Every year I look forward to the liturgical season of Lent for the sober opportunity it provides to take stock of my relationship with God, and take on or put off a few things that are hindering my intimate with God. It feels for the soul like the season it falls in: spring. An important part of the effort to “make a good Lent” is to prepare for it before the doing of it, to be ready to start a new discipline when Ash Wednesday falls. This year it’s onWednesday, March 5. Checking out and procuring some of these resources might be of some help to have a good Lent which will set up a great Easter!
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter put out Plough Publishing is simply fantastic.
Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings by Henri Nouwen is great every year.
NT Wright’s Reflecting the Glory: Meditations for Living Christ’s Life in the World, a series of 53 readings loosely tied to Lent and Easter, literally changed my life.
Ruth Haley Barton and the ministry of The Transforming Center has put together excellent Lenten resources such as devotionals, a version of the Stations of the Cross, and a music CD.
Speaking of the Stations of the Cross, two of my favorite versions are the Biblical Way of the Cross (Written by Amy Welborn and illustrated by Michael O’Brien) and Clarence Enzler’s Everyone’s Way of the Cross.
If you want to deeply reflect on the cross for the whole of Lent, Contemplating the Cross by Tricia McCarry Rhodes can help you do that.
I often will read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Christ’s Agony” on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.
Once a decade or so, I’ll watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ
The band the Brilliance covers many of the liturgical seasons in song, and their album “Lent” is excellent. I’ll also dust off in this season (and this particular version) Bach’s B-Minor Mass, looking for another excuse to do so.
I’m grateful for so many good resources for the Lenten Season, even more grateful for the opportunities the season provides, and more grateful still that it leads only to the cross of forgiveness, and most deeply grateful yet that that cross leads right to the resurrection. Have a Blessed Lent!
(You can find many of the titles at www.heartsandmindsbooks.com)