Recommended aids to improve your prayer life in Lent

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 18, 2025

Periodically I try to recommend a few worthwhile books for devotional use during Lent, concentrating on what might have been newly released by trusted Catholic publishers. The last time I did this was in 2022. I’ve had to update a number of the publishers’ links, but that Lenten reading list is now ready for use again. Note that neither that list of recommendations nor the new short list below is an attempt to identify the great spiritual classics. Very probably that would be more rewarding; but my aim here is simpler: With some more complex exceptions, to acquaint readers with recently-published, programmatic and typically daily aids to the development of the spiritual life.

To the 2022 list, then, I would like to add five newer books which have come across my (or my wife’s) desk in the past year. You can learn more about each book by following the publishers’ links. So here they are:

1. The Holy Hour from Word on Fire in 2022, edited by Matthew Beckio, features a poem, a Scripture reading, two reflections (one by Bishop Robert Barron), a Catechism extract, and a prayer for use in 24 different holy hours. The book is introduced with Bishop Fulton Sheen’s classic emphasis on the importance of the Holy Hour, it is divided into three sections (8 sessions each for the Real Presence, the Holy Sacrifice, and the Sacred Meal), and it includes additionalresources at the end, including prayers for exposition, and statements of recent popes on Eucharistic adoration. This is also a beautifully-crafted book, bound in imitation leather, with gold edging and a ribbon.

2. Fr. Wade L. J. Menezes, CFM: Stand Firm, Be Strong, from EWTN Publishing in 2024, is subtitled “A Men’s Catholic Daily Devotional of Scripture and Saints”. It provides 200 days of quotations and meditations, clearly designed to bring out the best features of masculine spirituality. Each day features a topic, a Scripture reading, an extract from a saint, and Fr. Menezes’ reflections. There is also an appendix with selected prayers.

3. Jonah Soucy, 40 Days, 40 Ways to Pray, from Sophia Institute Press in 2024, is a very unusual book in that the author, who is an experienced youth minister, actually introduces the reader to a different aspect or form of prayer in each of forty different brief chapters. Using this book faithfully during Lent can help anyone who wishes to develop a more effective prayer life to figure out the methods of prayer must suited to his or her own spiritual growth—which, of course, can vary and develop more richly over time.

4. Fr. John Nepil, To Heights and unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail, new from Ignatius Press: Here we have an extended meditation on both nature and God by a priest who is an inveterate hiker and who has learned to grow closer to God through nature, particularly as he has hiked—with many companions at various stages—along the nearly 500-mile trail that winds through the mountains of Colorado. Fr. Nepil is also vice-rector and professor of theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. This is not a day-by-day book; I think we can call it good old-fashioned spiritual reading, but of a very special kind.

5. Finally, I have previously mentioned Fr. James Kubicki, S.J. and his 2024 book A Year of Daily Offerings: Giving your life to God one day at a time, which provides a page of meditative material for each and every day of the year. It is the second of two books I reviewed late last year in Better prayer and faster growth in virtue, where I describe it more fully.