Resource Review · Christian Fasting Apps
Lent Companion
A seasonal Catholic devotional that goes live for forty days and then disappears — the only Lent app built like a printed missal you carry in your pocket.
- Editor rating
- 4.4 / 5
- Starting price
- ~$4.99 per Lent season
- Free tier
- No
- Platforms
- iOS
- Developer
- Magnificat
- Launched
- 2014
The verdict
Lent Companion is the thoughtful Catholic’s seasonal devotional — short, focused, beautifully edited, and gone by Easter Monday. It does one liturgical season very well and does not pretend to be a year-round prayer app.
Try Lent Companion ↗Opens us.magnificat.net
Lent Companion has quietly become the favorite of Catholics who want a focused Lenten devotional without committing to a year-round subscription. Published each spring by Magnificat — the French-rooted Catholic publisher behind the long-running monthly missalette — it goes live on Ash Wednesday, walks the user through every day of Lent, and quietly disappears after Easter Sunday.
It does not try to be Hallow. It does not try to be a meditation library. It does not try to be a content platform that earns its keep with daily push notifications and a streak counter. What it tries to be is a printed Lent missal you can carry in your pocket — the daily Mass readings, a short meditation, the Order of Mass, prayers for the season, the Stations of the Cross, an examen, and a fasting framework drawn from the Catechism and traditional Catholic practice.
The price is the part that surprises most first-time buyers: around $4.99 for the whole season, not per month and not auto-renewing. You buy it once each Lent, you use it for forty days, and that is the entire commercial relationship. For Catholics who already pay for Hallow or Magnificat’s flagship monthly app, Lent Companion is the small, seasonal complement that handles the one liturgical stretch where they want something more concentrated.
✓ The good
- Seasonal pricing model — around $4.99 per Lent, no auto-renew, no year-round subscription required
- Full daily Mass readings — lectionary readings for every day of Lent in the same translation Catholics hear at Mass (NABRE in the US edition)
- Magnificat editorial pedigree — the same editors behind the monthly Magnificat missalette, which most US Catholic parishes already know
- Stations of the Cross built in — a full Friday devotional cycle, not a marketing afterthought tacked onto the back of the app
- Daily examen for Lent — a guided evening reflection structured around the season’s penitential themes
- Fasting and abstinence guidance — the actual Catholic discipline for Lent, with Fridays and the Ash Wednesday / Good Friday fasts clearly explained
- Beautifully typeset — the layout reads more like a printed prayer book than a typical devotional app
✗ Watch out
- iOS only — no Android version, no web version, no Apple Watch companion (yet)
- Lives only during Lent — the content is unavailable outside Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, which surprises some buyers
- No audio narration — unlike Hallow or Pray-As-You-Go, the meditations are read, not listened to
- Limited interactivity — no streaks, no community, no journaling export, no progress dashboard
- Single tradition — strictly Roman Catholic; not designed for Anglican, Lutheran, or Eastern Catholic Lent (which has different fasting rules)
- No companion content for spouses or kids — it is a single-reader devotional, not a family Lent kit
Best for
- Practicing Catholics who want a focused Lent devotional
- Magnificat monthly subscribers who want a deeper seasonal supplement
- Anyone who finds year-round prayer subscriptions overwhelming
- Readers who prefer printed-missal aesthetics on a screen
Avoid if
- You want audio-guided prayer (Hallow or Pray-As-You-Go fit better)
- You are looking for a year-round daily devotional
- You are on Android — there is no version for you
- You want a Lenten challenge structured around community accountability
What Lent Companion is
Lent Companion is a seasonal iOS app from Magnificat, the Catholic publisher best known for its monthly liturgical missalette. The app is a self-contained Lenten devotional: it activates around Ash Wednesday each year, walks the reader through every day of Lent, and concludes on Easter Sunday. Inside, each day pairs the full Catholic lectionary readings for that date with a short meditation, the relevant prayers for the season, and links into the app’s recurring features — the Stations of the Cross, an evening examen, and a primer on Catholic fasting and abstinence rules.
It is sold once per season for around $4.99, with no subscription, no auto-renew, and no year-round commitment. The same publisher offers a separate year-round app and a printed monthly missalette, but Lent Companion is deliberately scoped to one liturgical stretch and one user role — the individual Catholic reader who wants forty days of focused devotional content in the same translation and editorial voice they already encounter at Mass.
Why seasonal Catholics prefer Lent Companion
The single biggest practical difference between Lent Companion and the major prayer apps is the commercial model. Hallow and Pray.com want a year-round subscriber. Exodus 90 wants a ninety-day cohort commitment. Lent Companion wants $4.99 once, for forty days, and then it lets you go. For a lot of Catholics — especially ones who already subscribe to one prayer app and do not want a second — that scoping is the entire reason they choose it.
