Lenten Devotional

 Day 40 – April 13 (Palm Sunday: 6th Sunday in Lent) Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and we’ve now reached 40 actual days of our Lenten experience (including Sundays).  We have one more week until Easter, but we have now met the basic timeframe Jesus was tempted in the desert. Today’s sermons will center around Luke 19: 28-40. ******** Luke 19:28-40 Rocks Cry 28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a

Day 34 – April 12, 2025 “Out of the Wilderness into Love” Father Gregory Boyle, ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1984,served as the pastor of the Dolores Mission Church in the Archdiocese of LosAngeles until 1992. The church sat between two public housing projects, home toeight gangs. Between 1988 and 1998, dubbed the “Decade of Death,” more than athousand youth were killed in gang-related violence in East LA. In his memoir, Tattooson the Heart, Boyle recounts his efforts to bring marginalized youth out ofthe urban wilderness of gang violence and incarceration and into the love of acaring Christian community. With help from the local community, the parish, andphilanthropists, he established positive opportunities to rescue troubled youthfrom the gangs holding

Day 33 – April 11, 2025 Wilderness experiences in our lives As I think of “wilderness” times in my life, they are the times when I have felt bewildered, disconnected and alone – even if surrounded by others.   When I was in high school, my younger brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor just as we were moving to a new city.  I made friends, participated in our church’s youth group and school activities, and otherwise led a “normal” life, as his condition worsened.  But as anyone who has been through a major illness with a family member knows, life was anything but normal.  My brother died eighteen months after being diagnosed, in the middle of my junior year. 

Day 32- April 10, 2025 The Lost Sheep “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” – Luke 15:4-6 Recently, I used AI to pull scripture around feeling lost, and Luke 15 stood out to me above all in that moment.  Specifically, the translation that accompanied it.  God goes to great lengths to bring us back to Him.  As I laid down to

Day 31 – April 9, 2025 There have been many seasons in my life where I’ve felt lost, drained, and completely out of control—although not physically in the wild, these instances have easily felt like my own personal wilderness. But as I reflect on Matthew 4 and the Lenten season, I find comfort in knowing that Jesus Himself walked through the wilderness before me. With Him, all things are possible. God doesn’t lead us into difficult seasons to harm or punish us, but rather to refine and strengthen us. Jesus being led into the wilderness wasn’t an accident, just as the trials we face in life are not random either. They serve a purpose, even when we can’t see it

Day 30 – April 8, 2025 The Lord’s power overcame me, and while I was in the Lord’s spirit, he led me out and set me down in the middle of a certain valley. It was full of bones. 2 He led me through them all around, and I saw that there were a great many of them on the valley floor, and they were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Human one, can these bones live again?” I said, “Lord God, only you know.”  Ezekiel 37:1-3 (CEB) The potential of new life isn’t always apparent.  I once repotted a peace lily that had seen better days.  The only growth on it was limp and brown.  I cut away the old growth,