Lent 2026 – Practical Christianity

It’s about embodying Christian values like love, compassion, and forgiveness in relationships, work, and service to others. Join us in Sacred Space as we journey together through Lent, praying each day with scripture and reflecting on how we can engage practically with our faith. Reading the bible is a lovely habit to have. Setting time aside in our day to commune with our Lord is what strengthens us as Christians. How much better could we be, though, if we engaged practically with what we read? If we lived the words on the page? If we put these lessons into practice? Lent is a time to renew our faith, hope, and love, and to focus on what matters most in life. May this simple retreat bless everyone who prays with it, and remind us that we are part of the Sacred Space family, united in prayer and actions with brothers and sisters all over the world.

On a practical note…

To avoid duplicating the daily prayers and reflections based on the Gospel of the day, this retreat will have daily prayers and reflections from the scriptures that speak to our Lenten theme of Practical Christianity.

The retreat can take as little as 3-5 minutes, or 15-20 minutes, or more, depending on how much time you have and how deeply you want to enter into prayer. If you have the time and the inclination, we encourage you to spend as long as you can with anything that jumps out for you from the reflections or the scriptures themselves. Stay with those words and let them settle deeply into your heart, mind, and soul. You might like to take notes or journal. Perhaps you’ll stay with one word or phrase that resonates most strongly with you. Or return to the prayers of a previous day, and stay with those for a few days. Or stay with the words or scripture of a particular day and meditate on them for as long as you feel you need. There are no rules. Listen to your heart and do what is right for you. It won’t matter if you miss a couple of days. Whether you join us from the beginning or go back and catch up, it’s up to you. 

We begin our journey …

For many, Lent is a time of sacrifice. We give up our favourite food or drink. We try to break a habit or change some behaviour. We stop doing something. 

But what if, instead of stopping, we were to start doing something? 

What if we were to start putting our faith into practice? Every day. No matter how desperate we feel. No matter how much we despair. No matter how difficult times are. Would it make a difference? Yes! Yes, it would. 

This retreat gives a few hints for prayerful reflection on each day’s readings during Lent. Readings from both the Old and New Testaments help focus our mood and thoughts on how we can live our faith. It also offers a daily challenge to put our faith into practice.

Mary Murphy, the writer of our Lent 2026 Retreat, hails from Co. Kildare in Ireland and lives in a village in southwest Hungary. She moderates the prayer requests for Sacred Space and is a fan of Ignatian spirituality.

From the author

In Dublin one night, after a rugby international, I was chatting with a visiting Scotland fan. The conversation took on a life of its own, and after a while, they told me that they envied me my faith. A few lifetimes later, working on the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, my boss said they wished they could believe as I did. More recently, a new friend told me that while they didn’t believe, they had great faith in my faith. There have been many more instances; these are the three that stand out. Practical Christianity is about how we live our faith. These specially collated scriptures and accompanying personal reflections give a glimpse of how we can do this.