For Lent 2026 CSAN, offers a curated collection of spiritual resources to support parishes, clergy, and lay leaders throughout the season.
For Lent 2026 Caritas Social Action Network, CSAN, offers a curated collection of spiritual resources to support parishes, clergy, and lay leaders throughout the season. Here you will find homily notes for each Sunday of Lent, alongside recommended books and other reflective resources, all designed to help deepen prayer, encourage conversion, and accompany communities on their Lenten journey.
First Sunday of Lent – Sunday 22 February 2026
Genesis 2.7–9; 3.1–7, Psalm 50(51).3–6,12–14,17, Romans 5.12–19, Matthew 4.1–11
Vatican II spoke of the twofold character of Lent – a reminder of baptism and a time of penance, making us ready to celebrate the Easter mystery, as we ‘listen more attentively to the word of God and set aside time for prayer’ (SC 109). We’re also reminded – and a point perhaps we often lose sight of – that penitence for the offences against God is not just an individual matter but ‘should go together with a sense of the consequences of sin in society’ (SC 109). What ‘structures of sin’ in our society need reparation? In which systems are injustice and indignity embedded? In the workplace, in the wages and conditions of workers?
The first reading reminds us of the biblical account of the origin of sin, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, in other words broke through the limits which God had set down for human flourishing. God’s vision for human freedom was never a license to do as we wish. It is this ‘grasping’ (Gen. 3.22) which is at the root of sin. Pope Francis explained it this way: ‘Our sin lies in failing to recognise value, in wanting to possess and exploit that which we do not value as gift. Sin always has this same root of possessiveness, of enrichment at the expense of other people and creation itself’ (Let Us Dream, p. 34).
At his baptism, Jesus came up out of the water, a second Adam, come to restore human beings to right relationship with God in a new creation. The Holy Spirit rested on him and the voice of the Father said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ (Mt 3.17). He knows who he is; in the next scene the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to explore what this identity will look like in his ministry. The devil whispers that the messiah should be one who provides for the physical needs of the people, who dazzles with incredible feats, who rules the kingdoms of the world, like the old Adam. Jesus rejects this identity. Being beloved means living by the word of God. It means going to the heart of people and urging change there, then making a difference in the physical realm. Being beloved is not an exemption from suffering but immersion into the waters of the human condition, to lift it from sin at the resurrection.
Preaching on this Sunday in 1978, St Oscar Romero warned the Church against succumbing to the desire for applause and celebrity, the temptations of the world. ‘More valuable,’ he said, ‘is the road of humility and simplicity, the road of duty and love, the road of prayer, the road of justice, the road of the Gospel.’
Second Sunday of Lent – Sunday 1 March 2026
Genesis 12.1–4, Psalm 32(33).4–5,18–20,22, 2 Timothy 1.8–10, Matthew 17.1–9
On the seventh day on the holy mountain, God spoke to Moses out of the midst of the cloud (Ex.24.16). St Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration begins: ‘And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and he led them up a high mountain’ (Mt 17.1). We lose this in the lectionary to the incipit, ‘At that time…’, and lose the reference to Jesus as the new Moses and, with the seventh day, a reference to the new creation which Jesus is inaugurating.
The mountain is the place where Moses and Elijah met God and were energised in their mission. Peter and the inner circle of James and John are led by Jesus on to the mountain after a bad run of form. No sooner had Peter made his foundational confession of faith (16.16) than he gets it all wrong when he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him for talking about being killed (he seems not to have heard the resurrection). He is seeing Jesus in terms of exemption and privilege, not yet understanding that Jesus is fully immersed in human suffering and injustice and will rise from that to breathe the forgiveness and reconciliation of the new creation on his disciples.
On the mountain, Peter is still not there yet. In response to the shining vision of Jesus, Moses and Elijah, he wants to keep them there, build tents and lock the moment in time. He doesn’t understand that the purpose of the mountain is to give energy for the plain. The voice from the cloud seems directed at Peter, at all of us when we pursue our own version of the faith: ‘This is my Beloved Son … listen to him’ (17.5). Now they are overwhelmed by the divine reality, their own small plans are consumed in the overwhelming light, and it terrifies them. Only in Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration do we have detail of Jesus touching them and saying, ‘Rise, and have no fear’ (17.7). The purpose of the mountain is to re-engage confused and fearful disciples with the experience of divine life, which is loving and reaches out to us to lift us up for the journey on the plain, our mission as disciples.
