During this Lenten season, I followed the “Pray40: The Return” challenge on the Hallow app.  There have been a few themes in it, such as readings taken from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880), which are being compared alongside an examination of the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15:11-32.  If you know the famous Russian novel, you will grasp the similarities of the two stories without needing to go through the challenge.  What you would not get from that knowledge is the prayer we have been reminded of throughout: Lord empty me, fill me, use me.

This prayer had some utility in my life before I heard of it on Hallow.  In reflecting on it, I realized it can be used in order to explain how I began The Legionnaire.  The one constant in all this has been a call from God to employ the talents with which I have been blessed for the betterment of others.  My original calling, I thought, had been to teach on the college level.  I pursued my Ph.D. in American History despite running up student loans because this is what I felt my mission was in life.  It took God emptying me of that desire through over a decade in academia for me to realize the truth.  What was never taken from me was my love of film, a topic that informed my dissertation.  God filled me with that love again, and now I use it in order to write about films from a Catholic perspective.

I am now going on six years of using that love to write film reviews from a Catholic perspective for The Legionnaire.  Along the way, I have been helped with some great contributions from Diane M. Blenke and Cameron J. Czaja.  And while it has taken a little longer than I may have hoped, readership is growing in recent months.  At the same time, with the amount of introspection demanded of a Christian during Lent, one wonders what else can be done to use my talents.  In case you are not aware, I also produce content for TikTok and YouTube with my good friend Isaac Needleman for our channel called Oh Man Disney.  It is yet another platform on which I can witness to God’s love.  We also plan to do more with it in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

What I hope you will also stay tuned for is more content from The Legionnaire.  Perhaps I was misleading when I talked of wondering what else I can do with my talents, leading one to think I may be ending The Legionnaire.  That is far from the case.  One major revelation that has come to me in my prayers during Lent is how much it is simply a time of return to God.  I do not know about you, but these days of preparation before Easter put a lot of pressure on me.  I want to make them the best ever, and I feel that every year.  However, simply returning is enough.  That was the case for the father in the Prodigal Son parable, it was so for the eponymous siblings in Dostoevsky’s novel, and it is enough for me.  Therefore, as we come back to the Cross for another Good Friday, know of my renewed commitment to bringing you Catholic film reviews.  May God bless you today, and during the Easter season.