As you read this we will be in the last few weeks of our Lenten promises. If you are like me you have probably slipped once or twice.

The Church in Quebec, many parts of Ontario and even in Rome appeared late last week to say “No Más” in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

It’s been a turbulent few months. Crowds blocking rail lines, protesters waving placards and RCMP officers barricading land are some of the dramatic images of discontent across Canada.

The revelation of the grievous sexual misconduct by L’Arche founder Jean Vanier should awaken us all to the central importance of a well-founded moral conscience in the pursuit of holiness.

Erik Larson has a special talent for taking historical events and writing nonfiction books about people related to the main event but somehow slightly off the mainstream, on the periphery.

Temptations indulged, temptations resisted. On the first Sunday of Lent we heard about the devil’s tempting of Adam and Eve in the garden, to catastrophic effect, and the devil’s tempting of the Lord Jesus in the desert, to salvific effect.

Driving downtown, the weather forecast came on the radio: “The temperature tonight is expected to plummet to a low of minus-14 degrees with a windchill factor making it feel like minus-25. The health department has issued a warning that at these temperatures frostbite to exposed skin can occur within minutes.”

Friends, acquaintances and the general commentariat have all been roiling over the revelations about Jean Vanier as a serial sex abuser.

Another of President Donald Trump’s men — this one longtime confidant Roger Stone — was sentenced last week after being convicted for lying to Congress and witness tampering. That makes eight Trump associates found guilty in court on various charges.

The news that Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche homes for people with mental handicaps, engaged in decades of sexual misconduct and falsely denied knowing about similar abuse by his mentor, Fr. Thomas Philippe, is shocking. Vanier was a saint in the eyes of many and also an icon for the future direction of the Church.