Have mercy on me Lord for I have sinned. Today we will take a few moments to reflect on habits that pull us away from our walk with Christ.
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 3 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Lord,
I believe you want to give me the grace to go deeper in prayer this Lent with my heart fully open and willing to receive that grace.
Jesus, I am a sinner, and I know I need to change and I can do better, but I don’t know how to start. Please help me to see what you see. Help me shed bad habits and sinful desires as I walk with you all the way to Jerusalem.
Please help me open my heart and pray with intention. I want to be able to visualize myself with you so I can feel your presence more intimately in my life this Lent. Lord, give me the grace I need as I strive to complete these daily Lenten reflections. I am choosing to take up my cross and humbly follow you all the way to Calvary and I want to do it from my whole heart.
AMEN.
Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Liturgical Year II)
Lord have Mercy, for I have Sinned
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in this prayerful reflection, “Lord have Mercy, for I have Sinned” and let’s work to surrender our sinful habits to Jesus this Lent.
Lord Have Mercy for I Have Sinned
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
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 to recognize habitual sins that keep me from relationship with you. Show me how I might stop these sinful habits and ways I can grow in virtue. I know that you love me with infinite love. I acknowledge my sinful habits and all the ways they have caused me to struggle in my life.
Breath on me as I spend these next 15 minutes fixated on today’s Mass readings. Help me hear your interior voice within my mind and know that you are speaking to me. Help me to separate myself from all sinful attachments, be they addictions, bad habits, or people who lead me to sin.
Please help me pray my mental prayer well and love you in a way that is pleasing to you. I want to grow to love you more perfectly. Thank you, Lord, for not abandoning me with every temptation, every test, every moment I have chosen my sinful desires over you.
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 have mercy on me as I walk with Jesus toward Calvary.
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?
Lord have Mercy for I have Sinned
Light Rising out of the Darkness
Isaiah 58:9-14
Thus says the LORD: If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.
Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined homesteads.”
If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the sabbath a delight, and the LORD’S holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice–
Then you shall delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
The Lord is clearly telling people that the only way to shine a light in the darkness is to be a light for others in need. He wants us to honor him by loving others, holding back all negative words, and selfish interests.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
What is God saying to your heart right now?
Have you engaged in gossip about others? Have you been preoccupied with negative news, political stories that focus on division and oppression? Do you readily believe accusations about others or make them?
Have you made an honest effort to be a light for someone you know who is in darkness right now? If you feel yourself in darkness, have you been able to thank God for his guidance and blessings? Do you have faith in him to give you strength?
Be Completely Real...
Maybe you want to ask God for strength during a difficult situation you find yourself in. Are you guilty of selfish preoccupations?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on the way you have been filling up your time and the things that hold your heart that keep you distracted from a deeper relationship with the Lord.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Gospel:
Visualize Christ...
Today we are returning to the modest village of Capernaum, a border town which sits on the Via Maris. It’s a hub for international trade within the Roman Empire, and a perfect place for a toll station to collect taxes from fishermen and farmers doing trade between Herod Antipas’ territory, and his brother Philip the Tetrarch.
Imagine Levi (Matthew) sitting in his toll booth, built of basalt, with a flat roof, on the edge of the harbor along a wide road. He is busy halting Jewish merchants in caravans, who are queuing up to have their dried fish and other goods monitored and taxed. They are disgruntled by him and distrustful, knowing he is likely corrupt and over-taxing them to feed his own pockets.
We see Levi there, a busy subcontractor who is obligated to meet his quota for Herod. He is surrounded by his books and ledgers, and avoiding eye contact as much as possible….
Lord have Mercy for I have Sinned
Calling the Sinners to Repentance
Luke 5:27-32
Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
Let us meditate on what Jesus means when He says, “Follow me.” For just a moment, put yourself in Levi’s shoes. He was a traitor to his people, a money handler who extorted taxpayers for personal gain. He lacked spiritual friendship, and his life was full of emptiness. Yet Jesus came to him and with eyes of love, said, “Follow me.”
Ask yourself, do I believe that my sins are too great for the love and mercy of God? If this is you, take a moment to ask the Lord to help you feel his love and forgiveness.
Imagine yourself in Levi’s shoes and Jesus is looking at you, saying, “Come, follow me.” Envision yourself leaving your sinful attachments behind and walking away from it all to follow him.
Don’t be afraid.
Now listen to the second part of the story, “Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house….”
Take a moment to contemplate your home as it is right now. What items do you possess that are unholy and cause you to sin? How do you keep your home? In what ways is your home uninviting to Christ?
