This second Lent reader – as well as the first one, published separately – has grown out of my own Lenten practices and observances over the year.  I wrote them both because I would have found it helpful to have such a reader. I hope you enjoy and find the daily readings contained within helpful. And, of course, I hope your Lenten observations are just what you need them to be.

To me Lent is a time of 'wilderness work'. One goes in to one's own darkness and disorder, not to reject it, or deny it, but to sit with it.  It is tremendously uncomfortable, even frightening.  But out of this inner muck grows the soul.

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the biblical quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) translation and are quoted under fair-use provisions of copyright law. 

Also, this reader contains daily reflections for all days from Ash Wednesday through to Easter Sunday.  Different Christian traditions and denominations have somewhat slightly differing definitions of the Lenten period, sometimes excluding Sundays, sometimes including them, and often excluding the Holy Weekend containing Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  I have included every day so the reader may include and leave out days to fit their preferred practice.