Jesus you will offer your life to save us all. 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 35 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
Let me never betray you, my Lord. Do not let me deny you when put to the test. Lord, if I were to betray you or deny you it would be for lack of love. Peter denied you and he reconciled with you. Peter admitted the limits of his love for you, and in response, you promised Peter that one day he would love you as you willed him to. Lord, I pray that I too will one day love you as you will me to. Let me love you so much that to deny you or betray you would be unthinkable. AMEN.
Tuesday of Holy Week (Liturgical Year II)
Let me Never Betray You or Deny You in Life
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in a prayerful reflection and meditation for your Lenten journey with Christ to Jerusalem.
Let me Never Betray You or Deny You in Life
Opening Prayer
Enter into the prayer of silence before the Lord
Lord Jesus Christ,
I believe you are truly here and present to me right now. I desire to be present to you. Give me the grace of courage and fortitude. Give me the grace to fear offending you. Let me never betray you the rest of my days for love of you. I do not want to ever deny you in my life. Lord please come to my aid and give me the grace I need right now.
I am here, Lord, because l never want to deny you in my life and never betray you. Please send me your Spirit so that I can worship you with a pure heart and without distraction. 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. Jesus, look at me with the eyes of mercy and help me be brave and strong even in adversity. You know all my weaknesses and that I can’t elevate my heart or my mind without your help.
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. Help me carry my cross well and do so with great love in my heart for you.
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.
Now we will contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels. Slowly meditate on the the Lord’s Supper as we enter into the Passover of Our Lord….
Let me Never Betray You or Deny You in Life
Walking Boldly toward Death
John 13:21-33, 36-38
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?”
Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and (took it and) handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot.
After he took the morsel, Satan entered him.
So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
(Now) none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor.
So he took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.
When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. (If God is glorified in him,) God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.
Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going?”
Jesus answered (him), “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later.”
Peter said to him, “Master, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
Reflection:
After he took the morsel, Satan entered him. This is the most chilling part of today’s passage.
Lord, we know that Judas had sins, and he lacked charity toward Mary when she broke the bottle of nard and anointed your feet. We know he valued money; it was an attachment for him. I can see some of Judas in myself, Lord. I see the judging and the selfishness, the desire for money, and power.
But Lord, satan entered into Judas to easily, even though he was a disciple of yours. He entered in, perhaps due to the weakness of his sinful nature and his lack of love. I don’t know why, really, Jesus.
But Lord, if satan could enter into Judas, surely, if I am not able to love you and obey you and serve you with humility like a child, I too could fall victim to his lies and deceit.
Please, Lord, may I never betray you or deny you in life. Bless me and keep me safe from all harm and danger and deliver me from every evil so that I might never be separated from you. AMEN.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a meditation from Saint John Vianney:
Let me Never Betray You or Deny You in Life
Indifference towards Holy Communion
By St. John Vianney
Indifference towards holy communion puts our salvation in danger. Here are Christians who are poor in spiritual goods, who are subject to a thousand infirmities, who are weak and languishing.
My God! how then can they remain three, four or five and six months without giving this heavenly food to their souls. Beside the beautiful Sacrament, they are like someone who is dying of thirst beside a river, and would only have to bend his head to drink, or like a man who remains poor beside a treasure, who need only stretch out his hand. Having a remedy so efficacious for curing their soul and a food so capable of conserving its health, how is it that they let it die of misery?
My God! what misfortune and what blindness! Alas! let us say it groaning. One spares nothing for a body which sooner or later will be destroyed and eaten by worms, and a soul created to the image of God, a soul that is immortal, is despised and treated with the greatest cruelty.
Is it not, in effect, to treat it without pity, to let it die of starvation, refusing it the bread of life which alone can sustain it? But, we are peaceful and happy in this state.
Yet you risk being surprised by death and cast into hell.
Is it because the devil is your master?
If your faith was not dead, what confusion you would feel at seeing your father, or mother or brother or sister, or one of your neighbours go to the Holy Table to be fed with the adorable Body of Jesus Christ, and you, yourself, abstaining from it!
O my God! what a misfortune! So great that one cannot understand it!
Reflection:
Ask yourself, have I ever had an indifference toward holy Communion? Am I indifferent toward my family, friends, and neighbors who stay away from the Lord’s table? Am I repentant for my lack of charity toward them? Or my lack of charity toward God who loves them?
Lord, let me never betray you or deny you in life. Let me bring you, Lord, to those you have brought into my life so that I might be a good disciple of your word. Let me never betray your trust in me.
Next, let us meditate for a moment on the words of Isaiah 49. Reread this passage a second time, praying the words from your own heart. Then take a moment to speak to Jesus. What do you want to tell him?
Let me Never Betray You or Deny You in Life
He called me from Birth
Isaiah 49:1-6
Hear me, O islands, listen, O distant peoples. The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me.
You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.
Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, Yet my reward is with the LORD, my recompense is with my God.
For now the LORD has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, That Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; And I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD, and my God is now my strength!
It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Reflection:
Ask the Lord to make you a light to the nations. Take a few moments to be with the Lord and speak from your heart.
Take 1-3 minutes to listen for his response to your heartfelt prayer.
This is our final daily Mass reading mental prayer meditation for Liturgical Year II.
Pray the Next Lenten Meditation
Day 36 Mental Prayer Meditation
Preparation for Death Brings Forth New Life
Jesus’ prepares for death after the betrayal of Judas with the Last Supper, and this preparation brings forth new life in the Church.