Lent 2026 at St. Robert of Newminster Parish

EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

View schedule details and sign up for your Holy Hour here! Please enter through Door C. A handicap-accessible entrance is located at Door D.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Stations of the Cross is scheduled on the Fridays of Lent at 6:30 p.m. The Stations are located in the Southeast corner of the Sanctuary. Enter through Doors B, C or D. Handicap parking is available near Doors B and D; the entrance at D is fully accessible.

Penance Service

Unburden your heart and be reconciled with God at our parish Penance Service with Individual Reconciliation. We’ll begin with five to ten minutes of prayer in the Sanctuary followed by individual confession throughout our campus. Multiple priests (8-10) will be available to hear your confession. Childcare will be available for infants through first graders. Contact the Parish Office with questions at (616) 676-9111.

The Light is ON for You

During The Light is ON For You, Thursday, March 19, individual confession will be available from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. in the Reconciliation Rooms of the Eucharistic Chapel. (enter through Door C; a handicap accessible entrance is available at Door D).

Fish Fries

Two Dates: March 20 & 27 | Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. | Location: Newminster Hall
Menu: Fish, coleslaw, french fries. Mac-n-cheese will be an option for the kids.
Cost: $15/adult, $7/kid
Click the graphic above to purchase tickets or pay at the door – Cash or payment online with a credit card accepted.

Art & Environment Donations

Help enhance our Sanctuary for the Easter season by making a donation in memory of a loved one. Give online, or check the bulletin and complete and submit the Easter Memorials donation form found there along with a check made payable to St. Robert of Newminster Parish and drop them off at the parish office, or place the form and your check in the collection basket at weekend Masses. If you have questions, please contact the parish office, (616) 676-9111.

CRS Rice Bowl 2026

CRS Rice Bowl is the Lenten program of Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Through CRS Rice Bowl, faith communities in every diocese throughout the United States put their faith into action through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

CRS Rice Bowl was started in 1975 by Catholics in Allentown, Pennsylvania who were looking for a way to help families experiencing drought and famine in the Sahel region in Africa. Participants fasted, ate simple meatless meals and donated the money they saved through these sacrifices.

This Lent, our community is joining more than 11,000 parishes and schools across the U.S. to continue putting our faith into action to help our sisters and brothers around the world.

You are invited to take home one of these Rice Bowls and place it on your family’s dinner table or in another place where you’ll see it every day. Then, incorporate the daily reflections and actions found in the Lenten calendar each day.

As you pray, please pray for people facing hunger around the world and here at home.
As you fast, please remember those for whom fasting is not voluntary.
As you prayerfully discern giving alms, please consider how your gifts will support the global work of the Church through CRS Rice Bowl, particularly at this moment when so many of our sisters and brothers are experiencing hunger and poverty.

Pick up your CRS Rice Bowl from the tables in the Narthex OR give online at https://www.crsricebowl.org/.

CRS Rice Bowl Quick Facts:
1) 75% of your donation supports Catholic Relief Services work around the world.
2) 25% of your gift stays in each US diocese for hunger and poverty alleviation efforts.

Magnificat Lenten Companion 2026

Lent is a time to refocus our hearts and revive our love of the Lord and one another. The Magnificat Lenten Companion will guide you through the Forty Days of Lent (from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday). They are available to pick up from the Narthex the weekend of February 14 & 15.

Designed in a convenient, easy-to-use format:

• Inspiring daily reflections from some of the most gifted Catholic writers
• Faith-filled essays
• Prayers, poetry, and devotions
• Meditations for the Way of the Cross
• A treasury of spiritual insights

By spending a few moments meditating on the inspiring daily reflections and the short prayers that follow them, you will accompany Jesus through his Passion and Death, emerging on Easter Sunday to the overflowing joy of his Resurrection.

Let the profound yet practical insights you will find in this little spiritual treasury form and focus your spiritual life, filling it with new conviction and purpose.

Let us guide you through these 40 days with new ideas for each day on FORMED! Please note that new episodes of Daily Bread and Drawing Closer to God aren’t accessible until the day of their release noted in the calendar, but you can simply opt in to email reminders to receive each video directly in your inbox once episodes are released. May God bless you abundantly through these Lenten resources!

AVAILABLE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18!

Presented in partnership with the National Eucharistic Congress, Heart of Prayer invites participants into an intimate and peaceful retreat with Bishop Andrew Cozzens. Heart of Prayer reveals the beauty and transcendence of a prayer life, as Bishop Cozzens draws from Scripture and the saints to offer guidance that is practical and down-to-earth.

How to Lent is a new series from the Augustine Institute that aims to equip Catholics with the tools to understand and practice the pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Guided by Solenne Santiago and with the help of priests and religious, this series will challenge our preconceived notions about Lent, laying out a roadmap for entering the season with a purpose. Don’t let Lent sneak up on you like it did last year. Instead, heed the call of St. John the Baptist by preparing for the Lord, using How to Lent to transform your spiritual life this Lenten season.