Third Sunday of Lent – Sunday 8 March 2026
Exodus 17.3–7, Psalm 94(95).1–2,6–9, Romans 5.1–2,5–8, John 4.5–42 or John 4.5–16,19–26,39–42
John does not have a liturgical year of Sundays like Matthew (Year A), Mark (Year B) and Luke (Year C). St John’s Gospel features throughout the liturgical year, especially at Christmas time, Easter time, and for three Sundays in Lent. The scholar Raymond E. Brown reminds us that ‘for many centuries, dating back to the ancient Jerusalem liturgy, the church has singled out stories from John to be read with special solemnity during Lent’. These three stories – the woman at the well, the healing of the blind man, the raising of Lazarus from the dead – all appear in Lent in Year A, although there is a provision for them to be read also in Years B and C. These are dramatic stories of encounters with Jesus and faith responses, which are fitting for the Lenten preparation of catechumens for baptism.
Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. It is noon, in broad daylight, unlike the nighttime encounter with Nicodemus who is not open to the teaching of Jesus. The woman comes to the well and Jesus breaks through conventions by speaking to her, ‘Give me a drink’ (4.7). This gives us the insight captured in the Catechism that God thirsts for us: ‘The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us’ (CCC 2560).
The unfolding story of the woman at the well shows how difficult it can be for us to encounter Jesus due to the obstacles in the way. We all come to the well with the ‘baggage’ of complicated lives. The woman initially only sees the cultural barriers: Jesus is a man and a Jew. We’re in the world of tribal division. Jesus does not tackle these cultural issues but goes straight to ‘the gift of God’ (4.10) that is on offer. He does not tell the woman to go and sort out her complicated life and then come back to him, he offers her grace to help her change. In a sign that she has moved on from the preoccupations of the physical dimensions of life, she leaves her empty jar behind and rushes off into town to tell everyone that she thinks she’s met the Messiah. The disciples, meanwhile, seem to be stuck in the physical dimension, going and buying food, thinking only of resources outside of themselves, not welling up from within.
Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) – Sunday 15 March 2026
1 Samuel 16.1,6–7,10–13, Psalm 22(23), Ephesians 5.8–14, John 9.1–41 or John 9.1,6–9,13–17,34–38
In the second Lenten narrative of encounter from John’s Gospel, Jesus heals the man born blind. He is the light of the world, this is what he does. Unlike in the synoptic Gospels, there is no dialogue prior to this miracle, or ‘sign’ as John calls them. The blind man says nothing, he has no voice, no agency. We find our later he was a beggar. He has no resources or status in society. It is Jesus who sees him and begins the encounter. John Shea points points out that the man is anthropos in Greek. A human being. Jesus sees the essential human condition – ‘blind from birth’ – that he’s been sent to liberate.
Having dismissed the belief that the man’s condition might have had anything to do with his or his parents’ sin – that is not the God that Jesus is revealing – he spits on the ground and makes mud with his saliva to anoint the man’s eyes. This is another echo of creation, when God formed Adam from the clay of the ground (Gen. 2.7). The work of God from the beginning has been to bring light into the darkness – ‘Let there be light’ (Gen. 1.3). Jesus is continuing the work of creation, a new creation, by opening spiritual eyes, unbinding human beings from whatever – and whoever – ties them down. He is restoring Adam to the image and likness of God.
In his journey of enlightenment, the blind man goes from mute instrument of God’s works by the side of the road to witness to the ‘translation’, as the Council of Trent called it from ‘a child of Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam Jesus Christ’ (Decreee Concerning Justification). This is the journey of all disciples, in faith, by the power of God’s grace. We are called to be images of God in the world (‘I am the man’ – Ego eimi (9.9). We are called to witness to this new life in the face of hostility, the Pharisees stuck in ‘structures of sin’ who would cast us out.
Fifth Sunday of Lent – Sunday 22 March 2026
Ezekiel 37.12–14, Psalm 129(130), Romans 8.8–11, John 11.1–45 or John 11.3–7,17,20–27,33–45
This Gospel is the last of three Lenten narrative encounters of faith in John’s Gospel and the last of the seven signs in that Gospel. The signs bring disciples to belief, they are manifestations in the physical world of the spiritual strength of love, the power of God to transform human beings, to lead us from thirst to refreshment, from darkness to light, from death to life.
Lazarus, who lived with his sisters Martha and Mary in Bethany, is ill. Bethany literally means ‘house of affliction’ and may hint at a ministry to the needy on the main route from Jericho to Jerusalem which explained Jesus’ affection for the place. It could also be a sign of the human condition, a concentration of the sick and needy, a place where the compassion of God can be manifest.
Jesus delays his journey to Bethany not through any lay of urgency, but because he is on God’s time, working according to God’s plan to reveal God’s power. When he arrives, he asks where they’ve laid Lazarus. They replied ‘Come and see’, in a poignant echo of the invitation to the discipes at the beginning of the Gospel (1.46). This time it is humanity inviting the Messiah – attested in this Gospel by Martha, not Peter – into the human world of death, grief and separation. In a remarkable line which scholars believe to be historically accurate – why else would the evangelist include this – it says that ‘Jesus wept’ (11.35). This is the full truth of the incarnation. The Word was made flesh and entered into our condition, into our grief and loss, into death itself.
