Do you want to be well? Stand up and walk now. 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 23 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Lord Jesus Christ,
You know my heart and that I want to be well in my body, mind, soul and spirit. I know you are calling me to have a pure heart and mind. I need your healing grace so that I can stand up with courage and faith to walk in the way you are calling me to. Please help me do this. I need you to make me whole in body, mind, soul, and spirit. With your grace I have the power to stand up and do what you are calling me to do. Lord, please heal me of any mental paralysis I have and of my physical ailments too. Make me whole so that I can glorify you by my good works and walk in your ways with strong faith.
AMEN.
Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent (Liturgical Year II)
Do You Want to be Well? Stand up and Walk
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in a prayerful meditation for your Lenten journey with Christ’s invitation to be well.
Do You Want to be Well? Stand up and Walk
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Enter into the prayer of silence before the Lord
Holy Spirit,
I believe you are truly here and present to me right now. I thank you for your loving guidance in my life and for all the times you have shown me the way. Please give me courage, fortitude, and a strong desire to stand up and walk in your ways. so that my life glorifies God. I want to be well in my body, mind, and soul. You love me intimately and you call me to stand up and walk in your ways moment to moment.
I admit that I have not always done your will or even desired to obey you when you have nudged me in the past. Please forgive me. I am sorry for all the times I chose my own ways out of fear, selfishness, or pride. I know you are calling me to stand up and walk, to take up my mat and follow you. Please Lord, I want to be well and to have a sound mind full of faith and confidence. Please give me the confidence I need to stand up. I want to receive the grace you are offering me right now.
I have come here to be in your presence to show you my intention is real. I am here to show my loyalty to you and my willingness to finally stand up. Please send me your Spirit so that I can worship you with a pure heart and without distraction. Help me to separate myself from all worldly attachments and spend these 15 minutes in mental prayer with my heart and mind completely fixated on you. Jesus, look at me like you did the paralytic on the mat at the pool in Bethesda and heal my body, mind, and spirit. You know my mindset and my physical condition. You know the state of my soul and that I can’t elevate my heart or my mind without your help. I want to be well in my soul.
Please give me the grace right now to pray my mental prayer well and to love you in a way that is pleasing to you. I want to grow to love you more perfectly. Thank you, Lord, for every consolation, desolation, time of silence, difficult trial, and temptation of the evil one. I understand that everything that happens in my life is by your holy will, whether it be your divine providence or your permissive will due to my sin and negligence.
Please humble me as I walk with you toward Jerusalem. Help me pick up my mat with courage and faith, and do so with great love in my heart for you. I want to be well in my soul.
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?
Do You Want to be Well? Stand up and Walk
They Shall Bear Fruit
Ezekiel 47:1-9,12
He led me outside by the north gate, and around to the outer gate facing the east, where I saw water trickling from the southern side. He measured off another thousand and once more had me wade through the water, which was now knee-deep. Again he measured off a thousand and had me wade; the water was up to my waist. He asked me, “Have you seen this, son of man?”
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
Yesterday we learned from Isaiah about a new heavens and a new earth. Today we learn that the Lord wipes away the sinful memories of the past.
In today’s passage from Ezekiel, we see how living waters flow out from the temple and bears tremendous fruit along the river banks, fruit of every kind that never fail. We are told the fruit will feed us and the leaves will be our medicine.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the biblical image of water flowing from the Temple in Ezekiel is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, who brings life, purifies, and enables the faithful to bear spiritual fruit (CCC 694).
Take a moment to contemplate yourself in the waters of the Holy Spirit. Imagine yourself with Christ, in the Temple, and the waters of love and mercy from his side flowing out. See yourself there before him, worshipping him in awe as the waters around you begin to rise. Now you are wading in it, and it is knee deep. Soon it comes up to your waist. The more the “waters” of the Holy Spirit flow, the more you feel the power of grace, and it begins to move you.
