The Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow. 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 25 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 a pure heart of love toward my neighbor. 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 how the intercession of the saints makes your mercy flow. 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 Fourth week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
The Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 25 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 Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow
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 heading to Mount Sinai to be with Moses after he receives the 10 Commandments. His trip is exactly 40 days, the same time period that Jesus spent in the desert before he began his earthly ministry. Moses is in the glory of God at the peak of this mountain, and he can see the vast desert landscape of the entire Sinai Peninsula from his vantage point. There are mountains and valleys as far as he can see in all directions. It is here that the Lord tells him about the betrayal of the people. Filled with anxiety and impatience waiting for Moses, they began to replace God with an idol. Here we are introduced to the power of the intercession of saints, and how their prayers impact the flow of mercy from God toward others.
Imagine yourself physically there in the scene with Moses. Here he was, after a harrowing 3 months leading these people out of Egypt and into the desert. In just 40 days they decided to ignore every grace, all the blessings, every favoritism of God and turn toward a false god to give worship. How do you think Moses feels upon hearing this?
The Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow
The Lord Relented When Moses Prayed for Them
Exodus 32:7-14
The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
“I see how stiff-necked this people is,” continued the LORD to Moses. “Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.”
But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, “Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand?
Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth’? Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.'”
So the LORD relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
Did you envision yourself hearing the shock and exasperation of Moses? Could you imagine God speaking to him in an authoritative voice? Could you hear the anger in the words? What emotion does it create in your heart? Could you empathize more with the justice of God or the desire for mercy in Moses?
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Have you ever been in a leadership position and you’ve witnessed those under you making bad decisions in your absence? How did you handle this? Did you act with justice or with mercy? Did someone intercede on behalf of the guilty party? Did their intercession soften your heart? Have you ever been on the opposite end, and made a very bad decision? Did someone step in as an intermediary on your behalf? Did you receive justice or mercy as a result?
Now ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and speak to you about the need for intercession on behalf of others. Perhaps a person will come to your mind, or a situation.
Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Take some time to reflect on how you handle tough situations. Do you tend to show mercy or are you quick to cast judgment? Do you pray and ask God to guide your decisions in tough situations? Are you able to intercede for someone who has sinned against God and against you? How do you pray for them? Do you pray like Moses did?
In the next part we will read a passage from Psalms. Meditate on these verses praising Moses for his intercession on behalf of his people, and the momentous effect it had.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
The Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow
They Forgot God and Moses Begged For Mercy
Psalms 106:19-23
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
Visualize Christ…
Today we are returning to the Pool of Bethesda, under the five covered porticoes. The crippled man has been healed, and now there is trouble brewing. Jesus healed this crippled man on the Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders have come to argue with him and shame him.
Take a moment to close your eyes and picture Jesus leaving the Pool of Bethesda and being confronted by angry religious leaders.
Next, 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. Pause on a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Then prayerfully speak to Jesus about this passage. What do you want to tell him?
The Intercession of the Saints Makes Your Mercy Flow
If You Believed Moses
John 5:31-47
John 5,31-47.
You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept testimony from a human being, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”
Are You Listening?
Finally, contemplate what the intercession of saints means for you. Do you see how Moses interceded for his people and how Jesus, whom he prophesied about, is your mediator? Can you also see your role as an intercessor for others, in the same way Moses was?
Jesus tells the religious leaders that they search the scriptures and they think they have eternal life through them. He chastises them for this. They wanted to have rules and to follow them for salvation. But Jesus tells them that they need to come to him to have life. Their ideology lacked compassion and mercy. Knowing scripture does not mean you are saved. Jesus tells us we have to have the love of God in us, so he wants us to live our faith with love and mercy by imitating him.
Consider what it means to have the love of God in you. Are you interceding for others? Are you sacrificing yourself for their sake? Are you bearing good fruit that will last?
Ask the Lord, “Do I really have the love of God in me?” Ask him, “Do I fully accept you in my thoughts, words, and actions every day? Do I ask for mercy for others and intercede on their behalf, begging for grace of conversion of heart with love?”
Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. You may want to journal your thoughts and take time to make a firm resolution.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 26 Lenten Meditation
God Delivers the Just from Wicked Schemers
“God Delivers the Just from Wicked Schemers” – join us in our 26th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I