Jesus be near me and help me know the truth. 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 24 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Jesus,
Be near to me. In your kindness hear my prayer. I beg you to help me know the truth and to be guided always to obey your will for my life. Give me the gift of wisdom. Fill me with the gift of humility. Guide me to be obedient to your voice and to the teachings of the Church, who is your bride and my Mother.
Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent (Liturgical Year II)
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in a prayerful meditation for your Lenten journey in seeking the truth and nearness of Christ.
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
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 desire to be present to you. Spirit of truth, help me feel Jesus be near and live in the light of truth. Fill my heart with wisdom and humility. Help me be obedient to the teachings of the Church.
I am here, Lord, because I want to know the truth and live by it. Help me to separate myself from all worldly attachments and spend these 15 minutes reflecting on my need of renewal with my heart and mind completely fixated on you. Holy Spirit, help me recognize falsehoods so that I can know the truth and feel Jesus be near me.
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 and help me know the truth.
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?
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
I Will Never Forget You
Isaiah 49:8-15
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
Yesterday we learned from Ezekiel about the living waters of the Holy Spirit. Today we learn that the Lord never forgets his covenant because he loves us deeply.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that despite Israel’s failure to keep their covenants with God, he remains faithful, and promises a new covenant where the law would be written on the heart (CCC 64).
This passage beautifully ends with an image of an expectant mother loving her unborn child. This imagery caused me to see Mary, and the fulfillment of God’s covenant in the coming Messiah.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
700 years before the birth of Jesus, God told Isaiah about the coming Messiah and the new covenant.
Contemplate the knowledge that the Lord knew you for all eternity, and he has loved you and longed for you in a tender way, as Mary longed for the birth of Jesus. The Lord has never forgotten you and he never will. Just be with him in the silence and receive this knowledge.
Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, I love you and I thank you for your tender steadfast love that never fails, even when I sin against you and turn away from you. You never forget me and you remain faithful. Thank you for this love. AMEN.
Be Completely Real...
Take a few minutes to dialogue with the Lord about your relationship with him. Speak freely and then take time to listen for his response in the movements of your heart.
Now we will contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels.
You watch Jesus slip away from the pools of Bethesda after healing the man on the mat and enter into the Temple gate. You continue to follow the Lord until you see the Lord once again find the man who he had healed at the pool. You watch Jesus say to the man, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Then you see this man leave Jesus and be approached by the Jewish authorities. They are talking and pointing toward Our Lord. Now you see the Pharisees angrily moving toward Jesus to confront him about healing on the Sabbath….
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
My Judgement is Just
John 5:17-30
Jesus answered the Jews: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.”
For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.
Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also. For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to his Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.
Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation. I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”
Reflection:
Let us meditate on what Jesus means when he says, “a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also.”
Do you see the virtue of obedience in this passage?
I see the Lord explaining the beauty of the Trinity here. He is describing the oneness of his relationship with the Father. We can intuit that the Son is so united with the Father in all things that they share the same will.
Jesus cannot be separated from the Father. They are one.
In the same way the Jesus cannot be separated from his bride, the Church. In his faithfulness he has promised by his Word that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church and that he will send her his Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, our Paraclete.
Have you ever distrusted or disobeyed the Church? Have you reconciled with the Church and confessed this sin? In what ways has disobedience to the Church caused problems in your spiritual life? Do you hold regret? Do you often wonder how your life would have been different had Jesus remained near you?
Now listen to the second part of Jesus’ teaching, “I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”
In what way does this warning from Jesus captivate your heart? He is challenging you to know the truth, not to have ignorance, and then when you know the truth to obey it, in thought, word, and deed.
Take a moment to ask Jesus questions from your heart. Maybe you want to ask him how to know the truth and obey the Lord. Give the Holy Spirit time to respond. Wait on the Lord. Ask him to reveal to you tangible things that need to be done to be near Jesus and know the truth. 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 Saint Alphonsus Liguori:
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
Qualities of Obedience
by St. Alphonsus Liguori (The School of Christian Perfection)
It is a delusion to imagine that we can do anything better than that which is prescribed by obedience….
St. Teresa was therefore right in saying that obedience is the shortest way to perfection. Christian soul, if you desire to walk securely, be guided in all your actions by obedience. Merchants and business men have their property insured in order not to suffer loss from its destruction. In order to render safe your eternal reward, make sure to get the security of obedience for all your actions.
Obedience, however, to have this high value must be supernatural.
To obey the Church, our parents, our confessor, in a word, our spiritual and temporal superiors in a meritorious way, we must be persuaded that obedience towards our superiors is obedience shown to God, and contempt for their commands is contempt shown to our Divine Master Himself, for He has said to our superiors: “He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me.” (Luke 10:16).
The Apostle St. Paul, writing to his disciples, says: “Obey, not serving to the eye, as it were pleasing men, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” (Eph. 6:6).
If, then, an order is given you by your parents, your confessor or your superiors, you must execute it not merely to please them, but principally to please God, whose will is made known to you by your superiors.
By so doing you are more certain of fulfilling the Will of God than if an angel came down from Heaven and revealed it to you. St. Paul, when writing to the Galatians, says: “If an angel from Heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1:8). Keep this truth constantly before your eyes: when you obey your superiors you are obeying God.
Be Completely Real...
Think about Jesus’ role as a just judge in your life. Would he find you humble and obedient to your superiors?
Let Us Pray:
Take a moment right now to pray Psalms 145 from your heart.
Jesus Be Near and Help me Know the Truth
The Lord is Near all who Call on Him in Truth
Psalms 145:8-9,13-14,17-18
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
The LORD is faithful in all his words
and holy in all his works.
The LORD lifts up all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
Reflection:
Write a letter to the Lord in your journal with resolutions you’d like to make to help you grow in virtues of obedience and humility. Is the Lord speaking to your heart as you journal? What is he saying?
Going Deeper:
To go deeper into the virtue of obedience, and to really understand the depths of Christ’s love for us, in obedience even unto death, contemplate the Stations of the Cross.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 25 Mental Prayer Meditation
I will not Forget the God Who Saves Me
I will not forget. Lord, you are the God who saves me. I have been washed clean, forgiven, and redeemed by your Precious Blood.