Join Dr. Sean Innerst in Foretold, a new series from the Augustine Institute that weaves together the Old and New Testament stories, highlighting their connecting threads of prophecy and fulfillment. What was promised in the biblical story came to pass through Jesus, his apostles, and the Church. Ultimately, this biblical history is your history. Just as the prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled, you can trust that Jesus will care for you and your story. Encounter this profound mystery and reality for yourself in Foretold.

Join Dr. Brant Pitre as he draws evidence from both early Christian and non-Christian writings attesting to the authenticity, authorship, and dating of the Gospels, and as he gives an in-depth look at the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s Crucifixion, Resurrection, and the proclamation of Christ’s divinity.

Fr. Agustino Torres, CFR, invites us to join him on the journey into the wilderness this Lent to become holy—because we are made for heaven. Are you ready to enter the wilderness with Jesus to experience grace, freedom, and transformation with our Lord?

Discover the Eucharist in Scripture explores the biblical roots of the Eucharist and how the earliest Christians understood it as the fulfillment of many Old Testament promises. Based on Dr. Brant Pitre’s book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, these daily Lenten reflection videos will radically transform your love for the Blessed Sacrament.

Translator Christopher Blum has selected from Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) voluminous works fifty brief but remarkably powerful meditations that complement the daily readings at Mass during the Lenten season, thus offering to us the perfect companion for a thoughtful and fruitful Lent.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet features breathtaking footage from Martin Jernberg which helps us to experience the beauty and breadth of the world and the Catholic Church with whom and for whom we are praying. Included in the video are the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in New York and Honduras, the Sisters of Life at Times Square, the Brothers of Saint John in the Philippines, the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and the OFMs in the Holy Land.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary (aka the Servite Rosary) is a traditional Catholic devotion featuring meditations on sorrowful episodes in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The prayers and meditations are accompanied by images of sacred art from many of the great masters as well as a lush, yet subtle, orchestral soundtrack.

Fr. Mike Schmitz shares important insights on the meaning of Christ’s Cross. He shows how God’s rescue mission for us includes the need for each person to embrace his own cross in order to reestablish trust in the Father and the understanding that love requires sacrifice. It also includes a bonus segment on Stations of the Cross, which features reflections on the Lord’s Passion and Death, accompanied by moving audio dramatizations from the Truth and Life Audio Bible.

The Augustine Institute presents a beautiful meditation on the Stations of the Cross by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, narrated by Dr. Christopher Blum. This prayerful reflection is accompanied by the Schola Cantorum of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Littleton, CO, chanting the traditional Catholic hymn Stabat Mater, in Latin, which depicts the loving presence of Our Sorrowful Mother, sharing in the suffering of Christ at the foot of the cross. Take advantage of this audio on your commute, at home, or anywhere you find the time, to enrich your prayer during Lent or throughout the year, and better unite yourself to the Passion of Christ.

Holy Week is the holiest week of the year. But why do we call the entire week “holy”? Does anything important happen on the days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday? Follow Scripture scholar and professor Dr. Brant Pitre as he walks through each of the seven days of Holy Week, and explains how the words and actions of Jesus on the last seven days of His life are deeply significant, relevant, and rooted in the Old Testament. Enter Holy Week and make it your most life-changing week yet.

Join Brother Francis as he follows our Lord on his way to the Cross. This episode of Brother Francis is only on FORMED for a limited time! Watch it now, because it leaves after Easter.

These You Are Forgiven videos are just a small portion of the curriculum created by the trusted theologians and award-winning film studio at the Augustine Institute. Signs of Grace is the only comprehensive sacramental preparation program for children that includes a thorough family faith formation component.

Littlest Saints features the lives of the saints as told by kids. In each episode, a young child dons a habit, a cassock, a uniform, anything and everything, and acts out a different heavenly hero’s story, full of drama, comedy, and everything in between.

Are you looking for meaningful ways to observe the faith with your family? Liturgical living in the home is a fun and natural way to evangelize to the people closest to us. It celebrates and revives ancient tradition and repackages it for modern, busy Catholic families. Let Kendra and her kids show you how!

Have you ever wanted to live more liturgically but not known how? We want to help all families by providing these discussions on liturgical living during Lent to be a resource for the Domestic Church—the home. We pray that these discussions bless you and your family.

Based on the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament, here is the life of Jesus from the miraculous virgin birth to the calling of his disciples, public miracles and ministry, ending with his death by crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire and resurrection on the third day.

A collection of talks in which women encourage and support one another in the vocation of Catholic motherhood.

Take a healing journey with Sr. Miriam James Heidland, SOLT, as she helps you turn away from what wounds you and toward God who heals you and makes you whole. Each week, Sr. Miriam will lead you to meet the tenderness of God’s mercy, the power of his love, and the restoration of your heart and life as you practice prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and sacrifice.

Triduum: A Spiritual Pilgrimage is a beautiful, 30 minute contemplative documentary. This film cinematically walks through the locations of the Holy Week story, re-presenting the most important days of human history. Immersed in the real and sacred places of the Holy Land, the pilgrim faithful is brought tangibly nearer to the story, the landscape, and the reality of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.