Seasons
Seasons
Each season is a fixed course of daily readings with a beginning and an end, ordered so that the days build on one another rather than stand alone.
August 16, 2026 – August 24, 2026St. Louis IX Novena2026A traditional novena to St. Louis IX, King of France, prayed from August 16 to 24 before his feast on August 25. Each day has its own theme and its own prayer, followed by the prayers that do not change: the Traditional Prayer to St. Louis, his litany, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, and a closing collect. It falls within St. Michael’s Lent and may be begun on any day of the year.Complete9 daysAugust 15, 2026 – September 29, 2026St. Michael's Lent2026Thirty-nine days inside a single book. From the Assumption to Michaelmas, the series reads straight through St. Augustine's City of God in Augustine's own order, gathered under six movements: vigilance, asceticism, discernment, worship, lineage, and peace. Augustine began it while Rome was falling and its refugees were looking for someone to blame. It remains the Church's longest sustained argument that a Christian holds two citizenships, and that only one of them is final.Complete39 reflectionsApril 7, 2026 – May 24, 2026Easter2026Forty-eight days from the empty tomb to Pentecost, following the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit as Isaiah names them — but climbing, from fear of the Lord through piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, and understanding, up to wisdom. Where Lent trains the will, Easter describes what happens once the Spirit takes it over. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas are joined here by St. Catherine of Siena, St. John of the Cross, John Henry Newman, and the Veni Creator Spiritus.Complete48 reflectionsFebruary 16, 2026 – April 4, 2026Lent2026Forty-eight days through the seven virtues, taken in ascending order: first the four cardinal virtues that order a life by nature — prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance — and then the three theological virtues that only grace can give. The readings set St. Thomas Aquinas beside St. Augustine, the Rule of St. Benedict beside Chesterton and Lewis, and Scripture beside the encyclicals, on the assumption that Lent is less a season of feeling than a season of training.Complete48 reflections