Ash Wednesday is February 18th. Are you ready?

A Family Lenten Guide!

My new Lenten book: Bringing Lent Home with Saint John Paul II was recently released. Here’s a description from the publisher:

This timely new addition to the Bringing Lent Home series focuses on the life and wisdom of recently canonized St. John Paul II. Designed by Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle for families with young children, it offers a variety of prayers and practices for each day of Lent.

This family guide to prayer and Lenten devotion is the perfect way to deepen a family’s observance of Lent while also learning about St. John Paul II, beloved pope for more than thirty-five years (1978 -2005) and one of the Church’s newest saints. Structured around a daily quotation from St. John Paul II, a story about his life, and practical suggestions for living the threefold call of Lent–prayer, fasting, and almsgiving–this useful booklet takes the worry and the work out of planning the family’s Lent and can be used with any of the three Catholic lectionary cycles. Parents can enhance their own daily prayer by using the booklet’s reflections for parents. On Sundays, families focus on the themes assigned to that Sunday of Lent, and Cooper O’Boyle suggests a project for the week ahead.

I love that it sells for only $2.95 each! Here’s a recent review as it appears on Amazon:

“Donna-Marie is such a blessing and gift from God for busy moms who are looking for creative, inspirational, practical ways to bring their family together, to grow in faith, hope and love during the grace-filled time of Lent. She is a wise mentor and faithful friend whose books like this one truly help parents, as the primary educators of their children in the faith, to guide their little saints to heaven. I’m thrilled she wrote this book and look forward to using Bringing Lent Home with St. John Paul II this Lent with my family! I’ve used her previous two books, Bringing Lent Home with Mother Teresa of Calcutta and also with St. Therese of Lisieux, as guides in years past with my husband and three young boys, and it is prayer and family discussion time that everyone looks forward to each day, including our four-year-old! It’s a perfect guide, because it offers a fresh idea each day for prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and helps us stay focused on the purpose of Lent and growing in our relationship with God and serving others. The book being available this year is great timing, as we’ll be able to learn more about our beloved St. John Paul II and have him as our companion during Lent, and leading up Divine Mercy Sunday, which this year will mark the one year anniversary of him being canonized a Saint. We have so much to learn from these holy men and women that God put on Earth to serve as bright lights and witnesses for us in how to live the faith, and Donna-Marie invites the learning at just the right pace and helps us to apply it to our lives in a meaningful way together as a family!”

Here’s a review on Epic Pew.

You can find this book available for purchase on the “Books” page of this website.