Let me turn my heart more fully to God this Lenten season. 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 this Lenten prayer 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.
Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Liturgical Year I)
Let me fully turn my heart to God
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 1 of our Lenten journey by traveling with Jesus in our hearts and minds toward Calvary. We will be meditating on the daily Mass readings for today: the First Reading, the Psalms, and the Gospel Reading. As you make your self-reflection, feel free to journal your responses to the Lord. This meditation is suited for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, but you can also pray this meditation while looking at a Crucifix or an image of Jesus that you have.
Let me Turn My Heart More Fully to God
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Start with Love…
Holy Spirit,
I believe you are truly here and present to me right now. I desire to be present to you. Guide my heart and mind and show me how I might pick up my cross and follow Jesus all the way to Calvary. Help me turn my heart more fully to God so that I might better understand God’s love for me.
Breathe 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 Calvary.
AMEN.
Say Nothing Just Take Him In
Spend 1-3 minutes in silence gazing at Jesus 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 your heart. Reread the passage again, this time imagine yourself physically there in the scene. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
Let me Turn My Heart More Fully to God
Do Not Let Me Turn Away My Heart, Lord
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20
Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
We too have a decision to make. We can choose to follow Christ and obey the Lord’s precepts. If we do we will be blessed.
We can also choose to reject the will of God and disobey the Lord’s precepts. If we do we can be cursed.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Maybe you want to ask God to help you reflect on the times in your life when you obeyed him and you were blessed. Then ask him to show you times in your life when you disobeyed him and as a result you were cursed.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with Jesus, and if the Lord convicts your heart of something, repent. If the Holy Spirit reminds you of a time when you obeyed God and were blessed for it, thank him for his loving presence in your life.
Finally, speak from your heart your desire to choose life for yourself and your descendants by loving God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him this Lent and all the remaining days of your life.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Let me Turn My Heart More Fully to God
Let Me Meditate on the Law of the Lord
Psalms 1: 1-2, 3, 4 and 6
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
Not so, the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ by visualizing Jesus in an intimate way. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him looking at you. You may want to imagine a favorite image of him coming alive and speaking to you. In this way you will be able to visualize Jesus in a personal way and this will help you understand how much he loves you.
Now we are ready to take our image of Jesus and visualize today’s Gospel Reading. Put yourself in this scene much like you did in the First Reading. Read this passage twice, the second time more slowly, pausing on a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Then prayerfully speak to Jesus about what stirred your heart. What do you want to tell him?
Let Me Turn My Heart More Fully to God
Let Me Deny Myself and Take up My Cross
Luke 9: 22-25
Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. He speaks to you, “Deny yourself. Be willing to lose your life for my sake. Come after me.”
You have a choice. Are you coming? Take a moment to be with the Lord and answer his call. Take 1-3 minutes to listen for his response to your heartfelt prayer.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 2 Lenten Meditation
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
“Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love” – Join us in our 2nd Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
2 Responses
Thanks, for everything
What a wonderful website. Spending each day with Jesus. I love it!