Preparing for a Fruitful Forty Days of Lent – Some Spiritual Reading Resources

• Surrender to God: An orientation to Lent, by John Henry Newman
• The Spiritual Meaning of Fasting, by Carlos Alonso Vargas
• Focus for Fasting: Pursuing our higher calling to serve and worship Christ, by Jerry Munk
• Fasting and Hungering for Righteousness: A selection of readings for Lent from the early fathers


• The Holy Spirit Reveals the Merciful Father, by Raniero Cantalamessa
• God Calls Sinners to Make Them Saints: Simon Peter’s Story, by Jeanne Kun
• The Prodigal Son by Rembrandt – Master Painter and Storyteller


• The Great Downfall, by Steve Clark
• A Mirror to see Inside Ourselves, by Gregory the Great (540-604 AD)
• The Mountain of Your Sins Will Never be too High, by Cyril of Jerusalem (349-386 AD)
• Why Does God Allow Temptation? by Maximus the Confessor (580-662 AD) 
• Dead to Sin, by John Chrysostom (349-407 AD)


• Conquering Ourselves and Overcoming the Evil One, wisdom from early fathers
• Walking in the Light, by Gregory of Nyssa
• Christ Calls Us Deeper Still by John Henry Newman

• It’s Not About You! by Bob Tedesco
• Pursuing Holiness in an Unholy World, a strategy for winning, by Tom Caballes
• He Must Increase: Finding Our Identity in Jesus Christ, by Jan Munk
• True Holiness, by Bruce Yocum
• Manna and Mammon: A battlefield on which the Lord challenges us to show our mettle, by Daniel Propson


• Repentance, Forgiveness, Heaven, and Hell: quotes from C.S. Lewis
• There Are No Ordinary People, by C.S. Lewis
• Growing Downward to Grow Up: The Life of Repentance, by J.I. Packer
• The Danger of “I Would Never Do That,” by Sam Williamson
• No Fig Leaves, Please: Confession before Repentance, by Sam Williamson
• Repentance After Confession: Filling the Emptiness, by Sam Williamson


• The Cross – the One True Glorification of God, by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI
• The Cross of Christ – the Measure of the World, by John Henry Newman
• Emptied for Our Sake, by Bernard of Clairvaux
• Worship at the Cross, by Charles Simpson


• God Has Reigned from a Tree: Meditations on the Cross of Jesus Christ
• Ecce Homo! – Behold the Man!, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• He Bore Our Pride In His Body on the Cross, by Raniero Cantalamessa
• What Happened on the Cross, by the early church fathers


• Salt and Light: Our Vocation to Holiness, by Donald Bloesch
• Why the Church Needs Saints, by W.E. Sangster
• On Saints and Saintliness, by John Henry Newman
• The Agony in the Garden: Love’s Surrender, by Jeanne Kun


• Saints or Sinners? by Jerry Bridges
• The Discipline of Confession, by Richard Foster
• Holy, Holy, Holy: Isaiah’s Call and Mission – and Ours by Tom Mangan
• Sloth – the deadly vice of our present age, by Peter Kreeft


• The Lavish Love of the Prodigal Father: reflection by Don Schwager
• Countering Vice with Virtue: Part I – Faith and Virtue, by Don Schwager
• Attaining True Greatness – Humility versus Pride, by Don Schwager
• With Jesus in the Wilderness for Forty Days, by Don Schwager


Top image credit: notebook and bible, from lightstock.com, 499127, user 43211339

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