Your Lenten Journey Can Begin With LGBTQ+ Scripture Reflections-Including Your Own

Lent begins one week from today. During this season of preparation for Easter, many people often spend more time in prayer, meditation, and reflection.

New Ways Ministry’s website offers two resources to aid Catholic LGBTQ+ people and allies during this time of reflection, and we encourage Bondings 2.0’s readers to take a look at them for their individual prayer times or for parish faith sharing groups. Both resources are free and can be downloaded from the website.

JOURNEYS

“Journeys: A Scripture Reflection Series for LGBTQ People and Allies” offers a large number of tools to help folks pray with scripture passages, as well as ponder their own particular life journey. Included in this resource reflection exercises and prayers based on the liturgcal scripture readings for Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and all the Sundays of Lent for each of the lectionary’s three reading cycles, A, B, and C. In 2026, we are reading the texts for Cycle A.

Each “Journeys” reflection installments contains a scripture passage, a series of questions about applying the passage to LGBTQ+ and ally lives, a prayer, and a video meditation. Many parishes and campus ministries have used this series for their LGBTQ+ ministry groups and have found them helpful for the participants. Here’s a sample of questions from the Ash Wednesday installment, which is based on Joel 2: 12-18:

a) “Repent” is a word largely associated with Ash Wednesday as a scriptural metaphor to “come-back” to God. With the LGBT community, however, the word “repent” has often been used to condemn their sexualities and gender identities. Given your own unique experience and relationship with God, how do you feel about the word “repent?” What does your “repentance” or “return to God” look like?

b) As a LGBTQ person or ally, how have you emerged from the deserts of your struggles? What are some of your personal resurrection stories that speak of a rising from the ashes?

Here is a list of links to Year A’s installments:

Ash Wednesday: Come Back to Me – Joel 2:12-18

First Sunday of Lent: Lead us not into Temptation -Mt 4:1-11

Second Sunday of Lent: trans·fig·u·ra·tion – Matthew 17:1-9

Third Sunday of Lent: The Woman at the Well – John 4: 5-30

Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Blind Beggar – John 9:1-41 / Mark 10:46-52

Fifth Sunday of Lent: Lazarus: The Man Jesus Loved – John 11:17-44

Palm Sunday: “surely this one was innocent” – Luke 23:1-49

When you go to the “Journeys” homepage, check out the other installments on more general themes, too. Those would be appropriate at every part of the liturgical year.

THE WORD GOES OUT

“The Word Goes Out: LGBTQ+ Scripture Reflections for the Liturgical Year.” archives all the Sunday reflection essays which have appeared on Bondings 2.0, our daily blog on Catholic LGBTQ+ news, opinion, and spirituality. These essays serve as “homilies” on the day’s liturgical readings, but from an LGBTQ+ perspective. They help to connect the Scripture to the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people and allies. Many of them are deeply personal, recounting some part of the spiritual journey of their writers.

Like the “Journeys” series, these essays can be used for individual prayer or group reflection..

This resource contains reflection for all three liturgical reading cycles, with at least three reflections for each day. Here’s a small sample of some of the essays for our current year, Cycle A: