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Lenten Calendar Templates for 2015

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I love using a calendar template for Lent because it gives me a one-day-at-a-time, concrete, manageable way to have a daily practice for the 40 (or 46) days before Easter. If you like more space than a piece of 8 1/2″ x11″ paper affords, go to a copy store or print shop and expand the template to 11″x17″.

Here are some ways to use the calendar:
1) Pray for someone each day. Write a name, doodle around it, pray with words or in silence as you draw.
2) Choose a word from the Daily Lectionary or other reading and write it in the space for the day. Pray the word. Meditate on it. Spend time with it as you draw. Let it tell you about itself. Let God reveal something new to you about the word.
3) Write a word you associate with Lent–sin, forgiveness, journey, palms, Jesus, salvation, crucifixion,…. Meditate on it. Spend time with it as you draw. Listen to what the what can tell you about itself. Let God reveal something new to you about the word.
4) Just doodle or draw in the space without words. Keep silence and listen for the “still small voice of God.”
5) Write one of the different names for God each day and pray/meditate on the name.
6) Write one of your character defects or “sins” in the space each day. Offer it up to God; ask for help and forgiveness. Very Lenten!

Here are the templates. Click on the WORD below the picture to download. When you see the template in Google Drive, click on the downward facing arrow to download. Thanks to Hilary Ann Golden for her Spiral template.

Lent 2015Collageresized

……..Hexagons .jpg                Spiral .pdf                      Box .jpg                       Path .jpg
……..Hexagons. pdf                Spiral. jpg                      Box .doc

Here are some examples of finished calendars from previous years.
Lent Collage Sample 2015 resized

 

Lenten Calendar 2014–Final

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Here is my finished calendar for this Lent. I used no words, just drew crosses everyday. It was a wordless Lent in terms of the calendar and I didn’t miss them. But as usual I wish I could take back some words I said and said some words I didn’t say during the 40 days. Happy Easter to all! Christ is risen; hallelujah! And it’s okay to say that for the next 49 days of the Easter season–and even longer when you need to remember.

Lent 2014 Calendar Final Resized

 

Lenten Calendar Template 2014

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I have added a new page to my website called Handouts. On it are two different calendar templates for Lent this year as shown below. One is a regular box calendar format. The other is a starburst. (or crown of thorns) On my starburst calendar I drew arrows from one date to the next. You can click on the word Handouts above to access the calendar you want, not on the pictures below. Please pass along the link to friends who may be interested.

I plan to go to a copy store and blow up the size of mine to fit on an 11″ x 17″ piece of card stock. (129%)

Each day you can pray for a person or pray a word associated with Lent. One year I meditated on the different names for God. Another year I prayed the words from Psalm 51.

May you have a Holy Lent.

Box Calendar 2014 resized

Starburst Calendar resized

Lenten Calendars for 2013

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Happy Easter! Hallelujah! How nice it is to say that word again after suppressing it for forty days.

Here is my finished calendar for this Lent. Unlike last year’s calendar where I focused on the names for God, this year’s entries were a hodgepodge of feelings, character defects, strengths, ideas, images, people and whatever popped into my mind. The pathway format to Easter kept me focused on the day to day journey of Lent.

My friend Connie used the beehive template for her calendar.  During Lent she read the devotional Good News for all People by Michele DeRusha and her husband Brad Johnson, illustrated by Deb Paden. On her blog Vintage Grace, Connie describes combining words from the devotional with drawings and color on her calendar:  “After each day’s Lenten reading I would find the word that ‘stood out’ for me in the reading and that was my one word for that day of Lent. I choose 5-6 color pencils that were my ‘colors of Lent’ for this season. The repeated use of the colors for the whole Season helps me to see the connected focus of the words.”

First 1/2 of Lent Finished Calendar; Second 1/2 Template

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Here is the first half of my Lenten calendar. This year the calendar does not have a theme. It includes people I’m praying for, words of gratitude, intriguing words, character defects (sins)…. It feels likes it’s blowing all over the place like the passage from John 3:8 says: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (NRSV)

Below the finished 1/2 calendar is a template for the rest of Lent–just in case you’re still looking for a discipline at the halfway point of Lent. Click on the calendar to download a copy of the template.