But that is not the end of the story. Jesus has come to liberate us from the power of death. The resuscitation of Lazarus by the life-giving power of the Word – ‘Lazarus, come out’ (11.43) – is a sign that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and will himself come through death and invite us into the life of the new creation.
Palm Sunday – Sunday 29 March 2026
Matthew 21.1–11, Isaiah 50.4–7, Psalm 21(22).8–9,17–20,23–24, Philippians 2.6–11, Matthew 26.14 – 27.66
Palm Sunday represents a challenge for the preacher. There is so much to choose from in the readings, so much going on as we begin Holy Week. How can the preacher find one thread in this rich tapestry especially, as the Homiletic Directory reminds us, ‘pastoral considerations suggest a rather short homily’ (77). The Directory points to the second reading as the key, the beautiful hymn from St Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, which sums up the whole Paschal Mystery, the self-emptying and rising of Jesus Christ. The homilist is encouraged to remind the people that as we enter Holy Week we will experience that Mystery ‘in a way that speaks to our heart’ (77) and more than that, in a way which deepens our faith. As St Oscar Romero said on Palm Sunday in 1978, ‘Here we are not simply remembering that twenty centuries ago Christ entered Jerusalem. The liturgy is all about presence and present-day realities.’
Christ is forever entering our reality, our communities, our lives, in humility, in poverty. In Matthew’s Gospel, the emphasis is often on the fulfilment of Scripture, in this case Jesus entering Jerusalem as the Davidic Messiah entering his capital in a way which highlights his meekness and nonviolence (Mt 11.19). This contrasts with alternative stories of rulers entering a city on powerful warhorses. Jesus is the king of peace who will take the way of the cross for our forgiveness and redemption. We are invited not just to remember what Jesus did, but to take part in his dying to self – to our own attachments to power and greed and envy – and rising to the life of the new creation, to build a new civilisation, a civilisation of love.
St Oscar Romero asked his congregation to consider what Christ finds today when he enters our communities and ‘what is expected of us, his people, as a result of our faith in this Christ who continues to redeem our nation and the world’.
Easter in Disguise – Liz Dodd
Lent is Easter in disguise, a radical, subversive season of resistance. A blend of contemporary spirituality, scriptural reflection and tales from one of the UK’s youngest nuns make this a vibrant take on an ancient season.
Sister Liz Dodd, an activist and journalist, draws on feminist and Liberation theologies, as well as her work with refugees and her adventures cycling around the world, to outline a new spirituality for social justice. This Lent she challenges Christians to do more than give up chocolate: Lent is God’s invitation to shake up your life, rattle your parish, and change the world.
This book is a companion to the six weeks of Lent, with each week and its gospel focus corresponding to one of Jesus’ six spiritualities of social justice. It culminates in a fresh look at the traditions of Holy Week. Each chapter includes questions for reflection and a suggested spiritual practice, making it ideal for use with a group as well as for personal prayer.
Stations of the Cross: Journeying with Refugees – Raymond Friel
In this powerful book the young people of St Gregory’s Catholic College reflect on the parallels between Jesus’ final journey and the harsh reality faced by refugees. Bringing deep humanity to the refugee crisis, this modern interpretation of the Stations of the Cross is ideal for use in schools, parishes and for personal reflection.
Catholic Social Teaching – Raymond Friel
Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is sometimes referred to as the Church’s best kept secret, perhaps because it’s so radical. Catholic Social Teaching, as found in the letters and exhortations of popes since 1891, shows us a Gospel-inspired pathway to a society reconciled and in harmony through justice and love.
Raymond Friel, in his latest book, provides an introduction to this treasure of the Church. The book is aimed at those who don’t know much about CST and are looking for an accessible guide to the main principles, with helpful references to scripture and the key Church documents.
There’s a section on Catholic Social Action, to make it clear that all this teaching is meant to inspire people to build a better world founded on truth, justice and love. With moving examples from frontline charities and schools, readers will see what CST looks like when it hits the streets. The final section of the book includes a CST calendar, with suggested dates throughout the year to celebrate some of the key figures and milestones in the long struggle for social justice.
This book is suitable for staff working in Catholic schools, or charities, or volunteers in parishes. It will motivate and inspire anyone who wants to make a difference, who believes that we are all in this together, one human family in a common home.
Dilexi Te: On Love for the Poor
This resource is for parish groups to explore the Biblical foundations of Pope Leo’s Apostolic Exhortation ‘Dilexi Te: On Love for the Poor’.
