I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways. 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 9 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 to sanctify me and make me grow in holiness. 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 be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Saturday of the First week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 9 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.
I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways
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 yourself in a crowd with other Israelites, on the border of the promised land on the plains of Moab. Before entering the land of Canaan, which was promised to you by God, Moses begins to speak to you. Imagine your anticipation as he begins to speak with authority. What do you hear? See? Sense?
I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways
Let Me Be Sacred to You, Lord
Deuteronomy 26: 16-19
Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“This day the LORD, your God, commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice.
And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments, he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made, and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God, as he promised.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself listening to Moses speaking directly to the Israelites? Or did it somehow sound like Jesus speaking inside your mind and directly to you, personally? What caught your mind the most in this passage? Is there one word or phrase that you feel the Holy Spirit is asking you to focus on?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Maybe you want to ask the Lord about that one word or phrase that seemed to prick your heart in the first reading.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Take a moment now to self-reflect on how you have been living your life as a Christian. Are there things you need to do to better hearken to the Lord’s voice? Where is your heart?
If the Holy Spirit convicts your heart of something, thank him for revealing this to you. In the next part we will read a prayer of promise from Psalms. Pray this with intention. Say the words prayfully and promise to change whatever it is the Holy Spirit revealed to you from today’s first reading.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways
Let My Way Be Blameless As I Walk with You, Lord
Psalms 119: 1-2, 4-5, 7-8
Blessed are they whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD.
Blessed are they who observe his decrees,
Who seek him with all their heart.
You have commanded that your precepts
be diligently kept.
Oh, that I might be firm in the ways
of keeping your statutes!
I will give you thanks with an upright heart,
when I have learned your just ordinances.
I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me.
Visualize Christ…
Next, I want you to listen along with the disciples to a very important lesson from Jesus. Visualize the Lord speaking intimately with you and the other disciples. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him gazing at you as he begins to preach. He speaks the words while probing your heart and knowing your current situation.
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?
I Want to be Blameless and Walk in Your Ways
Lord, Help Me Love Those Who Persecute Me
Matthew 5:43-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Are You Listening?
Imagine Jesus speaking directly to you about your situation. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you listen for the Lord’s guidance so that you may truly know how to love your enemies who are before you and who are persecuting you every day. Ask the Lord what this looks like, and how you ought to do this.
Finally, ask for the grace to be blameless and walk in God’s ways, so that you will be able to love those who are difficult to love and be able to pray with your whole heart for their conversion and salvation.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 10 Lenten Meditation
You Forgive My Iniquities, Let Me Love With Mercy
“You Forgive My Iniquities, Let Me Love With Mercy” – Join us in our 10th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
2 Responses
I’m looking forward to joining everyone in the Lenten season prayers, meditation, consecration, be holy.
Thank you Phuong, we will be sending out our Lenten reflection reminders very soon!