Imagine the joy in Levi’s heart when he brought Jesus into his home. He was not afraid to give Jesus access to every aspect of his life, to every possession he owned. Levi was ready for radical change.
Are you?
Take a moment to ask Jesus questions from your heart…. Jesus, what can I do to bring you into my home? How can I make my house worthy of your presence? What do I need to get rid of? What do I own or use that offends your holiness? How can I make a place in my home that honors you more? Give the Holy Spirit time to respond. Wait on the Lord. Ask him to reveal to you the changes he wants you to make. Linger on it. Ponder it. If a conviction pierces your heart about something, dialogue with the Lord about it. What is he saying? Be honest with Jesus and tell him your fears. Why is he asking you to remove or replace something? Linger a moment and wait for his response. Has he shown you something? You may want to write it down.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a meditation from St. Augustine of Hippo:
Lord have Mercy for I have Sinned
Confession of the Greatness of God
By St. Augustine of Hippo
You are matchless, O Lord.
So our praise of You must rise above our humanity.
Magnificent is Your power.
Your wisdom has no limits.
And we lowly creatures aspire to praise You. What is a human being, but a tiny particle of Your creation? Each human carries within the mark of coming death. That mortality bears witness to human sinfulness. It declares to all that You rebuff the proud.
Yet despite our lowness, human beings aspire to praise You, though we be but a particle of Your creation. You awake in us a delight at praising You.
You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its place of rest in You.
Grant, Lord, that we may know which of two things must come first: Must we call out to You before we can praise You? Must we call on You before we can know You? For who can call on You, without first knowing You? One who doesn’t know You may come with a false idea of who You are.
Or, is it rather, that we call on You so that we may know You?
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
And so we know that those who seek the Lord will praise Him, for those who seek shall find Him, and those who find will praise Him. I will seek You, Lord, by calling on You. I will call on You with a belief that knows You truly, for You have been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on You, the faith You first gave to me. By that faith You breathed life into me through the Incarnation of Your Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.
For who is Lord but the Lord?
Who is God except our God?
The highest.
The most good.
The most mighty.
The most omnipotent.
The most merciful, yet most just.
The most hidden, yet most present.
The most beautiful, yet strongest.
The stationary, yet incomprehensible constant.
You cannot change, yet You change everything. You are never new, yet never
old. You make all things new, yet conquer the proud with old age before they know of its approach. You are ever working, yet ever at rest. You are still gathering yet You lack nothing. You are still supporting, filling, and over-spreading; still creating, nourishing, and maturing; still seeking, although You have all things. You love without yearning, are jealous without bitterness; share our regret without self-reproach; express anger without losing serenity.
When all others fail to finish what they propose, Your purpose remains unchanged. You receive what You found yet had never lost. You are never in need yet rejoice in what You gain. You never covet yet exact excessive payments, so that You may owe. Yet who has anything that is not already Yours? You pay debts when You
owe nothing, but in remitting debts You lose nothing.
And what have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? What does any mortal say when speaking of You? Yet woe to the one who does not speak, for silence is the most eloquent voice.
Oh, that I might rest on You.
Oh, that You would enter my heart and make it intoxicated, so that I might forget all woes and embrace You, my only good. What are You to me? Take pity on me and teach me how to express it.
What am I to You that You demand my love and care enough to be angry and threaten me with grievous woes if I don’t give it? It is no small woe if I do not love You.
Oh, have mercy on me and tell me, O Lord my God, what You are to me. Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.” Say it loudly enough that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart lies exposed before You. Open the ears of that heart and say unto my soul, “I am your salvation.”
After You have spoken, allow me to quickly grasp You.
Hide not Your face from me.
Let me die, so that I will not only die.
Only let me see Your face.
Are You Listening?
Imagine Jesus gazing at you and saying to you, “I will guide you.”
You have a challenge. Are you going to empty your heart and your home of all the sinful things that have caused you physical and spiritual oppression?
Contemplate the Greatness of God and all his attributes. He is the source of eternal Love. Meditate on how great he is and how much you are dependent on his love and mercy. Contemplate how much your soul longs to know him and to understand his greatness. Recognize how much you stand to gain by giving up sinful habits and changing your life.
Use the prayer of St. Augustine as the prayer of your heart…
Let us Pray:
Lord, you are my salvation. Lord, I praise your great and wonderful name. I recognize your greatness and my nothingness. Lord, reveal yourself to me and give me the grace to become all that you want me to be for your great glory. I surrender my will and I give you my heart. AMEN.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 4 Mental Prayer Meditation
Lord Jesus, Teach me Holiness so I can Love Them as You Do
This prayer reflects on how to imitate God’s righteousness. Jesus, please teach me holiness through this scripture meditation and how to love them as you do.