model for her God’s merciful love. Keep doing that, and in time, with grace, she’ll be a lot more excited about taking on some small )or big) sacrifice for Jesus.

Any Lenten suggestions to strengthen marriage? Any suggestions for couple specific devotions/penances?

Make sure you talk to your spouse before choosing a penance that might affect them—like serious fasting from food or going to Mass every night after work instead of coming straight home. If your penance is also going to become a penance for your spouse, they need to consent to it.

Likewise, think about your spouse’s needs, not just your own. Help each other find time to get more prayer in or get to daily Mass more often or sit with Jesus in the Eucharist. If one of you is getting to Mass every day during Lent and the other never is, that’s a problem. Figure out a way for you to both get the time with Jesus that you need.

Also, consider doing at least one thing together, even if it’s not necessarily what you would choose if you were on your own. For example, I do not have a sweet tooth and rarely eat sweets—maybe once or twice a week at the absolute most—but I still give up sweets in solidarity with Chris, who really has a sweet tooth and always struggles to give up his treats. It makes it easier for him when we do it together. So, if there is one thing you and your spouse can give up together, even if it’s not particularly difficult for one of you to do so, it might be worth doing.

Lastly, if you are looking for a program to do with your spouse, one that I do recommend is Cana 90. My friends Mike and Alicia Hernon, who co-host the Messy Family Podcast, run it every year, and it’s absolutely solid. Mike and Alicia are faithful, balanced, and sane, three traits which are harder to find than they used to be. I have really benefited from their work, and I think others will too.

How do I have a fruitful Lent when motherhood already makes life feel like penance?

I received several questions very similar to this, and before I say anything else, I want to be clear that I understand how challenging parenting is. I know from experiencing it how overwhelming and exhausting mothering lots of littles can be, and I know from observing it how terrifying and emotionally taxing mothering older kids and teens can be. Motherhood is not easy. The stakes are high. And some seasons demand more of us than others.

When you are in one of those seasons, piling on penances makes no sense. The years I had three babies in diapers were years when I went pretty light on the penances. I still did something (and having never given birth, I never got an exemption from fasting and abstinence) but none of my penances during those years was going to impress anyone. Even now, when things have gotten a little less insane (I have a child who dresses himself and buckles himself in the car!!!!), some Lenten observances that I might otherwise like to do, just don’t work in the context of our family life. When you are a mom or a dad with kids in the home—little or big—you always have to consider the effect any Lenten penance or undertaking might have on the whole family. It’s not about just you anymore. And if Lent looks just like it did when you were single, something is probably off.

At the same time, for as hard as motherhood can be, if the entirety of your life is feeling like penance or one never-ending act of self-denial, you need to sit down with your spouse and figure out what the two of you can do to change that. Motherhood should stretch you, but it should not destroy you. There should be enough joy, goodness, and satisfaction mixed into the crazy, to keep you from going crazy. If there is not, something has to change.

I don’t know your situation or the situation of the other women who expressed similar thoughts. I don’t know why it feels this way for you in particular. But if there is something that would help, please talk to your spouse about how you can get that help. Together, look for ways to find you more time to yourself or more time doing something which you love or being creative or talking with grownups or sitting in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Buy the help you need to make this happen if that’s the only way. Your joy and mental stability are more important to your family’s well-being than saving for retirement or paying off your mortgage faster than it needs to be paid off. A house with no mortgage does precious little for a family if the mother living in it is bitter, resentful, and exhausted from never having enough help or time to feel semi-restored. And if there’s no way to buy the help, if there isn’t even a little bit extra in the budget or no way your husband can relieve you a little more often, start talking to moms at school or church or in a Facebook group about babysitting swaps. I can almost guarantee there are other moms out there needing help just like you.

