Washed clean by a covenant of love. If you are new to mental prayer, we invite you to visit our page on the ways of mental prayer, Don’t know how to pray to God, to learn more.
We begin Day 4 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Lord,
I believe you want to give me the grace to go deeper in prayer this Lent. Help me to be present to you so that I’ll intimately pray these next 15 minutes with my heart fully open and willing to receive that grace. Please help me open my heart and pray with more intensity. I want to be able to visualize myself with you so I can feel your presence more intimately in my life this Lent. Lord, give me the grace I need as I strive to complete these 40 days of daily Lenten reflections. I am choosing to take up my cross and humbly follow you all the way to Calvary and I want to do it from my whole heart.
AMEN.
Sunday of the 1st Week of Lent (Liturgical Year B)
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in this prayerful reflection, “Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love” and let’s contemplate the promises of God this Lent. What does it mean to be washed clean by the Lord? To be faithful? Let’s meditate on these things in the presence of Christ and offer ourselves to him in prayer.
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Holy Spirit,
I believe you are truly here and present to me right now. I desire to be present to you.
Thank you for being so faithful to me, even in my darkest moments. Help me recognize your voice and give me the grace to obey it.
You are faithful to me even when I am not. Please do not let me take your covenant of love for granted. Do not let me forget the price Jesus has paid for my soul.
Every time I have sinned and repented I experience your faithful covenant. Thank you for always forgiving me. I am grateful to you for sustaining me through every trial in my life. Please give me fortitude and the willingness to obey you. I reject any unrighteous thoughts. I reject my unrighteous moods, and I thoroughly reject my disobedience to your divine will for my life.
Breath on me as I spend these next 15 minutes fixated on today’s Mass readings. Holy Spirit, help me pray with humility, honesty, love and affection. I want to grow in virtue and holiness.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for every consolation, desolation, time of silence, difficult trial, and temptation of the evil one. I understand that you love me and that everything in my life happens by God’s holy will, whether it be divine providence or God’s permissive will due to my sin and negligence.
Please humble me as I walk with Jesus toward Jerusalem. Help me prove my faithfulness and do so with great love in my heart.
AMEN.
Say Nothing Just Take Him In
Spend 1-3 minutes in silence gazing at the Lord with love and gratitude, in a prayer of silent contemplation.
Make a Movie in Your Mind...
Now we will contemplate the first reading. Slowly imagine this scene in your mind as you read. Take your time. Pause over a moment that really tugs at your heart. Reread the passage again, this time imagine yourself physically there in the scene. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
A Promise to Noah
Genesis 9:8-15
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.”
God added, “This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
God has clearly shown us his faithfulness to his covenant with Noah through the image of the rainbow.
Can you recall a favorite memory involving a rainbow you’ve experienced? Have you ever seen a double rainbow?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
When God makes a promise we know we can trust in him.
Be Completely Real…
What is God saying to your heart right now? Have you been doubting a promise of God? Have you been struggling lately in your faith?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on your faith and whether you completely trust in his promises.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Gospel:
Visualize Christ...
Imagine yourself following behind Jesus as he makes his way across the Jordan River toward the Judean wilderness beyond it. You see him journey the rugged area toward Mount Quarantania. Known as the Mount of Temptation, this arid limestone mountain area rises steeply over Jericho. It is a desolate, rocky landscape, a brutal terrain for anyone on foot with intense heat, no vegetation for shade, and steep mountainous assent to the top.
As you watch Jesus enter into this place you decide it’s no longer safe or comfortable to follow him. You see him slowly ascend to the Mount of Temptation outside of society and wonder why he is choosing to go to such a desolate, lonely, and dangerous place full of wild beasts….
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
into the Desert to Pray
Mark 1:12-15
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.
After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Let us meditate on this first phrase: “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.”
Your life is meant to imitate Christ.
Let’s contemplate the phrase, “the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert….”
It was by the will of God that Jesus went into the desert, to the barren place, to the solitude… to be tempted by the devil. He went to do battle against the weakness of the flesh.
Have you ever experienced a time of isolation? Did your isolation cause you to be tempted to despair? Did you turn to prayer to help you cope? How did you overcome the weakness of your flesh?
And the Angels
Now listen to the second part: “He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.”
