Preparing for the feast.

The end of this month finds many of us giving up sweets for Lent, so to launch into a story about baking cookies will seem like cruel and unusual punishment unless I quickly explain. This is a tale that, like a favorite recipe, comes borrowed from a friend: co-worker Heidi Schlumpf, who wrote this issue's cover story, "Call waiting: Stories of five women who want to be priests").

Recently Heidi recounted the tradition of getting together with her mom and sister to bake Christmas cookies. Part of the ritual includes getting out the old, worn, mimeographed sheet of paper that contains the family's favorite recipe for sugar cookies, sent home from school a lifetime ago by Heidi's kindergarten teacher. This year, as the ancient piece of flour-dusted, Crisco-stained paper was lovingly unfolded in front of these three women about to embark on their annual ritual of turning love for friends and neighbors into cookies, Heidi's sister half-quipped, "And now ... our sacred text."

Heidi's cookie story has a lot in common with three articles that U.S. CATHOLIC is pleased to serve to you this month. In the case of our cover story, you're invited to sit at the table with five women who will share in rich detail the faith that has nurtured and nourished them, passed down with great love from their families--and how, now, they hunger to host a banquet that will share that feast with as many people as possible.

In "Good leads to follow", another five people--all of them, including one woman, well-regarded as accomplished liturgical presiders--detail the quality ingredients that go into a good liturgy. In addition, our Testaments columnist, Alice Camille, has cooked up two helpings this month: a biblical reflection on love as well as "You're never too Catholic to learn", based on her many years of working with RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Camille has come to know that RCIA programs not only feed the spiritual hunger of those looking for a home in the Catholic Church but also nourish those who do all the preparing.

Lest it seem irreverent to liken the Master to a master chef, indulge yourself this Lent by renting the movie Babette's Feast. A great movie with eucharistic overtones, it's retold well in the bestselling book What's So Amazing about Grace?, by Philip Yancey, who also graces the pages of our magazine this month.

Ask any woman who has scrambled to pull together a meal for unexpected guests--or who has heard in her heart the authentic call to priesthood--and she'll tell you that Jesus' miraculous act with loaves and fishes has far less to do with possessing the power to turn a couple of humble ingredients into a feast. It's much more about addressing the urge to feed others.