The Lenten Pathway
Welcome to the Journey
The journey of Lent is not about performance or exhausting ourselves. It is about finding what is helpful, what is meaningful. It is a way of stepping into something ancient and alive—not to prove ourselves, but to be present to what is stirring.
Some will move through Lent day by day, lingering in the rhythm of morning and evening, word and silence. Others will need a different pace—something spacious, something that meets them where they are.
This is why we offer the Lenten Pathway—a way to walk through the season with intention, even if time feels scarce. Each week, you will find a weekly Scripture, a core practice, and a reflection offering—a way to root yourself in the movement of the season, without the pressure of keeping up.
Wherever you are, however you engage, you are welcome here. There is no right way to do Lent. Only the invitation to walk it in the way you can.
Week One: The Threshold
Lent begins before the first step is taken. It finds us at the doorway, in the hush before movement, in the moment before commitment.
To enter Lent is not about feeling ready. It is about showing up as we are—with longing or hesitation, with certainty or uncertainty. It is about pausing at the threshold long enough to name what we carry and what we are willing to lay down.
This week is not about effort. It is about presence. It is about listening at the doorway before we step through.
This is the invitation of the first week of Lent:
To pause before the journey rushes forward.
To name what we bring with us—grief, hope, longing, fear.
To let the season meet us where we are, without demand or pressure.
Week Two: The Wilderness
Lent does not leave us at the threshold. It leads us into the unknown—into the wilderness, where distractions fall away, where silence stretches wide, where we come face to face with what we hunger for most.
This is not a place of exile. It is not punishment. The wilderness is a space of deep reckoning—where illusions fade, where old comforts loosen their hold, where we are invited to trust instead of grasping for control.
To enter the wilderness is not about having answers. It is about allowing the questions to rise. It is about sitting in the hunger, listening in the silence, letting the ache of uncertainty shape us instead of undoing us.
This is the invitation of the second week of Lent:
🔹 To step deeper into the unknown—releasing the need for clear answers.
🔹 To let hunger be a teacher—not just physical, but the longing for something more.
🔹 To listen in silence—not for easy solutions, but for the presence that has always been here.
🔹 To let lament rise—naming what feels heavy, without rushing to resolve it.
🔹 To trust the slow work of transformation—believing that something is shifting, even when we cannot yet see it.
The wilderness does not demand performance. It does not demand certainty.
It only asks that we stay long enough to be changed.
Week Three: The Wrestling
Lent does not leave us in comfortable silence. It brings us deeper, into places we would rather not go—the spaces where faith and doubt collide, where old certainties fade, where we wrestle honestly with what we carry.
This is the week of The Wrestling, the place where we cannot avoid what rises within us—the questions, the struggle, the unnamed tensions beneath the surface. It is not punishment or failure. It is an invitation into honesty, into the kind of wrestling that reshapes us.
Here, in the dark of night, we become like Jacob, refusing to let go until something shifts. Here, we meet our longing face-to-face, wrestling not just with doubt, but with hope, trust, and the possibility that even in struggle, blessing might come.
This is the invitation of the third week of Lent:
To lean into the tension—letting questions surface without rushing answers.
To name what you’ve been wrestling with silently—giving voice to the hidden struggles within.
To notice your resistance—and ask what deeper desire it might reveal.
To hold gently both fear and faith—trusting both can lead you deeper.
To release what you hold too tightly—opening hands and heart to what you cannot yet see clearly.
The wilderness is not gentle, but neither is it cruel.
It invites our wrestling, our honesty, our willingness to remain,
until slowly, quietly, something begins to shift within us.
Week Four: The Hearth
Lent slows us down—bringing us not to the height of fire, but to what quietly endures beneath it.
After the wilderness, after the questions, after the breaking open—something remains. Not a blaze, not certainty, but an ember: soft, steady, still alive beneath the ash.
This is the week of The Hearth—the turning point where we no longer strive to prove or produce, but learn to stay. To tend. To keep watch over what still glows.
Faith does not always roar. Sometimes, it flickers. Sometimes, it waits. But even in its quietest form, it is still holy.
This is the invitation of the fourth week of Lent:
To return gently to what has not gone out—trusting that even a small ember can sustain.
To let presence, not performance, keep the flame alive.
To notice what feeds your faith—and what slowly burns it out.
To tend your faith the way you would tend a fire: with steadiness, care, and attention.
To remember that you do not keep the fire alone—others are keeping watch with you.
You are not asked to reignite the blaze.
You are asked to stay near the warmth.
This is the week of the hearth.
Let it hold you. Let it teach you. Let it keep what still burns.