At the very beginning of this year, long before I knew how 2025 would unfold, I wrote a blog post from a little wooden pew at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know it then, but I was standing on the edge of a year that would ask more of me than I thought I had to give. A year of pruning, of waiting, of allowing—however imperfectly—for God to work beneath the surface. (If you missed that reflection, you can read it here .) On Saturday, as I stepped into my pre-ordina
