You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me. 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 7 of this Lenten prayer journey with this opening prayer :
Trust and Believe…
Lord,
I know you love me intimately. Please help me prepare my heart as I begin these 15 minutes of mental prayer with you. Lord, let me be present to you and aware of the movements of the Holy Spirit in my heart, receiving the grace you give with hope and faith. Lord, help me visualize you in my presence right now as I strive to complete this Lenten reflection. Let me fully contemplate the readings as I proclaim with faith that you will answer my prayers because you love me. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Thursday of the First week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 7 of our Lenten journey as we continue traveling with Jesus in our hearts and minds toward Calvary by 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.
You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me
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. Esther is a Jewish woman who wins a beauty pageant and is chosen to be queen of Persia. Her cousin Mordecai discovers a plot to kill all the Jews in the Persian kingdom, and Esther feels called to try to save her people from genocide, at great risk to her own life. You are about to read her prayer of anguish to God. Take your time. Visualize her anguish and hear her voice as you reread the passage again. Imagine yourself there with her, from morning until evening, laying prostrate and waiting on the Lord. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me
The Anguished Prayer of Esther
Esther 4 (Chapter C): 12, 14-16, 23-25
Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish, had recourse to the LORD. She lay prostrate upon the ground, together with her handmaids, from morning until evening, and said:
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you. Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand. As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers that you, O LORD, always free those who are pleasing to you. Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you, O LORD, my God.
And now, come to help me, an orphan. Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy, so that he and those who are in league with him may perish. Save us from the hand of our enemies; turn our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself listening to Esther’s prayer while laying prostrate with her pleading to God for deliverance from evil leaders who seek to destroy the innocent? What emotion does it create in your heart? Could you feel the Lord searching the depths of your heart as you re-read this passage?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Is there a time in your life when you lacked the courage and faith of Esther? Is there a situation in you life right now that requires a lot of faith and hope? Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray and to teach you how to pray like Esther for God to answer your prayers. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you believe God is answering your prayers because he loves you.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
You may want to self-reflect on the ways you have struggled to have faith in God’s love for you in the past. Many of us have a hard time believing that God is in love with us and wanting to enter into our messes and give us the grace we need to carry our burdens. Maybe you are suffering right now and you aren’t praying with faith that God will deliver you because you don’t believe he will. Be honest with the Lord and talk to him from the depths of your soul about this. In the next part we will read a prayer of gratitude from Psalms. Pray this with faith by believing that God loves you in a deep and intimate way and is giving you the grace you need right now. Try to be present to God as he is present to you as you read this passage from Psalms 138.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me
I Will Give Thanks to the Lord Who Hears Me
Psalms 138:1-3, 7-8
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple.
I will give thanks to your name,
because of your kindness and your truth.
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ by visualizing Jesus standing before you with his arms outstretched. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him looking at you. Do you see him offering to give you an embrace? Do you see the holes in his hands, reminding you that he knows what suffering is, and he wants to embrace you and fill you with the faith and hope you lack. He wants to show you how much he loves you. Enter into this moment and linger in this image of Christ.
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. Jesus is alone and speaking to his disciples, and he is telling them to have faith and believe. 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?
You Will Answer My Prayers Because You Love Me
If I Ask the Lord for Help He Will Give it to Me
Matthew 7:7-12
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asks for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. He speaks to you, “Ask, and it will be given to you. The heavenly Father will give you good things if you ask him.”
Imagine yourself replying to Jesus. Say, “You will answer my prayers because you love me.”
Take a moment now to speak from your heart about your desire to grow in faith and fully believe in God’s love and mercy in your current situation. Name the things you are going through and what you need to have more faith in. Ask for it. Surrender this problem to the Lord. Finally, promise to love God and heed his voice this Lent, the voice he speaks to you through the words of Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 8 Lenten Meditation
I Will Forgive the Wicked Because You Forgive Me
“I Will Forgive the Wicked Because You Forgive Me” – Join us in our 8th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
2 Responses
Thank you so much for these Lenten reflections! I have always struggled with mental prayer, but this makes it so much easier!
Thank you so much, Linda. I am glad to hear you appreciate them and are blessed by them.