As a child, one of the first things I often heard people mention about Lent was to ask the question, “what are you giving up?” Random strangers or people who never seemed to talk about anything else to do with matters of faith, would suddenly speak about what they were ‘giving up.’ And the default was always chocolate and sweets!

Perhaps you feel like you're skimming the surface of life or stuck in a rut ... from a Catholic perspective, it can be a very positive reality because renewing yourself is very much anchored in Christ.

Thick in the trenches of parenting small children and balancing professional work, I’ve had my fair share of overwhelm over the years, and in quiet moments of prayer I’ve often thought does God really care about all this? Does any of this actually matter to Him? Do I really matter to Him?

Sometimes I ask myself the question: am I happy to live an ordinary, normal life? To be an ordinary person? Happiness, defined as “an emotional state characterised by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment and fulfilment”, is something I think we’re all after.

Grace Hoffman is a Fellow at the American Council on Women, Peace, and Security. In this episode, we talk about how her studies in Trinity College, Dublin influenced her professional and personal journey to the current position at the Defense Security Cooperation University.

Maybe you’ve been distracted by the run-up to Christmas - frantically buying last-minute gifts, worrying about the budget that was stretched too far or dealing with tough family dynamics. To quote the well-known cliché, we can end up forgetting the real reason for the season - God made man - and that all these things we do, are a means not an end.