A Special Septuagesima Message to My Substack Readers
Many important updates
Thank you to all who are still reading my work here (and elsewhere). As you can see, this Substack has remained not only alive but well, even if my main base of operations these days has shifted to Pelican+.
I thought I’d take a moment to write specifically to Substack users about a few different topics.
Social component added to Pelican
One of the questions I was asked most often when I first moved over to the new platform was: “Will readers be able to leave comments and receive replies from you?”
At Pelican+ we had always intended to create an online community like this, with author/reader interaction. But many technical hurdles stood in the way and it took us longer to develop it than we had anticipated.
The good news is that, as of this week, we have successfully launched “Pelican+ Social,” which functions very much like your typical social media environment: a scrolling list of posts, with the ability to “like” and add comments to which the author can reply (as here on Substack), as well as the possibility of chats with the various writers and podcasters:
At the web address https://www.pelicanplus.social/, you will see much of the same content as you find at the regular Pelican app, except presented in a social-media manner (i.e., posts in order of their date and time of posting).
The two — that is, the app and the social — are seamlessly integrated, allowing for effortless transitioning from the one to the other.
All you need to access the social side is a free account at Pelican+ (which you can create here, if you happen not to have one yet). Naturally, access to certain features, such as paywalled articles, prayers, or documentaries, does require a paid membership.
As of this week, at the bottom of any new article on the Pelican+ app, you’ll see this button:
When you click there, you’ll be taken directly to the social platform, and can interact as you do on Substack, Facebook, X, or anywhere else like that:
So—for those who enjoy commenting on my Substack posts and interacting with me, please join us over at Pelican Social to do exactly that!
The first grand use to which we are putting our social site is one that is urgently timely and hugely wonderful.
I humbly request your attention for what follows!
Septuagesima Restored
Pelican+ was created primarily to help Catholics become saints. This is true in both a positive and a negative sense.
Positively, we want to provide the best, most orthodox, most truthful, most spiritually helpful content. And we have been doing so, in spades.
Negatively, we wanted to make it easier to avoid the garbage, grossness, guttersniping, and grumbling that seem to inundate practically every platform out there.
One of the ways we strive to do this is to re-integrate Catholics into the fullness of Catholic tradition, whether it be liturgical, devotional, ascetical, intellectual, or what have you.
Septuagesima and Lent are perhaps THE case in point, because the modern Church abandoned the pre-Lent period, which was so useful in helping us adjust and prepare for our Lenten practives, and, even worse, abandoned nearly everything that once made Lent a serious spiritual discipline. Easter now is more about bunnies and chocolate than about emerging into the light of the resurrection from hardwon self-denial.
Into this void have crept many competitors, such as Exodus 90. We don’t knock those competitors; they have done wonders for many of us. But they are fundamentally disconnected from the Church’s Year of Grace; they are “their own thing.” They do not map onto the sacred seasons, the fasting and feasting built into our religion.
In response to this ongoing scandal of feebleness and randonmess, Pelican+ has launched SEPTUAGESIMA RESTORED.
What is it?
The Church gives us seasons of fasting and feasting because we need rhythm and structure to grow in holiness. For over 1,500 years, Catholics observed Septuagesima—a 70-day season beginning three Sundays before Ash Wednesday that prepared them for Lent’s intensity. The saints became saints by this rhythm. We’re simply walking the path they walked.
Most modern penance programs resemble crash diets: intense, impressive, but abandoned shortly after Easter. Project Reclaim offers something different—challenging disciplines designed to become lifelong habits. You ease in during Septuagesima, intensify during Lent, then retain the sustainable core year-round.
Pelican+ Social is your hub. Choose a Companion group, get short daily videos of encouragement from someone doing the program with you, and connect with Catholics worldwide—all in one focused app. No juggling tabs or scrolling social media. One place for prayers, meditations, and community.
In order not to make this post too long, let me urge you to head over to Pelican+ Social to read more about it. Trust me, there’s never been anything quite like this before, built by traditional Catholics for tradition-loving Catholics.
If you have often looked back on your Lent and wished you had had more of a thought-out plan, more structure, better advice from experienced soldiers of Christ, some encouragement from real people, and a community to do it all with, this is your opportunity.
Four groups will be led by four of Pelican+’s regular contributors:
Kennedy Hall — Manhood
Timothy Flanders — Catholic Tradition
Murray Rundus - Young Adults
Angela Erickson — Women-Focused
And Dr. Michael Foley will be leading a fifth group, Soberish Septuagesima Sodality.
As I said, you can find out everything in one convenient place:
So, I’ll leave you to explore this. It could be the key to the most fruitful Lent you’ve ever experienced, and the bridge to a more devout life.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about what else is now available at Pelican+. We’ve added tons of audiobooks, such as:
the Acts of the Apostles (this Monday 2/2, joining the four Gospels, with the rest of the New Testament on the way, and then the Old Testament, for the first-ever complete audio Douay-Rheims);
daily Butler’s Lives and Roman Martyrology;
Sundays from Guéranger’s Liturgical Year;
Sunday Sermons of the Church Fathers;
more Gregorian chant;
as well as lots of ebooks; not to mention the superb podcasts, news coverage, family-friendly programs, and so much more.
It’s becoming just what we promised at the start: the ultimate digital platform for tradition-loving Catholics.
If you haven’t explored it yet, please take a moment to create a free account and look around, or do the 7-day free trial.
Now to something more mundane…
Receiving T&S emails
Another feature readers appreciate is receiving my articles in their inboxes.
For some time, Pelican+ has been using MailChimp to accomplish this task. We now have a better system in place, thanks to Pelican+ Social.
For members of Pelican+, here’s what happens:
Once you create a profile at Pelican+ Social (it takes only a minute), you will automatically be signed up to receive emails from the various writers at Pelican+.
It is very easy, subsequently, to select just which emails you’d like to receive or not receive, by going to “Notifications” in the upper right corner:
Because we can now do all this internally, we will be discontinuing MailChimp soon. Thus, I urge you to take a moment to visit Pelican Social and create a profile.
Some readers report that they receive two or three emails with my Tradition & Sanity articles. We’ve discovered the source of this error and are working to remedy it. Soon, it will be a thing of the past. The transition from MailChimp to Pelican+ Social should solve this problem, as long as you also unsubscribe from this Substack (don’t worry, it won’t unsubscribe you from any other Substacks you are signed up for).
If, after a time, you’re still getting multiple emails, you can send me a message and let me know, or write to team@piouspelican.com.
That’s all for now. Thank you for reading and may God bless your Septuagesima and beyond!
Good to hear about the comments.