CEM POC Lenten Newsletter – March 2025

Mar 1
5 min read

Happy Lent!!

Many of you may find this revelation a bit odd, but I absolutely love the Lenten season! While most people dread the thought of giving up chocolate, coffee, soda, etc., and not eating meat, for me it's always been something that I've anticipated. Maybe it's because I'm naturally an introvert and prone to excessive introspection, but I think it's more that I love the idea of growing in holiness. It's a time that the Church gives me every year to stop and take an honest look at who I am and who I want to be and to make some adjustments.

Without a doubt, I've given up sweets and will probably continue to do so in years ahead, but I also try to cultivate actions that I'll continue long after Lent is over. Giving up the sweets or whatever my body craves is not a way to torture myself so that I can feel superior to the other slobs out there who don't; it's a way to remind myself that the pleasures of this world are only an echo of what is to come. It is an understatement to say that we are not made for this world; we were made for heaven.

When we live life in an affluent country where we enjoy a million luxuries at the push of a button, it's easy to think, "Man...this is heaven!" as we sit in that hot tub or swallow that pecan pie loaded with ice cream. The truth is that what we're experiencing pales in comparison to the real heaven! Without a doubt, I've placed my order for the perpetually refilling bowl of ice cream in my room in the sky, but I recognize that the most delightful pieces of heaven are not ones that men make but are found in what God creates.

For me, Lent is a time when I take longer walks in nature, when I stop to smell the roses and gaze at the sunsets. It's a time when I take time away from social media and actually reach out to my "friends" to tell the important ones that I love them and value their presence in this world. It's a time when I think about and pray for friends and family members who have passed into glory and whom I hope to see again when I get there. So, for me, Lent isn't about a longing for chocolate that I can't have right now, but it's an opportunity to savor the real experiences of grace and heaven that are available to me right now. Those encouragements to more prayer actually expand my heart and vision for heavenly things as I savor the goodness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in my life.

We're all going to die one day, and the more ice cream I eat the sooner that day will come. But that truth need not be a depressing one if we can see Lent as an opportunity to peek into heaven and cultivate a hunger for more glory. I know I sound crazy, but I'm in good company. The Saints throughout the ages have affirmed similar ideas. So as we approach Ash Wednesday this week and are reminded of our deaths with the smearing of ashes, I would urge you not to focus on the loss of earthly sweets that you'll be missing for 40 days, but to focus rather on the heavenly sweets that God gives us a taste of every day as we walk in His grace and mercy.

Let's pray for one another and encourage one another to show the world the real prize that we are pursuing in heaven.

God bless and have a happy and holy Lent!!!

Missionary: Tanatsa Doka

Ministry Name: Catholic Christian Outreach

Year of Service: 1st

Tanatsa is originally from Zimbabwe and lives and serves in Canada. In Zimbabwe, she went to church every Sunday. The parish she grew up in was dynamic and lively, with various different ministries running all the time and an engaging youth group. She liked going to church, and she often prayed with her family growing up.

Although she was raised Catholic, when she moved to Canada in the middle of the pandemic, she stopped going to church. Because she had a job, she started looking into the party scene and investing in social media, which left her empty. The more she tried to fill her life with all this stuff, the emptier she felt. It left her feeling lost. The question she was asking herself was, "Is this it?"

When she went to the university, she was invited to a small faith-sharing group sponsored by Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO). The missionary who was leading the small group sessions asked her out to coffee. As they chatted about God in that coffee shop, Tanatsa poured her heart out to her, and all she did was listen lovingly. She felt God's love so strongly through her, and through her witness she came to the realization that God was more than someone you go to when you need something—He was a friend.

Through the love and investment of the CCO missionary, she started to reconnect with God and started to read the Bible again. Through her studies of the Bible, she realized that the high standard that she had always felt God wanted her to reach was unattainable without His help, and in fact, her weaknesses did not surprise Him at all. She learned of the abundance of God's love and mercy, and the only appropriate response was to love Him in return.

The missionary next challenged her to give her life to Christ in prayer and come to a retreat. Those events sent her deeper into her faith, which eventually led to her decision to serve the same ministry that had brought her back to God. At first, she was reluctant to say yes to this call, but a question that Jesus asked her during her discernment was:

"How would you live your life today if I was on earth right now, in the flesh, and nobody else knew but you?"

"I knew what my answer was. I would leave everything and run down the streets yelling, 'Jesus is here!'"

This is the passion that she now brings to her work on campus at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

To watch her thank you video: Click Here

Missionary: Yasmine Elsaadany

Ministry Name: FOCUS

Year of Service: 2nd

Yasmine grew up in a mixed-faith family with a Mexican Catholic mother and an Egyptian Muslim father. In spite of the faith difference, their family was deeply spiritual, as her father allowed their mother to teach them the Catholic faith. Her parents also taught them the value of serving God's people. In 2012, her father died from cancer, and this awakened in Yasmine and her siblings a desire for more involvement in their faith.

In high school, she got involved in youth ministry and liturgical ministry. In college, she was invited to the home of a missionary and met a woman who challenged her to invest more deeply in her own faith. She countered the challenge with explanations of her own involvement in church, but the missionary replied with a question that changed Yasmine's life. She said:

"I am glad you are pouring into souls... but how are you pouring into yours?"

In the words of Yasmine:

"Embarrassed by my inability to answer, I realized that I lacked a personal relationship with Jesus."

Through that missionary's love and dynamic faith, Yasmine was invited to a Bible study where she made a personal decision to pursue a personal relationship with Jesus. This decision stirred in her the desire to also lead students to Christ as she had been led. Now she serves full-time in missionary work at Texas A&M–Kingsville.

To watch her thank-you video: Click Here