You Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices. 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 21 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 humility and contrition. 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 ponder that you want my humility, not my public sacrifices. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Saturday of the Third week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
You Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 21 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 Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices
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. We have already been introduced to the minor prophet Hosea of the northern kingdom, and now we are going to read a passage from earlier in his life. The message we are about to receive is coming after Hosea has already delivered a message of judgment and warning to lost tribes of Israel for their idolatry and unfaithfulness. In that message God declares that he will leave them for a time. Today Hosea offers them hope. Imagine yourself returning to the ancient city of Samaria. See it from a distance in your mind, a massive cosmopolitan city up on a hill. There is a huge royal palace and an encasement wall around it. It is one of the largest structures in all of the Levant. As you are walking through the city gate you see a crowd of people forming around Hosea as he begins to speak.
Slowly imagine this scene in your mind as you read. You are in a place of tremendous financial wealth and moral depravity. Imagine yourself physically there in the scene. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
You Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices
You Raise Me Up to Live in Your Presence
Hosea 6:1-6
Come, let us return to the LORD, it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence.
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD; as certain as the dawn is his coming, and his judgment shines forth like the light of day! He will come to us like the rain, like spring rain that waters the earth.”
What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets, I slew them by the words of my mouth; For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself listening to Hosea confirm that God is going to chastise the northern tribes of Israel. Hosea’s prophecy comes true, and within 30 years the people are carried into exile when the Assyrian army conquers them and Israel no longer exists as a nation for a time. What emotion does it create in your heart? Have you considered how the Lord can remove his grace from a people for a time due to their sin and negligence?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Take a few moments contemplating how God convicts your own heart of sin and negligence. Then consider how he chastises the people in the country where you live who commit habitual sins and turn their backs on him. This passage of Hosea shows us how the Lord moves and that sometimes what we pray for takes decades to be fulfilled. Pray to the Lord about your situation, and ask the Lord for the virtue of patience and fortitude.
Now spend a few minutes receiving the grace the Lord wants to give you. Is he asking you to do something? Has he asked this of you before?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
You may want to journal about your dialogue with the Lord. In the next part we will read a prayer of contrition from Psalms. Pray this with humility, putting true contrition into the words that you will pray.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
You Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices
My Sacrifice is a Contrite Spirit
Psalms 51:3-4, 18-21
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
Be bountiful, O LORD, to Zion in your kindness
by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem;
Then shall you be pleased with due sacrifices,
burnt offerings and holocausts.
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ. Begin by praying, “You want my humility, not my public sacrifices. Please increase in me the virtue of humility and help me overcome my pride.”
We are traveling with Jesus, and are just outside the city of Jericho. Imagine yourself approaching this city, an oasis filled with palm trees and fresh water springs, that had wealthy villas and poor beggars. It is here that Jesus begins teaching to a gathering of people.
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, then prayerfully speak to Jesus about what stirred your heart. What do you want to tell him?
You Want My Humility, Not My Public Sacrifices
Let Me Humble Myself
Luke 18:9-14
Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity–greedy, dishonest, adulterous–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. What is he going to say to you? Are you like the self-righteous penitent or are you more like the tax collector? Do you lack humility? Are you able to love poor sinners? Take a few moments now to listen to Jesus from your heart. What thoughts are coming to your mind? Dialogue with the Lord about it.
Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in living out today’s message then resolve to make a change and journal about it.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 22 Lenten Meditation
Faith in Your Words Turns Death into Life
“Faith in Your Words Turns Death into Life” -Join us in our 22nd Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I