You’re standing in a field that looks golden and inviting in the whitewashed sunlight of full evening. In this warm and dynamic moment from the film tape of your interior life, He’s right there, reaching out to you. But the snapshot is fuzzy, taken amid movement: maybe you’ve been caught in the middle of a dizzying twirl. Perhaps you are running towards the reaching hand, and that’s why the image looks shaky. Or, maybe you are in the midst of action as you pause to consider the invitation. Once you focus in, you’ll better see His face and hear what He’s speaking to you. The romance, vulnerability, joy, and hope of this moment are real.
This scene greets us on the cover of the Blessed is She Lenten Devotional for 2026, Who Do You Say That I Am? authored by Debra Herbeck. Jesus asks each of us the same question He asked His twelve apostles, and it reaches us as a golden moment in which we are offered the chance to choose Him and walk with Him to the Cross. How will you respond?
Running Toward Deeper Relationship
Who Do You Say That I Am? is a devotional that calls you to a new stage in your love story with Jesus. In the introduction, Debra shares her desire that each day of this Lenten journey will bring a personal encounter with Christ:
My hope is that you will approach it more like a date with a close friend or lover. It is quality time, an opportunity to be with Jesus in conversation and allow His presence and His words to bring you to a deeper revelation and love of His identity and mission.” (p. ii)
How do you get to know someone better? By listening to their stories and spending time with them. The 2026 Lenten devotional is a chance to do these two things with Christ our Beloved. In Who Do You Say That I Am? Debra Herbeck offers us forty prayerful days of rediscovering Jesus’s presence and words through Sacred Scripture and the Sabbath.
Invited Into Scripture: Tell Me Your Stories
We can treasure a loved one’s stories best when we understand their words and their world. In the 2026 Lenten devotional, Debra draws on her Jewish upbringing to show us the words Jesus used (including the Hebrew roots of many Scriptural terms), the contexts in which He spoke these revelations, and the liturgical feast days that shaped the scenes of His public ministry.
The central stories that this devotional focuses on are the verbal images that pave the way to Christ’s Passion in the Gospel of John, telling us Who Jesus is. He is the Light of the World, the Gate for the Sheep, the Good Shepherd, the True Vine. Each week of the devotional includes a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner so that we can visually enter into Christ’s “I Am.” Through the prayerful practice of contemplating sacred art (visio divina), we can connect these truths of Who Christ is to particular moments in His ministry, keeping His true identity concretely in our memories.
Invited Into the Sabbath: Recovering Rest
We set aside time for those close to us, for those we wish to deeply know. Do we do this sufficiently with the Lord? Who Do You Say That I Am? brings us back to the Old Covenant custom of keeping a day for God. True to her Jewish Heritage, Debra Herbeck designates each Saturday in the devotional as “the Sabbath.”
Our society has replaced rest with recreation or entertainment, losing the spirit of the Sabbath. Debra reminds us that the Sabbath is “a commandment to stop, to rest, to worship, to receive and be restored—to remember who we are and where we are going” (p. 14). On the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, she introduces the Sabbath as a chance to prepare for worship, reorienting our lives to the reality of Who God is. The following Saturdays each have a theme and an invitation that are meant to prepare us for Sunday and for the week ahead:
- Week 2: An invitation to recognize God’s Word as a light for our steps
- Week 3: An invitation to joy as we remain in Christ’s sheepfold
- Week 4: An invitation to rest in safety with the Good Shepherd
- Week 5: An invitation to gratitude, recalling God’s works
- Week 6: An invitation to break bread as a reminder of God’s provision
- Holy Saturday: an invitation to be still and dare to hope
We can better glimpse Who Christ is when we set aside time to spend with Him, preparing for Eucharistic worship and reorienting our lives to the reality of redemption.
A Lenten Invitation For Children Too
Blessed is She also offers children a new glimpse of God with the beautiful 2026 kids’ Lenten devotional created by Olivia Spears. Following the same theme of Christ’s “I Am statements,” children are also invited to respond to and learn Who Jesus says He is.
Who Do You Say That I Am? for Kids is filled with appealing page designs, engaging activities, and sacred art (the same works featured in the women's devotional). This book is a beautiful way for young souls to discover that Lent is much more than a time to give something up. It’s a season to rediscover the simplicity of the Gospel, building up their minds and hearts with a true knowledge of Who God is and what He has done for us.
A Golden Hour Love on Easter Sunday
I return to the beautiful cover of the Who Do You Say That I Am? devotional. A verse spoken by a bride to her Beloved comes to mind: “Draw me after you, let us make haste …” (Song of Songs 1:4). Significantly, Ash Wednesday follows soon after Valentine’s Day this year. At the same time that sweet tales of “how we met” or “our love story” populate blogs and social media, we can begin our own forty-day journey of meeting the Beloved.
Will you respond to Jesus’s invitation to know Him? Who do you say that He is to you right now? Who can He be to you in the future? Let Lent 2026 be the story of how you really and truly met Christ, a story that takes you from one “I Am” statement to the next, to the Cross, and finally to His revelation in the golden light of Easter morning: “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25).
Leila Joy Castillo calls Florida home but left her heart in hill country long ago. An alumna of Ave Maria University, she freelances in Catholic communications and is a published writer, primarily on Blessed is She and Ascension. When not dabbling in the multitudinous Google docs of her articles, Leila delights in music, personalist philosophy, quality time with her younger siblings, and her literary trifecta: Austen, Lewis, and Dante. You can find her on Instagram @leila_joyinthejourney or follow her personal site here.
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