Lent is upon us and along with it comes much advice from spiritual writers about how best to keep it. I don’t see myself as a “spiritual writer” as much as a “writer about spiritual books”. There is a difference. If I can point a reader towards a book I think they may find helpful, then the exercise is worthwhile. On this note, and for those who find praying the Rosary hard work and who would like some guidance, I recommend Fr Dwight Longenecker’s book, Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing (published by Our Sunday Visitor). Longenecker, a popular blogger and priest in the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, also has a healing ministry; he accompanies, prays with and offers Mass for people who come to him with deep-rooted wounds which have stunted their spiritual growth. His book is an encouragement to pray the Rosary, entering into all the key moments and events of Jesus’s life that we know from the Gospels, while at the same time praying for healing from those wounds in one’s life that continue to fester. The author, who began as an Anglican minister before converting to Catholicism, discovered the Rosary himself while still an Anglican. His spiritual world had come crashing down and he felt in the dark. It was an elderly Catholic priest who encouraged him to say the Rosary – and he found it changed everything.