The second difference is editorial. Magnificat has been producing the monthly missalette that sits in countless US Catholic homes since 1992. The same editors, the same translators, the same meditation contributors, and the same typesetting sensibility carry over into Lent Companion. It reads like a printed prayer book that happens to live on a phone, which is the model that respects your work — not a content platform that earns its keep with notifications, streaks, and weekly emails reminding you that your prayer streak is in danger.
Daily Lent readings and meditation: the everyday spine of the app
Each day during Lent, the app opens to that date’s Mass readings in full — first reading, responsorial psalm, gospel acclamation, and gospel — in the same lectionary translation Catholics hear proclaimed at Mass (NABRE in the US edition). Below the readings sits a short meditation, typically 300 to 500 words, written by a rotating cast of priests, religious, and Catholic spiritual writers from the broader Magnificat contributor pool. The layout is deliberately spare: one screen for the readings, one for the meditation, one for the day’s collect and intercessions, and a quiet link out to the Stations or the examen if you want to go further.
This sounds like a small thing. In practice it is transformative for Catholics who travel during Lent or attend daily Mass irregularly. Having the day’s readings already loaded — not buried in a USCCB website tab — means the devotional happens on the bus, in the parking lot before work, in the ten quiet minutes after the kids are down. The meditation is short enough to read in one sitting, and the editorial voice across contributors is consistent enough that you do not feel like you are switching apps every day.
Stations of the Cross and the daily examen: the structural backbone
The Stations of the Cross are baked into the app as a recurring Friday devotional, not as a marketing afterthought. The full fourteen-station cycle is presented one station at a time, each with the traditional V/R prayer pairing, a scripture passage, a short meditation, and the closing prayer. There is also a Scriptural Stations of the Cross variant — the John Paul II revision that anchors each station to a specific gospel passage rather than the traditional sequence — which several editions of the app have included as an alternate Friday cycle.
The daily examen is the other structural feature. Modeled on the Ignatian five-step examen and adapted for the penitential character of Lent, it walks the user through gratitude, petition for light, review of the day, repentance, and resolution for tomorrow. Pairing the Stations on Fridays with the examen every evening is the closest the app gets to a programmatic discipline — and it is intentionally low-friction. There are no streaks. There is no scoring. The app simply makes the practice available and trusts the reader to keep it.
The seasonal release pattern: the actual differentiator
Lent Companion is not a year-round app that happens to feature Lent content. It is a seasonal release that comes online each year a week or two before Ash Wednesday, runs through Easter Sunday, and then quietly stops updating until the following spring. The app icon stays on your phone, but the content is gone — which is the design, not a bug. Magnificat treats each Lent as a distinct edition, with refreshed meditations, refreshed contributors, and the current liturgical calendar baked in. Buying it in 2026 is buying the 2026 edition, not a perpetual library.
This is the part that surprises new users and converts long-term ones. For Catholics who feel saturated by year-round prayer subscriptions, the seasonal cadence is the entire appeal: a focused forty-day commitment that mirrors the liturgical season itself, costs less than a coffee, and disappears when the season closes. For Catholics who want a year-round Magnificat experience, the publisher sells that separately — the monthly app, the print missalette, the bundle. Lent Companion is deliberately scoped to do one thing well and then get out of the way.
Pricing
Lent Companion (seasonal)
~$4.99 one-time
Full Lenten cycle — Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday. Daily readings, meditations, Stations of the Cross, examen, fasting guidance. No auto-renew.
Magnificat monthly app (separate)
~$24.99/year
The publisher’s flagship year-round app — daily Mass readings and meditations every month, not just during Lent. Bought separately from Lent Companion.
Magnificat print + digital bundle
~$54.95/year
The printed monthly missalette mailed home plus digital access. Catholics who already subscribe often add Lent Companion as a $5 seasonal extra.
The pricing is the simplest in the category. One purchase, around $4.99, for the entire Lenten season. No subscription, no auto-renew, no trial-then-charge mechanic. You pay once, you use it for forty days, you are done.
There is a separate Magnificat monthly app and a separate print missalette bundle for Catholics who want year-round content. Those are sold independently and are not gated behind Lent Companion. Some readers subscribe to the monthly app and add Lent Companion as a $5 seasonal extra; others buy only Lent Companion and skip the monthly entirely.
Most users do not need the print bundle. The print missalette is beloved by readers who like a physical prayer book on the breakfast table, but the digital-only path is fully featured — nothing is held back from the app to push you toward paper.
For Catholics deciding whether to buy: $4.99 once a year is roughly the cost of a printed Lenten devotional booklet at a parish bookstore. The math is the math.
Where Lent Companion falls behind
No audio narration. The meditations are read text only — there is no spoken version of the daily reflection, no guided audio Stations, and no narrated examen. Catholics who prefer to listen during a commute will reach for Hallow or Pray-As-You-Go instead, both of which lean heavily on audio.
No Android, no web, no Apple Watch. Lent Companion is iOS only. There is no Android edition, no browser fallback, and no watch companion. For a household where one spouse is on Android, this is a real gap — the printed Magnificat Lenten Companion booklet is the recommended substitute on that side of the dinner table.
