Return: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

Reorient your mind and heart this Lent so you’ll more fully experience the joy of Easter—Christ’s victory over sin and death.

In this beautiful guided journal for prayer and meditation, Fr. John Burns—creator of the bestselling and award-winning book Adore—invites you to strip away your confusion, attachments, and sin so you’ll return to the Lord and undergo real and lasting conversion.

In the liturgy’s first reading on Ash Wednesday, the prophet Joel call us to wholehearted conversion: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me, with your entire heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning, rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (Jl 2:12–13).

Each week all over Lent, Burns breaks down these two verses:

• Week 1, return to me—recognize the wish to reorient our lives through Lent;
• Week 2, return to me with your entire heart—reorient not only the mind but also the heart to the Lord;
• Week 3, return to me with fasting—acknowledge hardness of heart and the value of discipline;
• Week 4, return to me with weeping and mourning—bring forward personal agonies and unbind hidden bitterness that divides us from God; and
• Week 5, Rend your hearts, not your garments, return to the Lord, your God.

Then, all over Holy Week and the Resurrection on Easter, you are invited to weave your own stories into that of the Paschal Mystery.

Burns uses the opening prayer of on a daily basis’s Mass—called the Collect—as a kick off point for your meditations through the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday. He also specializes in the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which come together as our sacred penance all over this solemn season, and ultimately lead us to heaven.

Each day of Return includes the prayer from the Collect, an inspiring meditation, thought-provoking reflection questions, and a prayer. There’s a number of space for journaling as well.

Return features stunning original art by Josiah Henley of Heart of IESVS. Free weekly companion videos, a downloadable discussion guide, and other resources make this book perfect for parish-wide, individual, and book club use leading up to Easter.