Messages Of Perseverance For Lent 2024

Three minutes of prayer a day is all it takes to change your life for the better. In Messages of Perseverance for Lent 2024, Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran offer practical, everyday wisdom for persevering in your journey of faith. They will help you develop the grit and tenacity needed to overcome trials and temptations. Even in the midst of hardship, they encourage you to grow in faith and rely on God’s strength as you persevere toward the joy of Easter. For each day of Lent and Holy Week 2024, White and Corcoran—the authors of the bestselling and award-winning books Rebuilt and Seriously, God?—offer a verse or two of scripture, a short reflection, and a simple prayer prompt that will help you draw closer to God. While each devotion can be completed in as few as three minutes, you’ll reap the comfort and inspiration the words bring throughout the day.

When Sr. Miriam James Heidland’s life as a successful college athlete proved unfulfilling, she went searching for something deeper and ended up falling in love with Jesus. By charting her own journey toward wholeness, Heidland invites young Catholics to pursue their own relationship with Jesus. Although originally full of athletic ambition and goals for a career in sports news, Heidland was transformed in a very slow but deep way during her undergraduate years, moving from party girl to bride of Christ. In Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus, Heidland helps readers learn from her experience of seeking love in the wrong places and instead finding it in Christ. She shares her struggles—learning she was adopted, battling alcoholism, and healing from childhood sexual abuse—as signs of hope that anyone who desires to know Christ can find him and be loved intimately by him in return. By bringing readers into Heidland’s healing process, Loved as I Am provides a gentle and subtle template for finding peace and freedom in Jesus.

Prayerfully journey through Lent with fresh and meaningful reflections on the daily Mass readings. In just minutes per day, the insightful meditations of Not by Bread Alone can deepen your experience of this solemn season of prayer and penance.

Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness. But this book is not a mere historical survey of these teachings. In Into the Silent Land, we see the ancient wisdom of both the Christian East and West brought sharply to bear on the modern-day longing for radical openness to God in the depths of the heart. Laird's book is not like the many presentations for beginners. While useful for those just starting out, this book serves especially as a guide for those who desire to journey yet deeper into the silence of God. The heart of the book focuses on negotiating key moments of struggle on the contemplative path, when the whirlwind of distractions or the brick wall of boredom makes it difficult to continue. Laird shows that these inner struggles, even wounds, that any person of prayer must face, are like riddles, trying to draw out of us our own inner silence. Ultimately Laird shows how the wounds we loathe become vehicles of the healing silence we seek, beyond technique and achievement. Throughout the language is fresh, direct, and focused on real-life examples of people whose lives are incomparably enriched by the practice of contemplation.

Many people today are thirsty for God and feel a desire for an intense, personal prayer life that is deep and ongoing. But they encounter obstacles that prevent them from following the path seriously, and especially from persevering on it. Time for God was written with these desires and difficulties in mind. In Time for God, author Jacques Philippe mainly concentrates on mental prayer: prayer that consists of facing God in solitude and silence for a time in order to enter into intimate, loving communion with him. Practicing this kind of prayer regularly is considered by all spiritual masters to be an indispensable path that gives access to genuine Christian life—a path to knowing and loving God that empowers us to respond to his call to holiness addressed to each individual. Philippe draws on years of experience as a spiritual guide to illuminate the fundamental principles of mental prayer and describes some common mistakes and misconceptions that can lead it astray. With simplicity and clarity he explains the foundational principles for a healthy prayer life and gives advice for overcoming the various obstacles that arise when one sets off on the path of interior prayer.

Spiritually hungry readers who want to breakthrough to a deeper experience of prayer and want practical help for Lent need look no further than to Martin Smith's A Season for the Spirit. Originally commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1991, A Season for the Spirit provides forty daily meditations for Lent, leading us on a journey of discovery in which we find that Christ, through the Spirit, embraces every aspect of our humanity. Each meditation concludes with a prayer and passage of scripture or quotation for further reflection and study. While it aims to assist a daily practice of personal prayer, it is also widely used by groups who pledge to meet regularly so that members can share their thoughts, reactions, and spiritual experiences.

During our chaotic times, discover five forgotten values that can spark internal growth and help us reconcile our Christian faith with the complexities of race, sexuality, and social justice. WINNER OF THE CHRISTIANITY TODAY BOOK AWARD Most believers live in the state of “being a Christian” without ever being deeply formed by Christ. Our pace is too frenetic to be in union with God, and we don’t know how to quiet our hearts and minds to be present. Our emotions are unhealthy and compartmentalized. We feel unable to love well or live differently from the rest of the world—to live as people of the good news. New York pastor Rich Villodas says we must restore balance, focus, and meaning for our souls. The Deeply Formed Life lays out a fresh vision for spiritual breakthrough following five key values: • Contemplative Rhythms Value: slowing down our lives to be with God. • Racial Justice Value: examining a multi-layered approach to pursuing racial justice and reconciliation. • Interior Examination Value: looking beneath the surface of our lives to live free and love well. • Sexual Wholeness Value: exploring how our sexuality connects with our spirituality. • Missional Presence Value: living as the presence of Christ in a broken world. The Deeply Formed Life is a roadmap to live in the richly rooted place we all yearn for: a place of communion with God, a place where we find our purpose. Praise for The Deeply Formed Life “The Deeply Formed Life is a book for our time. Honest, wise, insightful, funny, and—above all—deep. The way Rich and New Life Fellowship hold emotional health and racial justice together is beyond inspiring. This is spiritual formation for the future of the church.”—John Mark Comer, pastor of teaching and vision at Bridgetown Church and author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry “I’ve studied the Bible under Pastor Rich’s leadership for close to a decade. The core values he shares in this book serve as guidance, not only for how we should live as Christians in an ever-changing world but also for how we can live a life of purpose—that consistently and enthusiastically points to Jesus.”—Susan Kelechi Watson, actress from the awardwinning television series This Is Us

There is no better season to renew one’s relationship with God than Easter, the most joyful days of the church’s year. Rejoice with these inspiring reflections on the daily Mass readings. In just minutes per day, the insightful meditations of Rejoice and Be Glad can help you embrace, live, and share the good news of the great Paschal mystery.