The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever. 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 31 of this Lenten prayer journey with this opening prayer :
Trust and Believe…
Lord, I know you love me intimately. Please help me prepare my heart as I begin these 15 minutes of mental prayer with you. Lord, let me be present to you and aware of the movements of the Holy Spirit in my heart, receiving the grace you give with humility and contrition. Lord, help me visualize you in my presence right now as I strive to complete this Lenten reflection. Let me fully contemplate the readings as I ponder that the covenant of the Lord is forever and ever. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart. AMEN.
Thursday of the Fifth week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 31 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.
The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever
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. We are traveling to Ur, in Mesopotamia, to the home of Abram and Sarai. Ur was a highly sophisticated Sumerian city-state in southern Mesopotamia that had a bustling port on the Euphrates River. Slowly imagine Abram and Sarai living in the pagan city of Ur in your mind as you read.
The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever
I Will Keep Your Covenant
Genesis 17:3-9
When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him:
“My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.”
God also said to Abraham: “On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself listening to the voice of God as he speaks to Abram and renames him Abraham? Can you imagine what it felt like to be Abraham, receiving this prophecy? When God made this covenant, the couple was old and struggling with infertility. Imagine the incredible faith it took to leave Ur and travel to a foreign land, believing this promise from God was true and obeying his word.
Let’s consider God’s covenantal love. In Hebrew it’s called hesed, and it signifies a deep, enduring, steadfast kind of love, a loyal bond that cannot be broken. It represents the fullness of mercy that reaches beyond the idea of duty and encapsulates the essence of God’s character as an eternal, unconditional loving entity.
We know the outcome of God’s promise to Abraham because it has been revealed to us in the New Covenant. Let’s unpack this more fully. Jesus has revealed to us through his Church that everything unveiled in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. He shows us this through his Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection. Did you know that “sacramentum” is the Latin word for oath? When Jesus established the New Covenant, he instituted seven new oaths, or covenants, with his people. We know these as the seven Sacraments: Baptism, Reconciliation, Eucharist, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Our God is a loyal, merciful, and steadfastly loving entity that is deeply and personally in love with you. Just like Abraham, he has offered you the same kind of covenantal love, and it is through his Church that you receive the merciful graces that come from such a deep, enduring, steadfast kind of love. Our Lord is loyal to you and promises you that he will never abandon you or betray you in this life. You receive this grace and are renewed through this covenant every time you receive a sacramental grace from God.
Take a moment to let this sink deeply into your heart. Tell the Lord how grateful you are for these Sacraments. Contemplate his loving presence right now without any thoughts or words. Just be in his presence to express gratitude from your heart in silence. You may want to kiss a crucifix, an image of Jesus, or place your hand on your heart and breathe deeply. Express this loving gratitude from the depths of your soul to God for his goodness and steadfast loving mercy.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
You may want to journal your experience.
In the next part we will read a passage from Psalms. You may want to promise the Lord your fidelity as you read these words.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever
Let Me Love God Steadfastly
Psalms 105:4-9
Look to the LORD in his strength;
seek to serve him constantly.
Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought,
his portents, and the judgments he has uttered.
You descendants of Abraham, his servants,
sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!
He, the LORD, is our God;
throughout the earth his judgments prevail.
He remembers forever his covenant
which he made binding for a thousand generations.
Which he entered into with Abraham
and by his oath to Isaac.
Visualize Christ…
We return to the temple area again for today’s Gospel reading. This is the end of the 7 day Festival of Tabernacles, known as the Sukkot. We have been with Jesus, witnessing his deep, enduring, steadfast love for the people he encounters who seek healing, forgiveness, and metanoia. We see in Jesus the image of the Father. Jesus shows us through his person how God made good on his promise to Abraham. We are about to hear the last interaction Jesus has with the Pharisees. It occurs on the last and greatest day of the feast, and the words have a very deep covenantal meaning. We have felt the tension build, and have witnessed the many ways they have tried to trick Jesus so they could arrest him.
Let’s see what comes next.
Take your image of Jesus on the final day of the Feast and visualize today’s Gospel Reading. Put yourself in this scene much like you did in the First Reading. Then prayerfully speak to Jesus about what stirred your heart. What do you want to tell him?
The Covenant of the Lord is Forever and Ever
Before Abraham Came to Be, I AM
John 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
(So) the Jews said to him, “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
Are You Listening?
Who do you relate with more in this image? Are you a bystander in the crowd, enamored with Jesus but you really don’t know the Father as he describes him? Are you more like the Pharisees who analyze and question things, scrutinizing and criticizing what you do not understand and passing judgments without fully understanding what you reject?
Imagine Jesus for a moment, and hear him ask you this question: “Do you know in your heart the steadfast loving mercy of God?”
Take a moment now to speak from your heart. You may want to journal your answer.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 32 Lenten Meditation
We Know Jesus is the Son of God
“We Know Jesus is the Son of God” – join us in our 32nd Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
One Response
Wonderful meditations. These scriptures stay with me all day