Knowing that his only begotten Son would suffer in the desert, the Father, in his faithfulness, sent the angels to minister to Jesus and give him strength. Think for a moment about your time of isolation. How did God show his faithfulness to you during your time of suffering? If he did not take away your suffering for you, how did he minister to you in your difficult time?
Take a moment to ask Jesus questions from your heart. Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Wait on the Lord.
Ask him to reveal how he is faithful in your suffering and how you can be more faithful to him. Linger on it. Ponder how his faithful covenant of love sustains you in your most difficult moments in life.
Is there a burden on your heart today? Be honest with Jesus and tell him your fears. How can you show him you trust in him? Linger a moment and wait for his response. Has he shown you something? You may want to write it down.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a scripture reading on God’s covenant of love…
Jesus, I need to be washed clean. You have called me out of darkness by your love and brought me to this place. The reality of what I chose is not in reality what I had expected. I acknowledge the truth of my situation and I am willing to face reality with your help. Please, Lord, help me walk with you in truth. Let me walk in reality, even if it is a harsh reality. Help me to keep praying in the midst of my disillusionment and give me the grace to see my situation from your viewpoint and not mine. Allow me to see your design.
Let us meditate on what God means when he says, “This is a sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you….”
The Lord is faithful even when we are not. Always. Without fail. He is faithful eternally. We are washed clean by his sacrifice for our sake.
Have you ever looked at a rainbow and said, “Thank you Eternal Father”? Do you thank the Eternal Father after you’ve received an absolution for your sins? Do you thank him when you are alone in prayer?
Take a moment to thank him for his faithfulness to you.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a meditation from Saint Alphonsus Liguori.
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
On the Means Necessary for Salvation
By St. Alphonsus Liguori
It is true that when we have recourse to God with confidence in dangerous temptations, he assists us; but, in certain very urgent occasions, the Lord sometimes wishes that we cooperate, and do violence to ourselves to resist temptations.
On such occasions, it will not be enough to have recourse to God once or twice; it will be necessary to multiply prayers, and frequently to prostrate ourselves, and send up our sighs before the image of the Blessed Virgin and the crucifix, crying out with tears: Mary, my mother, assist me; Jesus, my Savior, save me; for Thy mercy’s sake, do not abandon me – do not permit me to lose Thee.
Are You Listening?
Contemplate what St. Alphonsus Liguori advises in light of how Jesus had to fast and pray in isolation for 40 days in the desert, all while being tempted by the devil.
Do you easily give in to temptations? Do you find yourself despairing over a situation when God might be asking you to grow in fortitude?
Imagine Jesus, for a moment, turning toward you, and saying, “Watch and pray so that you don’t enter into temptation. Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak.”
Next, let us meditate for a moment on the words of 1 Peter 3. Listen to the teaching of the Apostle Peter. Reread this passage a second time, praying the words from your own heart. Then take a moment to speak to Jesus. What do you want to tell him?
Washed Clean by a Covenant of Love
The Mercy of God
1 Peter 3:18-22
Beloved: Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.
In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water.
This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Contemplate how the Spirit patiently waits for us to convert our hearts and minds.
Now imagine the patience of God….
He waited from the beginning of time for your life to begin. He waited to reconcile you to himself through your baptism. You are washed clean. And he continues to reconcile himself to you when he communicates with you through his Body and Blood.
Your faithful response to his covenant of love is your covenant of love to him.
Contemplate Jesus, on his throne, at the right hand of God, with angels and authorities surrounding him and worshipping him as you appeal to him for a clear conscience and the grace to follow him faithfully. You are asking for help to fulfill your covenant of love, your promise to him.
Imagine he says to you, “Ask, and you shall receive.”
Take a moment to be with the Lord.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
The Second Sunday of Lent, Year B
Holy Spirit help me listen to Jesus, the Beloved Son
Holy Spirit help me listen to Jesus, the beloved Son and the Eternal Word, who the Father asks us to listen to, love, and obey.
2 Responses
Thank you so much for the beautiful reflections and meditations, which help me to dive deeper into the meaning of the Mass readings and assist my mental prayer. I am praying for you, Anonymous “C”, and I am deeply grateful for this website. Blessings always, Patricia
Thank you so much for your kind words and your prayers. I’m very grateful!