Either way, go easy on yourself this Lent. Pray more. Focus on offering up the difficulties of each day. Pick a new prayer intention each morning and offer every challenging moment over the next 24 hours for that intention. Maybe try reading a little bit each day from the letters of Saint Zelie Martin, who understood what it’s like to be an overwhelmed, exhausted mother better than any other saint I know. Also, maybe you already do this, but set a timer on social media use. You don’t need to give it up entirely. I think social media can be great in small doses. But it also can make us feel more disconnected from our family and discontented with our life than we realize. It drains us in ways we can’t see. Especially in seasons of littles, it can be a numbing device, that prevents us from leaning on Jesus and letting Him help us carry the crosses of motherhood.

Whatever you choose, please know I am praying for you. Again, motherhood is hard. It requires tremendous amounts of self-denial. So in this season, try to focus on penances and practices that will help you deny yourself more joyfully when you have to, but also make it possible for you to see when it’s not self-denial that you need, but rather help.

Any advice on how to keep yourself from giving up too many things for your own good?

Trying to give up too many things is rarely a good idea. It’s better to do a couple things well and faithfully, then attempt to live like a desert father for 40 days. My rule for myself is that I always give up sweets and one or two more things. That changes every year, but depending on the year it has been alcohol, cocktails, wine that costs more than $10 a bottle, eating out, Starbucks, using my phone in certain places or at certain times, milk in my coffee, music in the car, grocery shopping at any store other than Aldi, or using my phone as anything other than a phone (no social media, email, or web browsing on it). Again, I just pick one or two things in addition to sweets. More than that and I tend not to take my penances as seriously and slack off on them.

In addition to giving up sweets and one thing more, I always aim to add one thing to my prayer life—getting to Mass or a Holy Hour during the week, a specific prayer intention for the day, morning Rosary, daily devotional, night prayer, spiritual reading, etc. Again, just one thing.

Chris and I give alms as generously as we can all year long, so this one is hard for us to do more on. We’re already doing all we can. But if you’re not, pick one charity and set aside a small amount of money for them each week. Or have one Mass said for someone who needs prayers each week. Or increase your contribution to your parish by a certain amount through Lent. But again, pick just one thing.

So, that’s my advice. Keep it simple. Don’t do more than a few things from across the spectrum of what the Church asks—fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. And remember you can do something different next year. Doing All the Things is not the goal of Lent. Growing closer to Christ is. And you don’t grow closer to Him by trying to win the Spiritual Olympics. You grow closer to Him by looking to Him and leaning on Him and learning about Him, all as you depend upon Him to do the heavy lifting in your soul that needs doing this Lent.

What are some ways to fast and abstain for those of us who aren’t able to do so for health reasons? I’m pregnant and need to eat all the time to keep from being sick.

Every pregnant woman I have ever known has had her own unique set of pregnancy struggles. Some have to eat all the time. Some have to eat only particular foods. Some can’t cook. Some have to cook. Some would die without convenience foods. Others won’t touch convenience foods for the whole nine months. I am saying this, as a preface, because there is no way I can know what is and isn’t possible for you. So, I will throw out a few ideas that most pregnant women I know could have done, and maybe you will see something that might work for you.

1. Give up sweets;

2. Give up drive-thru coffee/chai/drinks;

3. Give up online shopping;

4. Give up listening to music in the car;

5. Give up taking your phone in the bathroom or looking at it while you walk;

6. Give up binging shows (watch only one episode a night);

7. Delete all social media apps from your phone every night from 5 pm on;

8. Give up complaining about the one particular person about whom you most often complain;

9. Pray a Rosary every day for your least favorite politician, social media influencer, or co-worker;

10. Drink cheap coffee;

11. Don’t drive above the speed limit;

12. Call people instead of texting if what you need to communicates is more than one sentence.

13. Put your phone into grayscale.

Do you have any suggestions for how to fast from noise for Lent (as a mom with young kids)?

There is no fasting from your kids’ noise (short of taking an extended Lenten retreat), so you need to focus on tuning out the world’s noise. Maybe that means no music in the car or while cooking dinner. Maybe it means drastically cutting back on social media and news consumption—deleting the apps from your phone most of the day. Can you get out of the house for a walk? If so, leave the earbuds behind and just listen to the birds. Reading instead of television at night is also an option. Or getting up at least an hour before the kids if that is possible for you (I may be weird, but no amount of sleep is as valuable to me as the two hours of quiet I get every morning before the kids wake). Even little things, like leaving your phone at home when you go to Mass on Sundays or silencing all push notifications can cut back on the noise that fills up your head all day long.