Lenten Calendar Templates 2013

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Ash Wednesday, February 13–the first day of Lent– is only five days away. Here are three templates you can use to mark the 40 days (46, counting weekends) until Easter. Two of the templates are modeled on previous years. The newest one, the one with the variety of shapes and pathways connecting them, is the one I created for this year. I kept thinking of Lent and life as a path of walking, marching, plodding, skipping, falling, stopping, running, dawdling….

A more traditional version of Psalm 16:11 says: ” You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand”  (NIV). The Message uses these words: “Now you’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I’m on the right way.” I like this version of God as handholder and cosmic flashlight–quelling my fears and lighting my path.

Click on the word below the calendar style you want to download.

         Path jpg      Path pdf                          Block Calendar                               Hexagons

 

Here are some suggestions on ways to use the calendar:

1. Pray for a person each day. Write their name in the shape; draw, color, doodle as you hold them up to God.
2. Pray a word each day–a word from a scripture passage you have read that day–a word that intrigues you or bothers you.
3. List your shortcomings along the path. Draw, doodle, color….
4. Just draw and listen to what the Holy Spirit may be saying to you.
5. Use color on your calendar or just a black pen.

I like to expand this 8 1/2″ x 11″ template to 11″x17″ on card stock for bigger spaces.

Here are some samples of previous years’ finished calendars:
2012A     2012B      2011     Cindy O’s 2011

Lenten Calendars–Ideas for the Future

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Here are some examples of the way other people used the Lenten calendars.

1. Connie D. read a daily Lenten devotional called Renewed For Life by Henri J. M. Nouwen, published by Creative Communications for the Parish. Each day she chose a meaningful word from the reading and prayed it using her calendar. Even without having read the devotional, I could use the wonderful words on this calendar as a rich vocabulary list for daily reflection.

2. A woman named Ellen wrote this to me:
I used both templates this Lent–printed them on opposite sides of one sheet of heavy  paper. I used the honeycomb one to write names of people  I wanted to remember and pray for, OR a prayer for myself during this  time, enhanced with doodles the way you did.  And I used the regular calendar to list brief gratitudes at the end of each day.  I used colorful markers to do both, and found the practice helpful and life-giving.  

3. Ellen also shared how a friend used the template:
 I also have a friend who used the honeycomb both for herself, as a way to focus each day on a personal discipline she was cultivating, AND one for her 3-year old daughter who colored in a section each day with a different color, while Mom did her own calendar. 

Thanks for the great ideas.

Lenten Calendar 2012 Final

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I liked the “behive” template I used this year (or as a friend called it, the “chicken wire”). The six angles in each hexagon provided nice little nooks for arcs, lines, triangles, and a variety of doodle shapes and strokes.

There are so many names  for God. The ones I used are familiar ones–names I have heard before or read in the Bible. Forty-six words is just the beginning of a vocabulary to describe an infinite, everywhere God. Even the sum of thousands of names is inadequate to describe the one who British Catholic hymn writer Bernadette Farrell calls “God Beyond All Names.” I hope my chicken-wire lexicon will continue to expand in all directions. I hope the handful of words I use to address God will become armfuls–names which are now beyond my wildest imagining.

 

I’d love to hear your experiences with the Lenten calendar–the beehive or the traditional squares.

 

Lenten Calendar–Week 5

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I like the theme for my 2012 Lenten calendar–names for God. When I look at the collection so far, I notice both the richness and the inadequacy of the words. How many names would it take to accurately describe the vastness and magnificence of our God?–many more than I know.

The calendar reminded me of another visual image. When my younger son was small, he said, “I think God is like a big patchwork quilt. Each patch is a different kind of skin or fur or feather of all of the creatures in the world.” I loved the image of this quilt and imagined it extending infinitely in every direction. Being wrapped in this spectacular, endless quilt of God would be a lush, comforting (and maybe a little terrifying) experience.

Quilt drawing from the back cover of Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God, Paraclete Press, 2007