Based on the popular spiritual healing program designed by Bob Schuchts and the John Paul II Healing Center, Lenten Healing offers a twist to traditional Lenten fasting: instead of giving up chocolate, give up your sin. This daily Lenten devotional offers a unique approach to fasting, helping you reexamine the psychological and spiritual roots of sin in your life while sharing reflections and prayer exercises for overcoming sinful habits and acquiring virtuous ones.
Lent is the ideal time to identify and address "spiritual blind spots"—unacknowledged emotional wounds and false ideas that hinder your prayer life and worship.
During each week of Lent, Ken Kniepmann of the John Paul II Healing Center breaks open one of the seven deadly sins (pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, anger, envy, and greed) and its corresponding virtue (humility, chastity, abstinence, diligence, patience, kindness, and liberality). You'll start by learning about the sin and how it manifests itself in daily life and thought patterns. Then you'll move into reflection and prayer exercises that guide you through the process of renouncing that week's sin and resolving to adopt that week's virtue.
Fasting, the practice of giving up pleasures or comforts, allows us to grow in holiness by putting our desires to a kind of death. Obvious examples include giving up a habit such as a favorite food, sleeping in, or late-night TV—but what happens when you try to give up your sins while recognizing the deeper reasons you commit them in the first place? By seeing those connections and praying specifically for God's insight, healing, and revelation, you’ll be able to experience God’s mercy and love to a greater capacity.
Kniepmann helps you see how the depth of Catholic teaching is connected to your daily life. Sin isn't just an activity; it is a place of the heart (the interior life) and the movement of the heart (toward or away from sin) as related to thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. By the time Easter arrives, you'll possess a deeper understanding of sin and emotional wounds as impediments to intimacy with God and come away with tangible, practical tools for addressing those impediments in your life.
Ken Kniepmann is a Catholic speaker, writer and former executive director of the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida. He serves as associate for health with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. His extensive ministry experience includes teaching apologetics and serving as a retreat leader and youth ministry volunteer.
Kniepmann served on the board of directors of the John Paul II center and at Capital City High School, Return to Glory Ministries, and FRATERNUS. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counselor education from St. Louis University. He blogs for
Catholic Stand.
He and his wife, Sharon, live in Tallahassee with their children.
Bob Schuchts is the bestselling author of Be Healed, Be Transformed, Be Devoted, and Be Restored. He is the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida, and cohost of the Restore the Glory podcast with Jake Khym.
After receiving his doctorate in family relations from Florida State University in 1981, Schuchts became a teacher and counselor. While in private practice, he also taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Florida State and Tallahassee Community College. Schuchts later served on faculty at the Theology of the Body Institute and at the Center for Biblical Studies—where he taught courses on healing, sexuality, and marriage—and was a guest instructor for the Augustine Institute. He volunteered in parish ministry for more than thirty years.
He retired as a marriage and family therapist in December 2014.
Schuchts has two daughters and ten grandchildren. His wife, Margie, died in 2017.
