Walking through the Passion: A Simple Practice that Changed My Lent

My youngest stared at the page and frowned as she struggled to read the word:

“Te – s – ti – m.”

I leaned over her shoulder and whispered: “Testimony.”

She nodded and re-read the line slowly, carefully sounding out each word:
“What fur-ther testi-mony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!”

Then she closed the Bible, looked up at me, and smiled shyly. Her part in our family’s Lenten practice was finished for tonight.

A new tradition

A few days before Ash Wednesday this year, I was looking for something our family could commit to for forty days.

Easier said than done.
With two children in school, one in college, and work to attend to, our days are already full. Any new Lenten practice had to be simple and doable.

I don’t recall how the idea came to me, but I knew we had to try it: Read one paragraph of the Passion every night.

Not a chapter. Not even half a chapter.
Just one paragraph from the Gospel of Luke.

I wasn’t sure about it. Would it be too little to read? Would it seem out of context? But it was simple enough to try.

So we began with Luke 22 on Ash Wednesday. Each night, after dinner and family prayer, the children began to take turns reading a single passage.

A surprising effect

Four days into this new tradition, something unexpected happened: Reading a single scene each night brought the little details of the Passion into sharper focus.

I began to feel immersed in the story, as if I were hearing everything for the very first time.

One night we read about Jesus on the Mount of Olives, praying in agony as the disciples slept. All through the following day, that image stayed with me: Christ suffering alone, while the world around Him sleeps.

Another evening, we read about Peter’s vehement denial of Jesus. Two days later, I asked my girls: “Why do you think Peter denied Jesus?” This led us into a conversation about how it can be difficult to stand for Christ. We talked about peers and the quiet pressure to fit in.

And then we thought about that moment Luke describes: Jesus, turning to look at Peter.
What must that look have held? What did Jesus and Peter feel as their eyes met? Together, we felt the weight of that moment.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus

Night after night, the gentle unfolding of the Passion narrative has made me slow down. Instead of simply walking through the story, we are walking with and fixing our eyes on the Man at the center of it all.

Every night I see Jesus endure some new suffering — betrayal, denial, mockery. Familiar lines now cut me to the heart, as I watch each part of the story unfold: the chief priests’ plans, Judas’s kiss, the guards shoving Him, the disciples’ confusion.

This slow, deliberate walk through the Passion has changed my experience of Lent.

I’m not rushing toward the end anymore. I am lingering with Him, every day.

And I feel the weight of what’s coming — of every moment that leads up to Good Friday and, finally, Easter.

An invitation

In my search for a new Lenten practice, I didn’t expect to be drawn so deeply into the narrative of Jesus’ final days. Yet, now that I think of it, what better way to spend these forty days than to meditate on the Passion of Jesus?

The saints did this often. They understood something we may overlook: When we linger with the Passion, we draw closer to Christ Himself.

St. Faustina records these words of Jesus in her diary:
“You please Me most when you meditate on My Sorrowful Passion.”
(Diary of St. Faustina, 1512)

So here’s the invitation.

Read one passage of the Passion each day.
Don’t rush. Let every word, look, and action sink in.

Stay with the scene long enough to notice the little details: the silence of the garden at night, the weight Jesus feels as He prays alone, the meek Lamb being blindfolded and beaten.

Walk with Jesus through His last days on earth.
Slowly, reverently.
One paragraph at a time.

In faith,

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