Using the Ordinary Time 2026 Journal

We invite you to go on a walk.

This journal is made up of ten Speed of Love “walks.” If the speed of love is a three-mile-an-hour walking pace, then it seems fitting to try and embody that in the ways we can. Of course, we all have varying ability and varying capacity, so a long physical walk is not required. It can be an amble through the halls of your home, a backyard pilgrimage, or simply a mental, emotional pilgrimage in your favorite chair. But I hope you can find a way to walk and pray in this season.

Each Speed of Love walk has a scripture, a prayer, and a reflection to prompt your own spirit toward wherever the Lord might be leading you on a particular day. There are ten walks to coincide with the ten weeks between when this journal is distributed and the first Sunday in Advent. So feel free to do a walk a week, or maybe do the same one every day for a week — whatever feels best for your life of prayer and reflection.

There is also space to write, to journal within the journal. The reflection questions and the backyard pilgrimage concept are borrowed from the wonderful book/devotional Godspeed Pilgrim by Matt Canlis. At the end, there is also a list of the books where the reflection quotes are sourced. Maybe one or two will stick out to you for further exploration into these themes.

And throughout the pages, there are pictures drawn from a collection from the Library of Congress from the middle part of the 20th century in America. These photos seem to capture just a little bit of what it looks and feels like to go the speed of love.

Peace to you as you walk and pray.

— Jonathan Gabhart