No community or accountability layer. There are no streaks, no friend feeds, no shared progress, no journaling export. The app is built for solo devotional use. If you want a cohort-style Lent with daily check-ins and group accountability, Exodus 90 is the canonical Catholic option — Lent Companion intentionally does not compete there.
The seasonal availability cuts both ways. If you discover the app in the middle of Lent, you can buy it and pick up that day’s content immediately. But if you discover it in November, there is nothing to evaluate — the previous edition has closed and the next one has not opened. For curious shoppers outside the season, the publisher’s year-round Magnificat app is the only way to sample the editorial voice.
Lent Companion vs. Hallow Pray40 vs. Exodus 90
These three are the canonical Catholic seasonal options, and they are not actually competing for the same user. Different strengths. Lent Companion is better at being a printed-missal-style daily companion in the lectionary tradition — spare, edited, scoped to forty days. Hallow’s Pray40 is broader (celebrity-narrated audio, guided meditations, multiple challenge tracks, year-round content underneath). Exodus 90 is a different category entirely — a ninety-day men’s ascetic program structured around cold showers, fasting, daily prayer, and small-group accountability, not a daily Mass readings devotional.
A Catholic choosing between them is really choosing a posture toward the season. Lent Companion is the posture of opening a prayer book each morning. Pray40 is the posture of pressing play on a guided audio session. Exodus 90 is the posture of joining a fraternity and committing to an ascetic rule of life with other men. None of those is wrong; they are answering different questions.
If the question is “I want the daily lectionary plus a short reflection in a Catholic editorial voice, for about $5, and I want it to leave me alone after Easter,” Lent Companion is the clearest fit. If the question is “I want audio I can listen to in the car with celebrity narrators and a year-round library underneath,” Hallow wins. If the question is “I want to be reshaped by ninety days of communal asceticism with other men,” Exodus 90 is the only one of the three that even tries.
The bottom line
Lent Companion is the thoughtful Catholic’s seasonal devotional — a focused, beautifully typeset, $5-once Lenten companion from a publisher whose editorial voice most US Catholics already trust. It does one liturgical season very well, gets out of the way when it is over, and never pretends to be a year-round prayer platform. The iOS-only availability and lack of audio are real gaps, but they are worth knowing about going in rather than dealbreakers. For a practicing Catholic who wants daily Mass readings plus a short reflection plus the Stations and the examen, in one quiet app, for forty days, this is the cleanest option in the category.
Alternatives to Lent Companion
Hallow
The largest Catholic prayer app — audio-guided meditations, rosary, Pray40 Lenten challenge, celebrity narrators. Year-round subscription model rather than seasonal.
Exodus 90
A ninety-day Catholic men’s ascetic program built around prayer, asceticism, and small-group fraternity. Different commitment level and different category from a daily devotional.
Ascension App
Home of the Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year podcasts with Fr. Mike Schmitz, plus rosary and other Catholic content. Free with optional premium features.
Magnificat
The publisher’s year-round flagship app — daily Mass readings, meditations, and Order of Mass every month. The natural step up from Lent Companion for Catholics who want it all year.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Lent Companion the same as the Magnificat app?
- No. They are separate apps from the same publisher. Magnificat is a year-round daily devotional app with monthly content, sold on subscription. Lent Companion is a seasonal one-time purchase that activates for Lent and runs through Easter Sunday, then goes dormant until the next spring.
- How much does Lent Companion cost?
- Around $4.99 for the full Lenten season, paid once. There is no auto-renewing subscription, and the price covers Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday for that year’s edition. Pricing has been stable across recent years but is set by the publisher each season.
- Is it available on Android?
- No. As of writing, Lent Companion is iOS only. Android users who want the Magnificat editorial voice during Lent typically use the printed Magnificat Lenten Companion booklet, which is sold separately through the publisher.
- Do I need to buy it again every year?
- Yes. Each year’s Lent Companion is a fresh edition with new meditations, new contributors, and the current liturgical calendar. The app icon stays on your phone between seasons, but the content for a given Lent is purchased once per year.
- Does it include the daily Mass readings?
- Yes. Each day of Lent includes the full lectionary readings for that date — first reading, responsorial psalm, gospel acclamation, and gospel — in the same translation used at Mass (NABRE in the US edition).
- Does it have audio meditations like Hallow?
- No. Lent Companion is a text-and-image devotional, modeled on a printed missalette. There is no audio narration of the daily meditations, no guided audio Stations of the Cross, and no spoken examen. Readers who want audio Catholic prayer typically pair this with Hallow or Pray-As-You-Go.
- Is Lent Companion only for Roman Catholics?
- It is built around the Roman Catholic Lenten calendar, lectionary, and fasting discipline. Eastern Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran readers observe Lent on different calendars and with different fasting rules, so the app fits the Roman tradition specifically.