The Lenten Labyrinth: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey) [Paperback]

Edward M. Hays (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1995 | Series: Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey

The journeys of Lent and of life are seldom straight roads, but are usually like complicated mazes or labyrinths. While we often can feel lost along the complex twisting patterns of the labyrinth path, to travel the maze of the Way is the greatest of all adventures. This guidebook of daily reflections for this journey of transformation has the power to change "to radically enrich" our way of thinking, loving and believing. Each day's reflection-which takes but a few minutes to read-is followed by brief questions/exercises aimed at inspiring personal implications. Short of time? A few minutes daily with Father Hays can nourish a hungry soul for 24 hours. Both books of daily Lenten reflections-The Ascent of the Mountain of God and The Lenten Labyrinth-maximize our limited resources of time, making our journey through Lent into the heart of Holy Week a time of real renewal.

Product Details

• Paperback: 127 pages
• Publisher: Forest of Peace Books (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939516225
• ISBN-13: 978-0939516223
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A journey not taken, March 18, 2001

By 

Matt Gallelli (Unison, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lenten Labyrinth: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey) (Paperback)

Edward Hays writes of the Chartres-style labyrinth as a symbol for a maze. He apparently does not understand that the symbol he refers to is a single path labyrinth rather than a multipath maze. He misses much of the richness of this symbol and does not understand its potential as a profound spiritual tool. The use of the labyrinth can be very helpful as Christians prepare themselves spiritually during Lent. Sadly, this book does little to elucidate the use of the labyrinth in Lenten spiritual preparation. I would recommend Walking a Sacred Path by Rev. Lauren Artress as a much more useful book in the use of the labyrinth as a tool to support spiritual growth.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, June 15, 2005

By 

Eulenspiegel (WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Lenten Labyrinth: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey) (Paperback)

After reading the positive reviews on this devotional guide, I looked forward to using it this past Lent. While some thoughts and stories were illuminating, by and large I found the book disappointing. In places, the author goes on at some length over subjects that are only marginally to the point. Some of the concepts were simply hokey, some were downright tasteless, and I didn't really find any deep wisdom to counter-balance them. I wouldn't say I found the book spiritually off-base. I just found it kind of insipid and not really the kind of guide that makes for a spiritually rich Lent.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The journey of a thousand prayers..., March 18, 2004

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lenten Labyrinth: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey) (Paperback)

Very few of us indeed are fortunate enough to have our own labyrinths in our home or garden. Indeed, few of us live in the proximity of cathedrals or churches that feature such spiritual design and architecture as the labyrinth -- near my home (by which I mean, an hour away) there is a church that has a 'portable' labyrinth, a large-scale, roll-up carpet with the labyrinth imprinted on it. The difficulty there then becomes finding a space large enough to contain it.

Fortunately, we needn't rely exclusively on the physical world for a labyrinth-ine experience. With books such as Edward Hays' 'The Lenten Labyrinth', one may follow a spiritual labyrinth, one in which the traveling of the path is in the heart and soul.

Of course, the labyrinths of old cathedrals were meant to be used a prayer devices, an oft-forgotten aspect. Labyrinths are not necessarily mazes -- the great labyrinth of Chartes Cathedral, used as the model for graphics in this text, is not a maze for confusion, but rather a winding path leading ever closer to the centre; one may circle back and forth (much like life), but one moves inexorably toward the centre -- in the labyrinth, it is the physical centre, and for the Lenten progress, it is Easter, the day of resurrection.

Hays' book is a book of gentle readings and meditations, one for each day of Lent. There are prayers, scripture passages, stories, and images to accompany and add flesh to the journey; each day's step need take no longer than a few minutes, or can be used for a longer period of prayer and meditation, but the progress through the Lenten remains steady and progressive (in the moving-forward sense).

In an interesting twist, Hays leaves the Chartes labyrinth of the first five weeks of Lent for other graphic images from Palm Sunday through Easter. Palm Sunday presents a more modern and familiar labyrithine structure, the cross-word puzzle. Hays presents an interesting tie-in between the ideas of puzzles and prayer. The following days include various Celtic cross and chalice mazes, finally into an Escher-like Celtic knot on Holy Saturday, the same graphic of which is overprinted with an open tomb on Easter morning.

This is a nice little book to accompany one on the Lenten journey, leading through the labyrinth of life to the centre of the soul, there to meet God.