Help me love discipline and quiet service. 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 11 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 me in the quiet. 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 what it means to love discipline and quiet service. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Tuesday of the Second week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
Help Me Love Discipline and Quiet Service
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 11 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.
Help Me Love Discipline and Quiet Service
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 from the prophet Isaiah, who received his calling in a vision from God. The vision showed God’s majesty on the throne of heaven surrounded by angels worshipping him. This happened in the year that King Uzziah of Judah died from leprosy [Isaiah 6]. God’s vision was so overwhelming to Isaiah that he changed completely after it. His heart and mind were fixated only on God and on warning the people of Judah to repent and change.
Slowly imagine Isaiah in this scene. Picture a man who has seen God on his throne and the angels worshipping him. He is not like others; he’s radical and single-minded. Listen to him preach to you. 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 is the tone of his voice? How does he look? How does his speech make you feel?
Help Me Love Discipline and Quiet Service
Wash me Clean I want to Learn to do Good
Isaiah 1:10, 16-20
Hear the word of the LORD, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah!
Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.
Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.
If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land;
But if you refuse and resist, the sword shall consume you: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken!
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did the voice of Isaiah sound authoritative and firm? Did you hear his urgency, as if his warning is meant to save you from your own perception about God and sin and the things of this world? What conviction do Isaiah’s words create in your heart? It is a wake-up call.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Where in your life are you lacking discipline and need a wake-up call? Are there things in your life that need to be set right? Are you willing to do what needs to be done to set them right? What is coming to your mind?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord about what has been revealed to you. If you are afraid you can’t obey but you want to, tell the Lord. Ask for the grace to obey. Tell him you are willing and you do not want to refuse and resist. Surrender it.
In the next part, we will read from Psalms. Listen to the Lord’s rebuke and let it convict your heart. Remember he loves you like a good Father, so when you read it hear his love in the words as he rebukes you.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Help Me Love Discipline and Quiet Service
Let me Offer Praise as a Sacrifice and Glorify God
Psalms 50:8-9,16-17, 21, 23
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold.
Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?
When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ by visualizing Jesus speaking to the crowd from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. You are there, among them, intently listening in a large open area on the eastern side. It’s a large square outdoor area marked in each corner by an 86-foot high lampstand. Take a moment to close your eyes and see him looking at you in your imagination from within this courtyard.
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?
Help Me Love Discipline and Quiet Service
I will Practice what I Preach and Put God First
Matthew 23:1-12
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.”
“They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.'”
“As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Are You Listening?
What grabbed you in this passage. Do you see yourself more like the scribes and Pharisees or as one of the people who recognizes the hypocrisy? Let Jesus speak to you in this moment. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you recognize the sin of pride in your life and how this displeases God. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help you recognize places in your life where you disobey authority and why. Are you angry? Do you lack respect? Is it due to their hypocrisy? Let the Lord enter into this place and speak to you.
Finally, ask the Lord to help you love discipline and quiet service for God’s sake and not for external reward or praise of others. Promise to heed the voice of God this Lent, as he speaks to you through the words of Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 12 Lenten Meditation
I Know You are Faithful and Keep Your Promises
“I Know You are Faithful and Keep Your Promises” – Join us in our 12th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I