Feeling conflicted about eating those heart-shaped chocolates on Ash Wednesday this year? Try celebrating Galentine’s Day with your gal pals on Feb. 13 instead.

As Lent draws nearer, we can begin to reflect: Do we open our hearts to God as we go about our days? Or are we disrupting every spiritual inclination with notifications and news feeds?

"If we come to understand that God suffers alongside us as one who truly knows what it means to suffer, our anger morphs into love and our suffering mysteriously becomes a means of transformation."

The struggle for faith ‘is a struggle from which everything else emanates,’ says the storied director.

There can be no separation between the confession of Christ and the transformation of life, between Christian thinking and Christian living, and between theology and spirituality.

The most difficult task of a Christian involves that of being a living exemplar of the virtues present in Jesus. The Lenten season can be a gift in continuing this process of personal transformation.