Wilderness Within
A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation
ISBN 9781646802975
eISBN 9781646802982
ASIN B0DHT7N199
During Lent in 2026 I worked through a few volumes, and two of them were from this series. They were both very different but I benefited greatly from both of them. To date it appears there are 5 offerings each for Lent and Advent in the “A Guided Lent/Advent Journal for Prayer and Meditation” series. I plan on working through all of them because both this and the other volume I did this year were excellent!
The description of this volume states:
“This Lent, allow Sr. Josephine Garrett to be your guide as you explore the interior wilderness of your heart and invite Jesus in to heal you with his love.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus went into the wilderness? Some believe it was to reveal his divinity or to restore humanity's relationship with God. In Wilderness Within, Sr. Josephine Garrett, a mental health counselor and popular speaker, reflects on the belief that Jesus went into the wilderness to rescue us--to rescue us! The Lord does not want us to view the wilderness as something that causes worry, anxiety, or fear. "What if, instead," Sr. Josephine writes, "we looked at how God has been a faithful provider in the wilderness and trusted that He will do the same for us in the wilderness journey ahead? What if we joyfully take His hand and journey into the wilderness, because when Christ enters there, 'this opposite place of the garden becomes the place of reconciliation and healing'" (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth)?
In Wilderness Within, Sr. Josephine will guide you through the forty days of Lent to attend to the wilderness of your heart as a place to be explored, restored, and sent on mission by Jesus's tender love.
• Week of Ash Wednesday: Enter Lent by recognizing your ability to always begin anew in Christ.
• Week One: Open your heart to God's love, allowing yourself to reverence your heart as a gift from your Creator.
• Week Two: Reflect on the truth that we are created for relationships, and examine the relationships in your life.
• Week Three: Take an honest look at your limitations, wounds, and sin guided by a spirit of humility and repentance.
• Week Four: Begin to see how God designed your heart to be rescued by him and grow in your capacity to be healed by him.
• Week Five: Leave the wilderness of your heart so that you can go on mission--with a heart restored by Christ's love--to love your neighbor and be a good steward of the gifts and charisms given to you.
• Holy Week: Follow in Jesus's footsteps to the Cross and discover how you can love him well through each stage of the Passion and Resurrection.
Each day's content includes brief meditations, specially crafted illustrations, thought-provoking reflection questions, heartfelt prayers curated to uplift your spirit, and ample journaling space for personal revelations and insights. Whether you're journeying alone or with a group, Wilderness Within is your guide to a beautiful and renewing Lent.
Free companion videos featuring Sr. Josephine and a free downloadable leader's guide are available at avemariapress.com.”
About the author we are informed:
“Sr. Josephine Garrett, CSFN, is a sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a licensed counselor, host of the Hope Stories podcast, and a Catholic speaker and author.
Garrett earned a bachelor’s degree in political philosophy from the University of Dallas. Prior to entering religious life, she worked as vice president in the home loans division of Bank of America. In 2019, she earned a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and became a nationally certified counselor licensed in Texas.
She worked as a school counselor in Tyler, Texas, and is presently serving as a counselor in private practice. Garrett is a voice for mental health on various platforms such as Formed and Hallow.
She resides in Tyler, Texas.”
About the illustrator:
“June Jameson is an independent artist who creates large oils on canvases for galleries, churches, hospitals, and private collections. Jameson has developed a unique style that blends her strong Catholic faith with her impressionist paintings.
Jameson earned her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Florida. Many of her original paintings are represented by the Sacred Art Gallery in Arizona and several of her images are available to license for liturgical use through the Diocesan Library of Art.
Jameson lives in Ocala, Florida, with her husband and nine children.
Prints of her work, including the images created for Wilderness Within, can be found at junejameson.com.”
