The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation. 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 our final day 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 gratitude and trust. 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 the Passover of the Lord and how it is Our Salvation. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Holy Thursday (Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper) (Liturgical Year I)
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s finish our Lenten journey as we travel 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.
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
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 are traveling to Egypt during the time of Moses and we will experience the tenth and final plague. The firstborn of Egypt, both human and animal, including Pharaoh’s firstborn son will die. To protect themselves from the plague, God instructs the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and apply its blood to their doorposts. This event marks the beginning of the annual Passover celebration for the Jews.
Slowly imagine this scene in your mind as you read. Jesus becomes our new Passover Lamb, and so as you read this passage, consider how it prefigures the coming Messiah. Imagine yourself physically there in the scene. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
Do Not Let Me Turn Away My Heart, Lord
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:
This month shall stand at the head of your calendar; you shall reckon it the first month of the year. Tell the whole community of Israel: On the tenth of this month every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household. If a family is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join the nearest household in procuring one and shall share in the lamb in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it.
The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight. They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb.
That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. This is how you are to eat it: with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight. It is the Passover of the LORD.
For on this same night I will go through Egypt, striking down every first–born of the land, both man and beast, and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt – I, the LORD!
But the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thus, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you.
This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you read the passage in light of Jesus as the Pascal Lamb and establishing the New Covenant in his Blood? What stood out to you in this passage? Did this excerpt help you visualize what it means to be covered in the Precious Blood of Christ?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Take a moment to reflect on how the LORD instructed the people to eat the Lamb: with loins girt, sandals on, staff in hand, as if in flight. Meditate on this for a moment and consider this in light of the Eucharist. This passage says we eat the Lamb of God as one prepared for a difficult and dangerous journey. We hold a staff that represents the guidance, protection, and authority of God. We are instructed to be ready to go where we are sent, and obey the movements of the Spirit of God as if we are in flight.
Take a moment to contemplate this and give the Holy Spirit time to respond to the movements of your heart.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on your past experiences receiving the Eucharist and ask for grace to understand this mystery more and to have a greater love and reverence for Jesus in the Eucharist from this moment onward.
In the next part we will read a prayer of thanksgiving from Psalms. As you pray these words, think of them in light of the holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass. Consider the cup of salvation as the Blood of Christ, and pray these words with thanksgiving to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
Let Me Meditate on the Law of the Lord
Psalms 116:12-13, 15-18
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
Visualize Christ…
Next, we will read a short passage from 1 Corinthians that describes the Last Supper and the institution of the holy Eucharist as a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, Death, and Resurrection. You will see the connection between the Passover and Christ’s Passover.
Imagine the Apostle Paul teaching this truth to a first century audience in light of what you know to be the Sacrifice of the Mass.
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
Let Me Deny Myself and Take up My Cross
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Now we will go to the Last Supper. Try to put yourself in the presence of Christ by visualizing yourself as one of the 12 disciples with Jesus on that last night together. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him looking at you. Maybe you are John and your head is resting on his chest and you can hear his heart beating.
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. Then prayerfully speak to Jesus about what stirred your heart. What do you want to tell him?
The Passover of the Lord is Our Salvation
Let Me Deny Myself and Take up My Cross
John 13:1-15
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper,
fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.”
For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
So when he had washed their feet (and) put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. He speaks to you, “Serve. Lead with love and sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. Wash their feet. I will give you everything you need for the journey. I will feed you my very self. Come to me and do my will.”
Take a moment now to speak from your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in your next steps, so that you may girt your loins, put on sandals, hold the staff, and be ready to go where the Lord leads you to go.
Thank you for participating in this year’s daily Lenten Reflections. I am praying for you. Please pray for me.
3 Responses
Today’s readings really touched me. Jesus is telling us to do as He did. Sometimes it’s not so easy. But we need to focus on what Jesus has done for us. Holy Week is very emotional for me. Thank you Lord for always loving us.
Thank you, Lucy. Holy Week is very emotional for me too. He did so much for us. We will never fully comprehend how deeply we are loved.
Jesus we trust in you. Our hearts are endless full of your countless blessings that streams from your most holy heart and soul and divinity.