As we approach Lent, Father Dave welcomes Josh Noem, editorial director of Ave Maria Press, to discuss his new devotional, “Lord Show Me the Way.”
Josh explains his own approach to appreciating Lent. “It’s a time to get honest with yourself; to get real,” he says. “There’s this conception that we use Lent as a time to whip ourselves into shape and make ourselves holy. But a lot of what I found myself writing about in this book was how Lent and the specific practices we take on – prayer, fasting, almsgiving – are less about us transforming ourselves, and more about us creating the capacity to receive more of what God wants to give.”
“I find this season to offer this interesting and rich dynamic where we’re cooperating with the Holy Spirit,” Josh continues. “We’re creating room and making room for the Spirit to move in us.”
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Josh explains how the devotional incorporates music into each daily reflection. “These are hymns that people will recognize, and each day we take a line or two [to pray with],” he says. “I’ve been singing these songs my whole life, and to be looking at these lines in a new light has been really fun.” He adds that throughout the writing process, he would hum a song and pray with it all day.
Josh reflects on how singing hymns at Mass can enrich our prayer life. “You’ve got a memory of these songs from your life, from worship, from family…It connects you to different periods of your life,” he says. “When you are singing with people, it unites. The sound that you’re emitting is joining with the sound of the congregation, so it forms a people.”
“I think one of the most powerful things about music, specifically when it relates to prayer, is that it involves the body,” he continues. “It engages your emotions, and what I found in writing this and what I’ve been hearing is that people pray with this. This resource is a way to put prayer into your bones.”
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One feature of the devotional is a daily QR code which takes you to a playlist of different musical artists singing each hymn. Josh reflects on one hymn featured in the book, “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing,” and connects it to Jesus meeting the woman at the well in John’s Gospel.
“She has that encounter with Christ, and she leaves with so much more than she expected,” Josh says. “The turn in that story that I love the most is that she comes to the well looking for water, because she’s physically thirsty. But when she leaves, she is a well. She encounters living water, and she becomes a well for other people.”
