lenten journey

March Inspires

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Mass and Adoration in Lent.
(c)2026

Last Thursday I attended mass. After some questions and wanderings, I found the side chapel which I hadn’t known existed at this church. I wasn’t late, but I was barely on time. The way the room was set up I didn’t know how the communion would go, but I put that aside.

This was my first visit since I made the commitment to attend Thursday mass throughout Lent. You can see the photos above that show you the spareness of the Lenten decor, and it was lovely to be in the simplicity with no distractions from the Word.

When mass was over, something unexpected happened. The monstrance was set up for adoration. I hadn’t known that there was an adoration period, and since I had no other plans, I thought I would stay, and what I found was peace. Contentment. In this moment, this unexpected comfort and full of comfortable sitting.

Some who stayed were sitting, some were reading, all praying.

I was sitting with prayer and some were also; some of us were just sitting with Jesus.

This was the second time in a year that I found myself accidentally at adoration, and it seems to me that in these two times, this is where I was meant to be. I could feel the presence of the holy spirit. It didn’t occur to me to leave, and so I stayed, and when I felt the call end, I went about my day.

I also wondered: could I read my current book? Reading a book, sitting side by side with Him.

In quiet.

In peace.

In contentment.

Starting Your Lenten Journey

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Mark A. Villano, CSP, Daily Reflections for Lent: Not by Bread Alone 2026, p. 7

This was the meditation for Ash Wednesday. As soon as I read it, it spoke to me. I am a planner. Whether it’s my trek to work (today I had four bags plus my phone and keys) or vacation or retreat (enough clothes for a week even if it’s only a weekend) or Lent (you saw my list last week).

The most important thoughts to me are the last two questions:

What do I want to carry with me during the days ahead?

What prayer exercises or spiritual practices will accompany me?

As with all my excursions, I have a tote bag. Or three. I load myself up with what I *might* need even when, with experience, I know that I won’t need all of it, and I probably won’t need half of it. So, as I begin my Lenten journey, what do I want to carry with me for the next forty or so days?

What prayers and practices will I take with me? And which ones will I leave behind? What is working for this Lent that may not have worked last year? And on the opposite side of the coin, what worked last year that just doesn’t feel right this year?

The rest of this week is thinking time for me.

Meditating.

Contemplating.

Discerning.

I’ll come back next week and write about what I’ve discovered. In the meantime, if you’re observing Lent, what are you doing to make it meaningful for yourself?

Wise Words to Begin Your Lenten Journey

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In this regard, I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor. Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves. Instead, let us strive to measure our words and cultivate kindness and respect in our families, among our friends, at work, on social media, in political debates, in the media and in Christian communities. In this way, words of hatred will give way to words of hope and peace.

-Pope Leo XIV

You can read Pope Leo’s full message here.

Final Lenten Labyrinth

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Lent did not seem to rush by or to trickle; it went along just right as Goldilocks would say. For me, I think part of it was keeping the labyrinth journal throughout Lent. It forced me (in a good way) to look at my day, both before it began and then to examine how it went later on and keep track of my activities. I mostly stuck to spiritual activities, but some secular ones seeped in, especially when I spent quality time with my family or if I completed writing assignments. Those things got me up in such a positive way, I couldn’t help but meditate on them and incorporate them into my spiritual journey for Lent. I enjoyed switching the colors between journaling, and I enjoyed recognizing close moments with G-d in the micro-narration as well as in the moment.

With Lent finished, and other responsibilities beginning, I thought I would try my hand at a spiritual journal. I started it on the 19th and didn’t pick it up again until yesterday. So far not an auspicious start, but I don’t intend it to be a daily journal; I’m attempting to keep it pressure free. It occured to me to begin it when I started keeping a log for my Cursillo grouping and Ultreya tripod and close moments. I thought I should keep those and have access to re-reading them and be able to always be advancing in my spiritual life.

Here are the final pictures of my Lenten Labyrinth Journal. It is definitely something that I found rewarding and something I would consider doing again. As you can see below the cut, I needed a second labyrinth to cover everything during Holy Week, concluding with Easter.

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Inspire. April.

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“To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.”

Phillip Andrew Adams
Palms from Palm Sunday.
(c)2022

This week marks my massaversary. Two years before I received my sacraments, I began attending church services. It was during Holy Week that this started and it marked a profound change in my life. Attending mass, sitting alone in a pew reading Scripture didn’t make all my problems go away; they didn’t suddenly create a magical turnaround in my mental health issues, my personal issues, my crisis, but it did create light in the darkness, both metaphorically and literally in a bright light vision. I met new people who influenced me in all the positive ways you want friends to influence you. I discovered a group of people who were glad to know me, and provided material help despite not knowing me from Adam. I saw what a calling was through their actions, and I saw what it means to walk with Christ.

I was welcomed with great joy, and I continue to be.

My massaversary is more than simply a date on a calendar or a memory of long ago. It is present, it is here, it is now, and I am welcomed with great joy whenever I enter the church and cross my self with the holy water from the font in the gathering space.

Even in an empty building, I am welcomed because Christ is always present.

I will try to put words on my feelings in small ways as the week continues on, and as the Lenten Journey ends and Easter begins.

Lenten Journey – Week 5

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As we celebrate Holy Week, we are still looking back on Week 5 of Lent. Last week was another busy week. My labyrinth (photos below cut) had to be continued on the back of my card. I wrote about our church’s soup ministry during Lent and that had some profound close moments and memories. Even though I missed rosary last week, I had dinner with my family and sometimes that has precedence. I’ve been working on Felicia Day’s book, Embrace Your Weird, and it’s really forcing me to look inward which is perfectly in tune with the Lenten desert.