The chapters and sections in this book are:
Introduction
How to Use This Journal
Week of Ash Wednesday: Begin Again
Ash Wednesday: Rend Your Heart
Thursday: Rock the Boat
Friday: Journey into the Wilderness
Saturday: Reverence Your Findings
First Week of Lent: A Heart Rooted in Love
Sunday: Identify Your Roots
Monday: Believe in Love
Tuesday: Perceive God’s Love
Wednesday: Abide in Joy
Thursday: Abide Always
Friday: Abide in Suffering and Sorrow
Saturday: Reverence the Waters
Second Week of Lent: A Heart Made for Relationship
Sunday: Image Your Creator
Monday: Fertilize the Soil
Tuesday: Delight in the Fruit
Wednesday: Be Refined by the Fire
Thursday: Steward the Treasure
Friday: Embrace the Mystery
Saturday: Reverence Love
Third Week of Lent: A Heart Wounded by Sin
Sunday: Open the Door
Monday: Let Us Work Redemption
Tuesday: Go to the Root
Wednesday: Till the Soil
Thursday: Find the Patterns
Friday: Stand in Truth
Saturday: Reverence the Fire
Fourth Week of Lent: A Heart Rescued by God
Sunday: Prepare Him Room
Monday: Banish Idols
Tuesday: Tend His Garden
Wednesday: Take Captive Your Thoughts
Thursday: Light Up the Darkness
Friday: Make Peace with the Cross
Saturday: Renew Your Vows
Fifth Week of Lent: A Heart Poured Out with God
Sunday: Leave the Wilderness
Monday: You Are a Mission
Tuesday: He Is the Vine
Wednesday: Love Your Neighbor
Thursday: Be a Good Steward
Friday: Become a Font of Mercy
Saturday: State Your Mission
Holy Week: A Heart United with Christ
Palm Sunday: Ascend to Jerusalem
Monday: Be Devoted
Tuesday: Fill the Empty Space
Wednesday: Love Him Well
Holy Thursday: The Hour of Love
Good Friday: In His Flesh
Holy Saturday: In the Heart of the Earth
Easter Sunday: He Is Risen Indeed
Appendix: Implicit Religion Incomplete Sentences
A sample reflection is:
“Ash Wednesday
Our Lenten journey . . . is a journey on which each and every day we learn to leave behind our selfishness and our being closed in on ourselves, to make room for God who opens and transforms our hearts.
Pope Benedict XVI, Final homily, February 13, 2013
Rend Your Heart
After twenty years of being Catholic, I still find myself approaching Ash Wednesday each year with some anxiety and trepidation (even as a nun!). As soon as the day arrives and I begin all my big plans for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, I find myself immediately fearful of what feels like inevitable failure, as if the purpose of Lent is to “get it right.” In reality, I will most likely demonstrate over the next forty days what it looks like to not “get it right.” After twenty Lents, I have learned that it takes far more courage to be in a state of beginning again than it does to be in a state of getting it right. Ven. Bruno Lanteri said, “If I should fall even a thousand times a day, a thousand times with peaceful repentance I will say immediately Nunc Coepi [Now I Begin].” Bl. Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd—the foundress of my community, Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth—said it this way; “Rest assured that the Lord is pleased a thousandfold more by a soul who is susceptible to many falls, but who knowing her weakness, turns to God in humility, than by another who is less prone to fall and is seemingly more perfect, but is self-confident and self-sufficient.”
On Ash Wednesday we are instructed in the reading from the prophet Joel to rend our hearts, not our garments (see Joel 2:12). Some of us have heard this time and time again, but have we really understood what the scripture is saying? Rend means “to tear.” At the outset of Lent, the first instruction from scripture tells us to tear open our hearts before the Lord; I think it’s safe to say Lent is not for the folks who seemingly have it all together. Perhaps when we make Lent about mainly checking the boxes of the “things’’ we said we would do, we have only rended our garments instead of our hearts. Maybe we can reframe these forty days from a journey toward our own perfection to instead a time to strive to have the courage to begin again, and again, again . . . well. In doing so, we can hope to make room for God, who opens (and perhaps it is through his power that this rending happens) and transforms our hearts, for he will only journey into a heart with an open door.
Reflect
Reflect on your own rended heart. If you were to rend (open) your heart before God today, as you enter Lent, what would he find there? Some questions you can ask to help clarify the movements of your heart are “What is stirring in my heart lately?” or “What is breaking my heart lately?”
What doubts or anxieties do you have about the forty days ahead? Doubts and anxieties are often attached to desires; what are the desires beneath those doubts and worries?
Pray with Romans 5:1–5.
Pray
I return to you, Lord, with my whole heart. The past is ashes, and I bring to you my tears and fasting, trusting that you are slow to anger and quick to forgive. Amen.”
I highlighted numerous passages while working through this volume. Some of them are:
“I believe Lent is not an exceptional time, but rather an exemplary time. It is a time when we enter deeply into the Paschal Mystery, which is at work in us and in the world, not only during the forty days of Lent, but all the time. In this way, Lent becomes an example of what much of the rest of our year and faith journey in general ought to look like.”
“During Lent, we are called to spiritually enter into the wilderness of our hearts with Jesus. In our Lenten observances and sacrifices, we face our temptations head-on with and in Christ because we receive the grace of seeing them more clearly. Our need for God’s grace becomes more evident precisely in our intentional efforts to sacrifice.”
“Jesus’s lowliness gives him access to the recesses of our hearts, and his gentleness empowers him to conquer the wilderness without overwhelming us.”
“As we embark on this journey together, we have a unique opportunity set before us to journey with Jesus to the Wilderness Within and to follow him to Calvary where we learn to pour ourselves out for mission, in union with Christ. Through the meditations, prayers, scriptures, mental-health tools, and real-life stories in this journal, you will be invited to slow down, to reflect, to prepare, and to create space for daily encounters with Jesus.”
