
I didn’t grow up “High Church”, or with a lot of awareness of the Church calendar or contemplative or liturgical practices. And so, of course, I find a number of these practices especially meaningful. A friend posted about her church’s prayer labyrinth, with stations of specific ways of encounter with God and release–which sounds deeply nourishing, but is beyond most of our reach in the current weirdness.
For the rest of us, I’ve stumbled upon a few resources that might be helpful. Many of them are sources I’ve mentioned before. What resources do you recommend?
- Mary Oliver and the Poetry of Lent, a PDF from The Salt Project to go with Oliver’s book Devotions
- Bread And Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, by Plough Publishing.
- Pray As You Go’s audio retreat and their daily prayers through the season.
- Sacred Space’s Lenten retreat (text, I think) and daily prayers.
- 3-Minute Retreat
- Or, this could be a terrific season to engage with the Examen, the reflective and Spirit-guided reflection that Ignatius of Loyola gave us.
- Morning prayer audio (from the Book of Common Prayer) from the Episcopal Church in Garrett County
- Or, the text of the prayers, without the need to jump from page to page in the BCP, at Forward Movement.
- Ideas from Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home by Traci Smith, or other books on spiritual formation of kids (email me if you need a few more possibilities).
- Resources from Illustrated Ministry, often in “adult coloring page” style.
- Your local liturgically-aware church’s livestream