Lenten Reading or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love A Devotional

I’ve always had an aversion to spiritual books and devotionals geared toward women. The saccharine, flowery covers and italicized scripts of the titles never made me think there’s solid material inside.

Devotionals in general don’t interest me. But if I was going to follow a devotional (which I probably wasn’t going to do), I wanted it to be content that didn’t need to pander to a gender. And to me, that’s what gendered devotionals mostly were, pandering. The Christianized version of late ‘90s “Girl Power.” It worked on me as a 10-year-old listening to the Spice Girls, but I wasn’t all that interested now.

Another part of that aversion was my favorite theologians and saints are male. So I’d either have to take lacking femininity but role models with whom I agree, or shared gender perspective but women with whom I didn’t resonate.

Slowly, more women have been adding into my personal litany of saints. And more OT female role models. But having more women in my prayer arsenal didn’t make me anymore open to contemporary devotionals.

So when someone in my women’s group suggested we follow a women’s Lenten journal for the season, I wasn’t that keen. I’d rather have a book study or weekly topic, rather than writing my thoughts in a daily devotional. But at the same time, if it’s what others wanted, I was willing to give the recommended journal a shot.

And—surprisingly, luckily, frustratingly—it’s been really good.

The Blessed is She Lenten Journal has a theme for each week, then four women from Scripture whose stories touch on that theme. The commentary isn’t over-the-top. It does have questions, some good for answering, some not so good, some so good I’m not answering them out loud on that pages.

The themes have lined up very nicely (not perfectly) with some spiritual stuff going on in my life over the past few weeks. So it’s been nice reading something and related with it. And I like the women chosen—Hannah and Sarah (from Tobit) are personal favorites lately.

I’m still inclined to think this a fluke and not likely to get another devotional right away. But I’ve enjoyed the five or so minutes I take after daily Mass to go through this one. The weekly themes preparing for Easter have been good. I like noticing the other women who also have the journal as their post-Mass ritual in the pews. I hope it’s fruitful for them too.

Hopefully I’ll be less judgey next time I see pink covers and curvy script on a bookstore shelf.