Also, last week’s Last Supper retreat was so much more than a one day experience. It really brought so much out of what the retreat house means to me. It was something of a spiritual experience in just being there, amid the familiar faces and places. It was wonderful.

Now I prepare myself for the Triduum – the last days of Christ and the beginning of eternal life. We need to walk through the fire so to speak, carry our crosses and come out on Easter Sunday reborn. I’m looking forward to it.

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Lenten Labyrinth – Week 4

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Publishing these in the middle of the next week gives me time to reflect on the week that’s passed, reevaluate my journey and see what changes need to be made in my spiritual life. It’s a when, not an if. There are usually a few. I think I’ve put writing in the center of the labyrinth since even my spirituality involves an excess of writing, but I feel that there must be more that I’m looking for when I get to the center. I may take a walk later this week (or more probably next) at one of our local labyrinths.

I’m also a little stuck on the exercises in Felicia Day’s book Embrace Your Weird. She suggests filming yourself. (Not going to happen.) But I still need to step back and watch myself with new eyes and then answer her questions. This guide is for fostering creativity, but I find that the parts of my life are so interconnected that I can’t help but reflect on my faith and spirit. I’ll pick it back up this afternoon when I get home from my errands. I think I’ll do my daily readings then as well.

I still haven’t been able to answer what it is I’m being called to, although I feel the tugging.

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Lenten Journey: 2nd Week of Lent

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1st Week in Lent.
Labyrinth. Journal. (
c)2022

Yesterday as I began to look at the new week’s labyrinth I realized how important mass has been to me in more than a spiritual way. You’ll see the picture next Wednesday, but this is what I wrote yesterday morning:

“I do notice that the days I go to mass are filled with other things. Whether it’s errands or prayer or publishing/scheduling here. I am invigorated to do more. I also haven’t felt that for some time.” And in parentheses I added, “This is a busy week though.”

I know I’ve had to push myself to do some things since the fall, and it hasn’t been easy. Of courses, the pandemic hasn’t helped. Like, at all. October has always been an unsettling time for me. What should have been a fully joyous time led in a few short weeks to a devastating time and unconsciously I’ve held that uneasiness yearly. I only recognized it when it was brought up to me and I try to lessen the difficulties by being aware and looking inward. When my priest died this past October, let’s just say that did not help my spirit.

As I write this, I’ve only just realized that his death and my mother’s are exactly two months apart (seventeen years apart though). That’s some coincidence. Or something.

My parish church announced this weekend about the forthcoming appointment of our new pastor, and I didn’t realize the stress and anxiety that I’d held inside myself. The ease I feel now that the appointment is certain is palpable. I’m sure it helps that I am familiar with this new pastor, and I’m looking forward to my continued journey in the faith and the church. I do think that this news has had a positive effect on my spirit and may have given me the punch in the arm I needed to return to my previous level of interaction (in several parts of my life).

Just as it takes one thing to stop us in our tracks or put us off the path, sometimes all we need is that one little (or major) catalyst to jump start us. This was one of them.

I also have two workshops/lectures, one day of reflection, another class, an interfaith meeting, and preparing for a retreat at the end of the month, plus my oldest son’s twenty-fifth birthday. And I’ll be cooking three meals this week, which is a lot for me lately. (Real meals, not hot dogs or pasta. Possibly more on that Friday.)

Here, in the middle of this second week of Lent, I feel an optimism, a hope that my Lenten journey will continue to be meaningful and will set the path for the rest of the year after we mourn the Crucifixion and celebrate the Resurrection in the days and weeks to come.

Have a peaceful and blessed Lent. May the week land gently.

First Week in Lent

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As similar and routine as each Lent can be, each Lent is also unique in the felings it conjures up. The different readings, the different reflections, the different books chosen for study in this year as opposed to the last one. Further down you’ll see my first two weeks of the Lenten Labyrinths that I’m journaling with over the next thirty some odd days. There are two for the first week because I wasn’t thinking and began on Ash Wednesday and then began another one on the first Sunday. Looking at it each day lets me think intentionally about what I’m doing during this Lenten season.

Today is Wednesday, so there was a soup delivery from my parish earlier today. Funny story: I was sitting in my dining room on hold with my insurance company, and I hear my husband. I ignore him because I’m on the phone, then I hear banging on the door. I look up and out my kitchen door and I see a mass of grey hair, thinking my husband got locked out, although I can’t figure out how since the last time I saw him he was in his office. I get to the door and it’s Tom from church with the soup, standing in my mudroom. (I usually put out a garden table on Wednesday, but I forgot and it’s snowing, so he came in the unlocked (for the kids) door.) I thank him profusely and take my bags of very hot soup.

I sat in quiet contemplation, savoring each spoonful of hamburger barley soup, thinking (or is it praying over) the people in the parish center kitchen stirring and dividing the soup into individual plastic containers. I taste each vegetable and I dip the bread until it practically disintegrates in the hot, tomato-y broth. Each bag has a necklace with a cross and a medal of St. Peregrine. I do not know this saint, but I will spend some time this afternoon reading about him and studying what he is known for.

I think about how food brings us together even when we’re apart, and I look forward to this quiet, solitary ritual every Wednesday until Holy Week.

What are you pondering this first week of Lent, the first moments entering the desert?

Lenten Labyrinth. Ash Wednesday through Saturday 3/5/22.
(c)2022
Lenten Labyrinth. 1st Sunday in Lent.
(c)2022