Three Ways to Celebrate Lent as a Family: Inspired by the Catechism

It was the final week of Lent last year, when my husband asked me this question.
“What can we do to make Holy Week more meaningful for the children?”

We chose a few simple things: attending services at a Franciscan monastery, participating in a live Way of the Cross, watching the Gospel of John. Nothing elaborate. Just intentional.

By Good Friday afternoon, as the Passion was proclaimed, it didn’t feel distant. It was as if we were right there with the Lord.

And in the quiet of Easter morning, as we drove home after midnight Mass, a question took shape in my heart: If one intentional week could reshape our experience of the Lord’s Passion, what might forty intentional days do?

So this year, as the liturgical year turned toward Lent, I headed to my bookcase and picked up my copy of the Catechism.

A Lenten framework

In just a few paragraphs, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains clearly what Lent is and why we observe it.

And in a single sentence, it names six distinct practices that shape the season:

This isn’t a vague invitation to give something up or try harder. The Church hands us a framework for living Lent with clarity and intention, one that can shape our homes and our hearts.

What would this framework look like in the midst of our daily, busy family lives?

Spiritual exercises: Family prayer

Spiritual exercises are simply forms of prayer — steady habits that turn a household toward the Lord. In a family setting, here’s how this could fit in:

• Starting each morning with a simple Morning Offering before your feet hit the floor and the chaos of the morning begins
• Tracing a sign of the cross over your children’s foreheads or covering them with the Precious Blood of Jesus before they leave home
• Stopping by a church to visit the Blessed Sacrament on your way home from work or school
• Praying the Rosary (even a decade) together after dinner
• Reflecting on one short passage of the Passion using Lectio Divina
• Reading stories of saints

These are not grand gestures. They are little looks toward heaven. They anchor our Lent in relationship with God and draw us to Christ.

Penitential liturgies: Family and church

Lent is not a private moment. It is a season the Church enters together. Penitential liturgies draw us out of our homes into communion with the Body of Christ.

Even if children wiggle and schedules shift, try making some time this Lent for communal acts of prayer and worship like

• Attending the Stations of the Cross on Fridays
• Choosing to attend weekday Masses together, whenever possible
• Participating in Lenten Holy Hours
• Walking through a live Way of the Cross

When we gather as a Church to worship, we contemplate together what our Savior has done for us. The prayers, readings, incense, and music remind us that we are one big family in Christ.

Pilgrimages: Journeying with intention

A pilgrimage does not require a passport or suitcases. It needs purpose. You can start right where you are.

Visit a local shrine, basilica, or cathedral. In Mumbai, for example, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount and the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour are beautiful destinations for your Lenten pilgrimage.

Or journey within.

• Attend a Lenten retreat.
• Go to Confession.
• Set aside an afternoon or evening to sit with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
• Participate in a one-day recollection.

Whether you travel around your city or look within, a pilgrimage is a way to encounter Christ. It helps us and our children remember that Lent is about traveling across the desert with Jesus and to Jesus.

Drawing near and letting go

All three of these practices — spiritual exercises, liturgy, and pilgrimages — reorient our hearts and minds. They gather us into the sacred rhythms of the season and make Lent present to little ones, as we draw near to God.

But there’s more.

In the next post, we’ll look at the other three practices the Church gives us (fasting, almsgiving, and fraternal sharing) and how they teach us not only to draw near but to let go as well.

In faith,

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