Jesus help me turn away from all my sinful habits. 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 8 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Jesus,
I believe you want to give me the grace to go deeper in prayer this Lent. Help me to be present to you so that I’ll intimately pray these next 15 minutes with my heart open to grace.
Jesus, help me turn away from all my sinful habits. Both Jonah and Simon Peter repented when they realized they offended God. They both turned toward grace and fulfilled your will; both trusted in you to give them all the grace required to do it. Please give me the courage to obey your holy will and choose the right path. I need to turn away from all my sinful habits this Lent so that I can grow in faith.
Look at me with the eyes of a merciful physician and heal me of my sinful habits. I have no virtue without your grace, so please give me the grace to choose virtue over vice.
AMEN.
Friday of the 1st Week of Lent (Liturgical Year II)
Turn Away from all Your Sinful Habits
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in a prayerful meditation for your Lenten journey of overcoming sinful habits.
I confess my sinful habits to you, Lord with great remorse and unbearable shame. I rejected my faith and I chose to turn away from God, to commit evil. In my deepest regret, I wasted years of my life seeking the pleasures of this world, which left me empty inside.
Lord, I am begging you for mercy, please show me the same love and mercy you have shown the prophet Jonah and your beloved Apostle, Simon Peter. I know I don’t deserve a second chance. Jesus, I want to turn away from all my sinful habits; I want to live in you. How do I let go of myself, how do I take up my cross and follow you all the way to Jerusalem?
AMEN.
Turn Away from all Your Sinful Habits
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 and show me how I might turn away from all my sinful habits. Help me recognize my vices and grow in the virtues that will overcome them.
Breath on me as I spend these next 15 minutes fixated on today’s Mass readings. Holy Spirit, convict my heart as I pray so that I might grow in 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 and turn away from all my sinful habits this Lent.
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?
Turn Away from all Your Sinful Habits
If the Wicked Man Turns away from Sin
Ezekiel 18:21-28
Thus says the Lord GOD: If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed, if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the crimes he committed shall be remembered against him; he shall live because of the virtue he has practiced.
Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? says the Lord GOD. Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live?
And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does, can he do this and still live? None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered, because he has broken faith and committed sin; because of this, he shall die.
You say, “The LORD’S way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?
When a virtuous man turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if a wicked man, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins which he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
What does the passage tell you about the heart of God? How does he respond to the one who is wicked and turns away? What about the one who is virtuous and then returns to a sinful lifestyle?
What came to mind when you read the sentence: “You say, ‘The LORD’S way is not fair! Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?’.”
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
Consider all the ways the Lord blesses us, even in the midst of our sinfulness. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the ways God has been merciful to you in your sin.
Let’s Pray:
Jesus, help me be virtuous and stay on the right path. You are all good and deserving of my love. Please help me to hate sin and give me the courage to avoid it. AMEN.
Be Completely Real...
Let the Holy Spirit guide your mind…
Ask the Lord to show you how you’ve been unfair to him and ungrateful for his mercy. Let him reveal to you times when he was present to you with your sinful habit, but you failed to see it.
How has he given you consolation and grace to overcome your sinful habit? How has the Lord shown you patience?
Take a few moments to speak to him from your heart right now about your situation. Ask for the grace to amend your ways and make a firm resolution.
Visualize Christ
Now we will contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels. Today we are returning to the Mount of Beatitudes, the lush hillside near Capernaum we have become quite familiar with.
We see Jesus sitting down in front of a large crowd of people. He is continuing his teaching on the Christian way of life. You are in awe of his wisdom, his gentle, yet commanding voice, and the piercing way he begins to look at you as he notices you in the crowd. In this brief moment you suddenly realize he knows how much you love him, and how much you want to be the Christian he is describing in this teaching.
This fills you with consolation and gives you peace. You realize that no matter what faults you have, as long as you love Jesus and promise to obey his teachings, he will help you grow in holiness in this life….
Turn Away from all Your Sinful Habits
Reconcile or Be Liable to Judgement
Matthew 5:20-26
Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise, your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”
Reflection:
Let us meditate on what Jesus means when he says, “whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Have you been angry with someone? Did your anger cause you to do something evil against them? In what ways has your anger harmed your relationship with God?
Now listen to the second part of Jesus’ teaching, “if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother.”
Have you harmed someone and failed to offer reparation?
Maybe you can’t reconcile with a person because they are not sorry and have not amended their life. Have you at least forgiven them?
Let’s Pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, I fully forgive all those that have harmed me in my life and I release them from the debt that they owe me. Please bless them with the grace of conversion and help them to feel sorrow for the sins they have committed and the courage and fortitude to amend their lives. AMEN.
Take a moment to ask Jesus questions from your heart. Maybe you want to ask him to about a situation in your life that has been weighing on you.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond. Wait on the Lord. Ask him to reveal to you what he wants from you.
Be honest with Jesus and tell him your fears. 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 Bartolo Longo.
Turn Away from all Your Sinful Habits
Returning to the Church after having Left
By Saint Bartolo Longo
[While away from my faith] I grew to hate monks, priests and the Pope, and in particular the Dominicans, the most formidable, furious opponents of those great modern professors, proclaimed by the university the sons of progress, the defenders of science, the champions of every sort of freedom.
[After returning to the Church] one day in the fields around Pompeii, I recalled my former condition as a priest of Satan… I thought that perhaps as the priesthood of Christ is for eternity, so also the priesthood of Satan is for eternity. So, despite my repentance, I thought: I am still consecrated to Satan, and I am still his slave and property as he awaits me in Hell. As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Friar Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘One who propagates my Rosary shall be saved.’ Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation because I shall not leave this earth without propagating your Rosary.
Saint Bartolo Longo spent the rest of his life propagating the Rosary. With financial support he built Pompeii’s Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. He also founded elementary schools and orphanages. The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary that St. Pope John Paul II propagated originally come from Saint Bartolo’s writings.
With Christ, putting an end to your sinful habits is possible. Saint Bartolo Longo was born into a Catholic family, but after his mother died when he was 10, he lost his faith and turned to the world to fill his emptiness. While in college he became a secular nationalist who fought against the Church and hated it. Then he turned toward witchcraft, eventually becoming a Satanic priest.
Longo suffered from intense inner turmoil, severe anxiety and depression. He had severe paranoia, and after a spiritual crisis in Naples, he sought the guidance of a Dominican friar. His many family and friends prayed persistently for his conversion. He embraced the Rosary, and it healed him of his inner turmoil, so he felt a divine call to promote it over the rest of his life.
Reflection:
Contemplate Jesus looking at you at your last judgement.
It is the moment of your death. His eyes are piercing your soul. You cannot defend yourself over your unrepentant sins or your unchanged sinful habits. Your time has run out. You await his just judgment.
What will he say to you right now? He has offered you grace and mercy throughout your life.
Who are you in this final moment? Are you the wicked man who has turned away from sin and repented?
Or are you the formerly virtuous man who left your faith to commit iniquity and never repented?
Will Jesus preserve your life, and will you surely live or will he condemn you to die due to your unrepentant iniquities?
Are you being fair to God with the grace and mercy he is giving you?
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 9 Mental Prayer Meditation
Walking in Your Ways with all my Heart and Soul
Jesus, from today onward I promise to walk in your ways, to belong to you, to be one of your own. I will love you with all my heart and soul.