Fasting for Jesus with a Humble Heart of Love. 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 3 of this Lenten prayer journey with this opening prayer :
Trust and Believe…
Lord,
I know you want me to open my heart to love. Help me prepare my heart as I enter into my meditation with you. Lord, please let me be present to you and aware of the movements of the Holy Spirit in my heart so that these next 15 minutes I am able to receive the grace you are giving me. Please help my mind visualize being in your presence right now as I strive to complete my daily Lenten reflection. Let me fully understand the scripture readings as I contemplate what it means to have the light of Christ within my heart. Jesus, I want to follow you to Calvary with my whole heart. Please help me love.
AMEN.
Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Liturgical Year I)
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 3 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.
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
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 this scene in your mind as you read. 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 do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
Remove All Evil From My Heart and Nourish Me, Lord
Isaiah 58: 9b-14
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Envision yourself again listening to the voice of God from within the throne room of heaven. Hear the authority in his voice, as he speaks to you with tenderness and love. Accept his words with humility and contrition. He is a loving Father.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Maybe you want to ask God to show you how your speech can sometimes be evil and malicious. Have you spoken words that were kind? If not, were they necessary?
Ask the Lord if you walking with the light of Christ in your heart. Are you keeping Sundays holy or are you following your own desires instead?
Are you able to love people in your life that are difficult to love, or are you sometimes self-righteous and hard of heart, unforgiving?
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on the way you have treated others who are stuck in the cycle of sin and away from the faith. Where is your heart? Are you like the light shining in their darkness?
Consider what you fill your time with on Sundays that are a distraction from the Lord. Are they necessary? Is there something God wants you to change? Ask him. Let the Lord probe your heart and reveal what you lack.
If the Holy Spirit reminds you of a time when you were not the light of Christ to someone, thank him for revealing this to you and seek to reconcile.
In the next part we will read a prayer of contrition from Psalms. Pray this with contrition, putting the conviction of the Holy Spirit for your lack of love into the words that you will pray.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
Let Me Meditate on the Law of the Lord
Psalms 86: 1-6
Incline your ear, O LORD; answer me,
for I am afflicted and poor.
Keep my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ by visualizing Jesus in an intimate way. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him looking at you. You may want to imagine a favorite image of him coming alive and speaking to you. In this way you will be able to visualize Jesus in a personal way and this will help you understand how much he loves you.
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?
Light of Christ Within my Heart, Help Me Love
Let Me Deny Myself and Take up My Cross
Luke 5: 27-32
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. Imagine speaks to you and says something like, “Follow me, and do as I do, by loving the sinners I have given you in your life. They are sick and in need of a physician. Bring them my light of love and help them desire righteousness through loving them.”
Take a moment now to consider who is in your life and needs the light of Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in how to love them.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 4 Lenten Meditation
I Want to Be Holy and Act with Justice
“I Want to Be Holy and Act with Justice” – Join us in our 4th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I