““Rest assured that the Lord is pleased a thousandfold more by a soul who is susceptible to many falls, but who knowing her weakness, turns to God in humility, than by another who is less prone to fall and is seemingly more perfect, but is self-confident and self-sufficient.””
“Maybe we can reframe these forty days from a journey toward our own perfection to instead a time to strive to have the courage to begin again, and again, again . . . well. In doing so, we can hope to make room for God, who opens (and perhaps it is through his power that this rending happens) and transforms our hearts, for he will only journey into a heart with an open door.”
“A few Ash Wednesdays ago, I was sitting at my desk preparing a guidance-counseling lesson for fifth graders and wondering how to connect our focus on virtuous relationships to the season of Lent. I quickly realized that all Lenten practices (whether prayer, fasting, or almsgiving) ultimately impact some aspect of relationship, hopefully for the better, whether it’s relationship with myself, others, or God.”
“To fast from negative thoughts about yourself, replacing those thoughts with brief prayers. To fast from uncharitable thoughts and gossip about others and strive to presume good will. To regularly spend more time with your family in a common area of your home, or to plan to eat a meal together at the table (so many families no longer practice this simple, yet profound routine that establishes powerful bonds).”
“What was it like to think of making adjustments to plans you have already discerned for Lent? Sometimes we are very set on doing Lent the way we discerned. What if God would like to evolve that as Lent progresses? Does he have permission?”
“Yet our Lenten plans are not what is being done for Lent. Rather, those commitments help us to receive what Jesus desires to do in us this Lent. It is God who accomplishes Lent in us.”
“I’ve learned that the more reverence we have for ourselves, the more likely we are to take time to slow down, find silence, and be still.”
“Here is the fact of the matter: Who God is says a lot about who I am and who you are. So if God is love, what does that mean about you, and the hidden center of your being, your heart?”
“To no credit of our own, but through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, when God the Father looks at each of us, he sees Jesus. He not only sees Jesus but also his own life, his own image, which we cannot disfigure.”
“The reason our belief and not our individual works warrants eternal life is because being receptive and open to the graces to believe is far more intimate than performing the external actions that give the appearance of belief.”
“Rather, our need for him is what draws him close and makes him attracted to us—much like how a gardener sets out into the garden that she loves. She of course admires what is going well in her garden, but above all she’s there to lovingly tend.”
“We must also reflect on how we are giving love and how we are receiving others as gift. How are we helping others to comprehend their great dignity and worth? For it is not being loved alone that makes us understand exactly who we are and what we were made for; this is fully known in giving love, in self-donation.”
“I pray today that you can consider on a deep personal level what he has done for you and what he has done for the world. Today his heart is pierced open, and it will never close again. The all-powerful God, who could have taken any approach to your salvation, chose to save you through death, an open heart, and a throne of mercy inside of it.”
“Today, yes, we need to go about as if Jesus is dead; he is, in the flesh. But I invite you to join the Sisters who seek him in the hidden repose, hidden in the depths of the earth, alive and at work, making the heart of the earth fruitful with his loving sacrifice.”
“Feel gratitude for all that the Lord has done, and ask God to show you how you are called to, in all things, love and serve the Divine Majesty, who continues to work to make your wilderness within a resurrection garden with God’s love enthroned.””
I hope that sample reflection and those quotes give you a feel for this volume. The supplemental weekly videos and other resources on the Ave Maria Site really do make this a self-guided retreat. You can work through it personally, as a family or in a small group. The illustrations are great for meditation. Sr. Josephine Garrett CSFN is very open and transparent, she uses examples from her life, life in her community and from her ministry. It is deeply moving.
The material is easy to engage with and written and a very compelling manner. Anyone with a secondary school education could easily worth through this volume. But the working through it might not be easy. It will help you go deeper over the days of Lent. But it will be work. It will challenge readers to be more open and honest with them and with God. It will encourage us to open our hearts, our hurts, our wounds and turn to God for healing and restoration. The two I read this Lent are so good, I am debating just picking another to work through as a guided retreat. I am not sure I can wait for Advent for another an experience like this.
This volume was so good I plan on picking up all of them in the series and hope to work through them over the next few Lents and Advents.
An amazing volume I can easily recommend.
A Guided Journal from Ave Maria Press:
A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation:
Made for Heaven - Fr. Agustino Torres CFR
Return - Fr. John Burns
Witness - Fr. Patrick Mary Briscoe OP
…
A Guided Advent Journal for Prayer and Meditation:
Adore - Fr. John Burns
Behold - Miriam James Heidland SOLT
Encountering Emmanuel - Heather Khym
Illuminate - Fr. John Nepil
Prepare Your Heart - Fr. Agustino Torres CFR
…
