Have you started thinking about Lent? 

Ash Wednesday, March 2, 2022, is just two weeks away. Have you started contemplating how you will enter this penitential season and spend 40 days uniting your heart with Jesus’?  Through the good works of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, God prunes our hearts as we are united to Christ and his suffering.  These practices give us the strength to resist sin and follow the counter cultural path of love.  If we open our heart and hear God’s word, we learn how Jesus, exposed in his humanity, rejects sin when confronted with temptations and seeks solace in God the Father.  This serves as an example for us in our own personal deserts. 

There are many great resources out there to help guide your Lenten journey.  Here are a few to explore to begin preparing your heart to determine what is best for you in journey through Lent:

Blessed is She invites us to travel along the road of our interior poverty this Lent and to embrace our utter dependence on God with All She Had  Lent 2022 Devotional. In this fresh devotional, we will find ourselves gently guided through six poverties: of promise, of desire, of security, poverty of hope, poverty of control, poverty of intimacy and poverty of everything.

My spiritual buddy gave me this Magnificat Lenten Journey Companion which I will enjoy along with the Word on Fire reflections. Along with Day by Day Finding God’s Goodness meditations.

Walking with Purpose helps to prepare your heart for the triumph of resurrection through several short, powerful bible studies:

• Looking to feel revived and refreshed as you grow in the knowledge that you are loved? Choose Living In The Father’s Love.
• Need to be awakened to the reality of who you are in Christ? Choose Fearless and Free. 
• Desire to learn how all Scripture points to Jesus, and recognize and appreciate God’s plan for your own life? Choose Beholding His Glory.   
• Want to counter feeling weighed down by a culture that all too often leaves us feeling empty and dissatisfied? Choose Beholding Your King.   

Dynamic Catholic continues their Best Lent Ever series and you can sign up for free.  This year, for the first time ever, Dynamic Catholic is offering two options for Best Lent Ever. Every day, you will receive two short, practical, and inspiring videos in your inbox, each representing a pathway leading toward a better version of you and a closer relationship with God. Why did they double up? Well, the world has changed. We have changed. And to offer a truly transformative experience, they developed two pathways designed specifically to meet us where we are, no matter where we are in your spiritual journey.

Good Catholic invites us to deepen our relationship with Christ this lent. Being a Christian means imitating Christ. But how can we imitate Him if we don’t personally know Him? Discover Jesus’ works, loves, joys, and sorrows in The Life of Christ so that you can follow Him more closely. Change Your Life By Studying His. You can learn more here.

We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. 

Hebrews 10:23-24

Pope Francis says, the word of God consoles and encourages us. At the same time, it summons us to conversion, challenges us, frees us from the bondage of our selfishness. For His word has the power to change our lives and to lead us out of darkness into the light.

Let’s use this Lent to walk further into the light finding God’s goodness!

Cynthia