Jesus shows you the bank of the river and all the fruit produced by the power of the Holy Spirit moving you to act.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
Take time in a prayer of silence to receive this and to give your consent to be used by God through the Holy Spirit in this moment.
Let’s pray:
Holy Spirit, I consecrate this day to you. Please move me in my heart, mind, soul, and spirit to obey your inspirations for the Glory of God so that good fruit can be produced that will last. AMEN.
Be Completely Real...
Are you at a crossroads in life? Are you looking for direction and not sure which way to go? Ask the Lord to reveal to you what he desires for you to do and then give him your consent. This just means letting him know that whatever it is, you want to do what he is asking you because you know he loves you and you love him too and trust in him more than in yourself. Thank him for his guidance and presence in your life and then wait for him to reveal this to you.
The Holy Spirit will help you know God’s will through consolation and through confirmation, and this may happen right away or slowly over time. Be patient and keep praying like this as you are going through discernment. God is good and he is present to you even in your confusion and lack of clarity. He knows your heart and sees your future.
Now we will contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels.
Today we return to Jerusalem during the spring festival of Purim. It is early April, during the second year of Jesus’ ministry. We are traveling toward St. Stephen’s gate, known as Sheep Gate, where there are twin pools surrounded by five porticoes….
Do You Want to be Well? Stand up and Walk
Rise, Take up your Mat, and Walk
John 5:1-16
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?“
The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.'”
They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.
Reflection:
Let us meditate on this scenario. Jesus asks the man if he wants to be well. Yet the man doesn’t answer him. Do you notice this? The man immediately makes an excuse. He is there at the spot where people go to be healed. All they have to do is get into the pool and bathe.
The man has the right location. He has the right facilities. He is in the place he needs to be.
Yet in 38 years he has never gotten into the water! Now remember what we learned from Ezekiel and the Catechism. The water represents the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s pray:
Lord, what are you trying to tell me about my situation? Have you given me everything I need, by your grace, to stand up and walk in your ways? Am I like the paralytic, lacking faith and afraid that what you have given me will amount to nothing? Am I afraid that if I get in the water I will be disappointed? Do I stay out of the water so that I don’t have to be disappointed? Or did I lose my confidence and trust that you want to heal me and give me everything I need to do what you have called me to do?
Jesus, command me to rise up, like the paralytic, and walk. I will stand up and believe that I can do all things through your power as long as you are leading me and guiding my steps. AMEN.
Now listen to the second part of Jesus’ teaching, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
In what way does this warning from Jesus captivate your heart? He is challenging you to remain pure of heart and to keep him in front of you. He wants you to be walking in his ways every day.
Take a moment to ask Jesus questions from your heart. Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a quote from Saint Padre Pio:
Do You Want to be Well? Stand up and Walk
To Conquer Oneself
by St. Padre Pio
The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.
Be Completely Real...
Am I willing to suffer and to be shaped by God? If I ponder the words of St. Padre Pio, do I see ways the Lord has allowed suffering in my life to purify me and make me holier?
How does pain cause me to be stronger in faith and lead me to Christ?
When we allow the Holy Spirit to flow over us and around us and through us, it feeds our souls and allows us to bear good fruits, known as the fruits of the Spirit. The more we stay close to the Lord and feed off of the sacraments of his Church, the more abundantly this river of sanctifying water flows and nurtures us and all those around us.
It goes very deep.
But we have to cooperate.
Let Us Pray:
Lord,
Give me the grace to cooperate with your divine will for my life. Help me to not sin anymore, so that I may be able to soak up the Spirit and produce good fruit. Lord when I do fall and commit a sin, please give me the grace to hate it and the desire to confess it and not do it again. I do not want my body, my mind, or my soul to be outside of relationship with you. Thank you for every blessing, every test, and every suffering. I know it is all according to your will and for my own betterment.
AMEN.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 24 Mental Prayer Meditation
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
Jesus be near to me. In your kindness hear me. Help me know the truth and be guided to obey your will. Give me the gifts of wisdom, humility, and obedience.