The print version of the 2026 edition of Pax Christi USA’s Lenten reflection booklet is now available for order in the Pax Christi USA store with shipments starting in early January. The hard copy booklets are $5.00 a copy (with further discounts of 10 percent on orders of 10-99 or 30 percent for 100+); the electronic version is $4.00 each. Lent starts on February 18!
This year’s booklet, Peace compels us: Reflections for Lent 2026, features reflections for every day of Lent from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday co-written by Michael Angel Martín and Bishop John Stowe, OFM. Conv.
>>USE THIS LINK to buy the electronic version! $4.00 each. Receive a link to download it to your device!
Michael Angel Martín, a member of the Pax Christi USA Young Adult Caucus, is the state coordinator of Pax Christi Florida. His poetry and essays have appeared in America, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and other literary and spiritual publications. A Benedictine oblate, he lives in Miami, Florida.
Pax Christi USA’s Bishop President John Stowe, OFM Conv. (seen at left with Michael Martín at the Pax Christi USA national conference in Detroit in July 2025), is the third bishop of Lexington, appointed by Pope Francis in 2015. He previously served as the Rector of the Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio and was the Vicar Provincial for the Franciscan province of the same name. From the time of his ordination to the priesthood in 1995, Bishop John served in the Diocese of El Paso on the US-Mexico border until 2010, including serving as the Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia of the diocese from 2002 until 2010. He has BAs in Philosophy and History from St Louis University and an M.Div. and STL from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (now part of Santa Clara University).
>> Order the print version of this Lent booklet by clicking here.
>>Order the electronic version of this year’s Lenten booklet by clicking here.
NOTE: The hard copy booklet is $5.00 a copy (with further discounts of 10 percent on orders of 10-99 or 30 percent for 100+); the electronic version is $4.00 each. Order your copies now for yourself, your parish, religious community, ministry, school, and family to assure reception in time for the start of Lent, Ash Wednesday, February 18.
The reflections by Michael and Bishop Stowe are thought-provoking and often poetic, and will provide excellent companionship for anyone who wants to go deeper into the scriptures during Lent or who hopes to find a connection with others who wrestle with the call to Christian discipleship and who want to witness to the God of nonviolence and love.
EXCERPT: From Ash Wednesday, Michael writes:
The Gospel lesson on Ash Wednesday is a curious choice. Jesus cautions us against the public expression of alms, prayer, and fasting. Our response? Smear ashes on our foreheads, scatter to the rest of our respective days, and announce with these variously shaped blotches just how pious we are. Lived out so differently across cultures, theologies, and even politics, this faith of ours is at least consistent in its irony, the main instance of which is that God became one of us. Strangely, this God suffers and dies. And mysteriously still, this is how, as the St. Francis prayer puts it, “we awaken to eternal life.” And that’s just the creedal stuff. Never mind how mourners are comforted, the hungry are filled, and the least are the greatest.
Indeed, Jesus tells us, our Creator sees and repays in secret. As for me, I’m delighted when I see a stranger with ashes on their forehead at work or on a milk run. Hi, there! I, too, am dust, and to dust I shall return. Sometimes we exchange a glance, sometimes awkwardly wish each other a “happy” Ash Wednesday. Often we’re too self-conscious, so we walk in opposite directions. I like to imagine that person blushing, smiling wryly just like me. Another delight is spotting the diversity of ash-shapes; despite the best efforts of ministers to smudge a tight cross over our brows, not a single one turns out like another, even before the remaining days’ sweat finger-paints on us.
But that’s just it, isn’t it? The particularities of our dust — our unhealthy habits, our infirmities, our failures, the ways we’re trapped in sinful systems, our very deaths — are unique to each one of us. Ironically (again), this reminds me that I, like you, am a thought God has had from all eternity, a God who not only loves humanity in its entirety, but loves each of us entirely, as if each were God’s only child. That means we might recognize one another by our blotches; that while their forms may differ, we’re all marked, whether worn for all to see on our foreheads or not. In that recognition, we find that we’re all in this life together. So we pray for each other, because that’s how we seal bonds of solidarity. So we give alms because what we possess, frankly, belongs to the person who needs it most. And so, we fast, because we must feel at least a fraction of the world’s hunger, one pang at a time. …
are these available in Spanish
So sorry, no, not this time. We hope to include Spanish language booklets in the future.