Lord Jesus, teach me holiness so I can love them as You do. 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 4 of our Lenten Challenge with this opening prayer:
TRUST AND BELIEVE...
Lord,
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 with my heart fully open and willing to receive that grace.
Lord, teach me holiness so I can love them as You do. If you help me be holy; I will really love my neighbor in truth. I want to love as I myself want to be loved and the way I am loved by You. I want to treat them as I would want to be treated, but also love them in truth.
Give me the grace to love people in truth and through your grace. I am selfish by nature and not concerned about my neighbor; I can easily miss what you want me to see.
I want to be able to visualize myself with you so I can feel your presence in my life this Lent. Lord, give me the grace I need as I strive to complete these daily Lenten reflections. I am choosing to take up my cross and humbly follow you all the way to Calvary and I want to do it from my whole heart.
AMEN.
Monday of the First Week of Lent (Liturgical Year II)
Teach Me Holiness
so I can love them as you do
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Join me in a prayerful meditation for your Lenten journey on holiness and love of neighbor.
Teach Me Holiness So I Can Love Them Like You Do
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 which is in need of renewal.
Breath 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.
Holy Spirit, please guide my heart and mind to love people as you do. Let me act in ways that are pleasing to you. I want to love them as you do, and in imitation of Christ.
Please teach me holiness through your inspirations because you see the heart and the soul of every living person. Give me the courage to speak truth in love. Let me be a blessing and bring them joy. Please bless me with the gifts of generosity, but most of all, true holy charity.
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 help me grow in holiness so I can love them like you do.
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?
Teach me Holiness so I can Love Them as You Do
Be Holy as the Lord Your God is Holy
Leviticus 19:1-2.11-18.
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.
“You shall not steal. You shall not lie or speak falsely to one another. You shall not swear falsely by my name, thus profaning the name of your God. I am the LORD.
“You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor. You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer. You shall not curse the deaf, or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD.
“You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly. You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the LORD.
“You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow man, do not incur sin because of him.
Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the first reading.
Contemplate how selfish desires and evil tendencies can corrupt the soul and destroy true charity in personal relationships.
Ask yourself, have I been guilty of these unholy sins in my relationships with my family members, my friends, my neighbors? Have I committed any of these sinful, uncharitable behaviors publicly? Do I need to repent?
Sometimes we do things that are sinful and we do not realize they are sins.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our first reading…
Call on the Holy Spirit right now to convict your heart for a minute. Then reread the passage from Leviticus.
Be Completely Real...
If the Holy Spirit is showing you a specific sinful habit you may have, confess it right now before the Lord. If something is weighing heavy on your heart, speak to the Lord about it.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond to you.
Be honest with the Lord, then listen and self-reflect on what you have been doing and ask the Lord to help you stop doing these things. Make a firm resolution, with the help of God, to stop doing these things and to grow in holiness instead.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Gospel:
Visualize Christ
Now we will contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels. We are at the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem. We are with the other disciples, and we are listening to Jesus explain to us about the last days when he begins to shift our focus to the things of heaven….
Teach me Holiness so I can Love Them as You Do
Whatever you did for one of these
Matthew 25:31-46
Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’
And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’
He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’
And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Let us meditate on what Jesus means when he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Have you ever experienced a time when you were hungry and a random stranger fed you? Ask the Lord to reveal to you a memory from your life.
The Lord is reminding me of a time when I was traveling alone with my then 2-year-old child. I was stranded at the airport on a layover due to a very unfortunate event, it was out of everyone’s control. We were all stuck. I was tired and hungry and had already been traveling for several hours when we discovered our connecting flight was canceled and I might be there overnight. My child was sleeping in my arms and I did not have a stroller. I had nowhere to go, and no relief in sight. But the Lord touched the hearts of several strangers there, all wishing to help their neighbor. A woman offered to help me hold my child, and an airline pilot bought us a meal. They ministered to me, with no hope of getting anything in return. They would never see me again, most likely. I was just a poor soul in need that day and they cared for me like Jesus does.
What is your memory? How did the love of your neighbor help you feel the love of Christ?
Now listen to the second part of Jesus’ teaching, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.”
Enter into a moment of silence right now. Call on the Holy Spirit to come and reveal to you a time when you were called to help someone in your life and you chose not to. Let the Lord give you that memory.
Do you see yourself as more of a goat than one of the sheep? While you cannot change your past, with the help of Christ, you can change your response to the suffering of others beginning today.
Is there also a burden on your heart? Have you acted in an evil way toward a loved one but you have never repented or reconciled with them, and you see yourself as the ‘goat’? Be honest with Jesus and tell him your regrets. Surrender it to him. Ask for him to fill your heart with wisdom, knowledge and understanding over this relationship that you have hurt or severed by your sin and lack of holy love. What does the Lord want you to know? Is there something the Lord is telling you to do? You may want to write it down.
Let us continue our mental prayer with a meditation from Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Teach me Holiness so I can Love Them as You Do
The Mystery Hidden Within Christ Jesus
by St. Teresa of Calcutta
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough.
Give the best you’ve got anyway.
You see,
in the final analysis it is between you and God ;
it was never between you and them anyway.
Are You Listening?
Contemplate the final two lines in this message from St. Teresa of Calcutta.
Who you love, how you love, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
Let that sink in. It’s not about you and them. Not really. It’s about whether you love them through God so they can see God in you, who is the only real source of love, or you attempt to love them without the help of God, which means you really don’t love them with holy love at all. Sexual love and brotherly love are not the same as holy love.
Jesus is calling you to love as he loves, with perfect holy love. It’s a higher kind of love. It’s not eros (the Greek word for sexual love) or philia (the Greek word for brotherly love). It is agape love. It’s a love that gives without counting the cost, a pure holy love that seeks to help the other soul into heaven. It’s pure charity, no strings attached, no selfish desires, pure love for the sake of God.
The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the beautiful gift of charity when we ask for it.
Humbly ask the Lord to send you the gift of charity through the Holy Spirit.
Take a moment right now to pray these words:
Jesus, please teach me holiness so I can love them as you do, with perfect charity, and in truth, and with a desire for them to know you and love you and be in a relationship with you. Amen.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 5 Mental Prayer Meditation
Lord, Teach me to Pray as You Wish
As I meditate on the Our Father prayer, I ask you, Lord, to teach me to pray as you wish. Let me understand the meaning and deeply reflect on the words.