Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love. 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 2 of this Lenten prayer journey with this opening prayer :
Trust and Believe…
Lord,
I know you love me intimately and you want my heart contrite and humble. Help me prepare my heart as I enter into this time of prayer with you. Lord, please let me be present to you and aware of the movements of the Holy Spirit in my heart so that these next 15 minutes I am able to receive the grace you are giving me with humility and contrition. Lord, help my mind visualize you in my presence right now.
Lord, give me the grace I need as I strive to complete these 40 days of daily Lenten reflections. Let me fully contemplate the message of scripture as I contemplate what it means to be fasting for Jesus with a humble heart of love. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Friday after Ash Wednesday (Liturgical Year I)
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 2 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.
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
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?
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
Putting Merciful Love at the Heart of My Fast
Isaiah 58:1-9a
Thus says the Lord GOD: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins.
They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God.
“Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?”
Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!
Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: “Here I am!”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself listening to the voice of God from within the throne room of heaven? Did you see yourself kneeling? Was your head bend down, toward the ground, when you began to hear the Lord speak? What does his voice of authority sound like to you? 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…
Maybe you want to ask God if your fasting is pleasing to him. We fast to grow our love for the Lord. We give up our sinful attachments to the things of the world to set our gaze on the things of God. Does he see you fasting with a humble heart of love, or are you fasting for reasons that are not pleasing to him?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on the way you have fasted previously during Lent, or whether you fasted from your vices at all. Where was your heart? Where is it now? Do you love souls who are in need the same way Christ does? Are you doing what the voice of God asks you to do in this passage from Isaiah? If you are giving up a vice, what have you replaced it with? Have you turned toward God and taken up a life of prayer instead? Have you replaced selfish habits with activities of self-giving love toward the poor, sick, imprisoned, suffering? If the Holy Spirit reminds you of a time when you did not fast with a humble heart of love, thank him for revealing this to you. In the next part, we will read a prayer of contrition from Psalms. Pray this with contrition. Pray the words with conviction.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
Fasting without Contrition is Displeasing to God
Psalms 51: 3-4.5-6ab 18-19
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 I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
“Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.”
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.
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 and feel connected to him when you pray.
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?
Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love
Let Me Fast for my Bridegroom until I Meet Him Again
Matthew 9: 14-15
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. He speaks to you, “Fast for me. Fast for the Holy Spirit to give you a humble heart of love. Fast for souls that have no one to pray for them. Love one another as I have loved you.”
Take a moment now to speak from your heart about your desire to choose a better way of fasting this Lent. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in fasting for Jesus with a humble heart of love that remains focused loving God and on souls in need. If you cannot fast from food, fast from a vice or an attachment that you need to let go of.
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 3 Lenten Meditation
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
“Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love” – Join us in our 3rd Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
One Response
Thank you for the inspiration