Is there a meat free section in your cookbook? Any good recipes that don’t involve fish or tree nuts or peanuts?

There isn’t a meat free section in the cookbook, but there are vegetarian and vegan recipes in every section. I’ll share some of them in this newsletter during Lent, as a lead up to the launch of the cookbook.

As for recipes, a few years back, right before Ellie was born, I raised money for the Sisters for Life by sharing meat free recipes on my old blog. Many of them were fish free and nut free. You can find them here, here, here, and here.

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Five Fast Things

1. It’s never too late to add Lenten resources to your home. Two of my favorites right now are Katie Bogner’s book All About Lent: Sharing the Seasons of Lent and Salvation with Children (use code Emily15 to save 15 percent) and the Lenten Curriculum for elementary-aged and middle school children, Wilderness Way.

2. The comments on our most recent podcast about IVF are so beautiful, especially from women grieving miscarriages. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, definitely do so, but don’t skip the comments. (New episode will drop Thursday. We’ll be talking about heroism. And a whole lot of crazy stuff.)

3. I thought this Substack essay was a fascinating read about the difference between how Millennial and younger Gen X women understood their singleness and how Gen Z women understand it. I may write about it more some time, especially how being a Christian single woman in particular changes the dynamic, but for now, for those interested in such things, here you go: “Would You Rather Have Married Young?”

4. I am not a bread baker and never will be a break baker. Or any kind of baker. But my family is still getting amazing organic sourdough bread, pastas, and pastries each month thanks to Wildgrain. The prices are about what you would pay at a farmer’s market and we have yet to be disappointed with the quality. My favorite is the Sourdough Rosemary Garlic Bread, Chris ‘s is the Ginger Molasses Cookies, and the kids are split between the Belgian Waffles and Croissants. They also have lots of gluten-free options. If you want to try a box, you can save $20 with a referral they kindly gave me.

5. I promised you a few of the new vegetarian recipes from the cookbook, so here is one of the fastest, simplest, and tastiest:

Tortellini with Romesco Sauce

Serves 6; Prep Time: 5 minutes; Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• Cheese Tortellini, 32 ounces

• Roasted Red Peppers, 12 ounce jar (I use Cento)

• Raw Almonds, .5 cup

• Sun-Dried Tomatoes, olive-oil packed, .25 cup (Mezetta or Alessi are good options)

• Garlic, 2 large cloves

• Red Wine Vinegar, 1 tablespoon

• Smoked Paprika, 1 teaspoon

• Cayenne Pepper, .25 teaspoon

• Olive Oil, .5 cup

• Kosher Salt, .5 teaspoon

• Parsely, .25 cup, chopped

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil; add tortellini and cook according to package directions; drain and return to pot;

2. While the water boils, combine all the ingredients except for the olive oil and parsley, in a blender; begin blending; once the ingredients are well combined, slowly pour in the olive oil and continue to blend until the sauce is smooth and creamy;

3. You will have roughly 1.5 cups of Romesco Sauce when done; Sset aside 1 cup for this recipe, then freeze the remainder to use in recipes such as Oven Baked Gnocchi with Sausage and Romesco Sauce (see page) or Oven Baked Gnocchi with Feta and Tomatoes (see page).

4. Toss the tortellini and Romesco Sauce together; top with parsley and serve.

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If you have read all the way to the end of this monster newsletter, I am hoping you got something out it. I’m also hoping you’ll consider upgrading your subscription to paid. This is my apostolate, but it’s also my job, and how I help support my family. Your subscriptions will keep more newsletters like this coming.

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Let’s Meet in Person This Year!

May 3, Buffalo Catholic Women’s Conference, Buffalo, NY

May 8, The Canadian March for Life Rose Dinner Gala, Ontario, Canada

August 1: Superior Diocesan Council of Catholic Women Convention, Woodruff, Wisconsin

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