Those Attached to this World will Die in their Sin. 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 29 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 reflect on Jesus’ warning that those attached to this world will die in their sins. I want to follow you all the way to Calvary, Jesus, and I want to do it with my whole heart.
AMEN.
Tuesday of the Fifth week of Lent (Liturgical Year I)
Those Attached to this World Will Die in Their Sin
A Reflection for Prayerful Meditation
Let’s begin Day 29 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.
Those Attached to this World Will Die in Their Sin
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 going back to the desert where we will find Moses still leading the people after 40 years of wandering. It was their lack of faith, their disobedience, and their ingratitude that caused so many trials and sufferings in the desert and made their wandering last 40 years. The people who began their exodus from Egypt are now old and a new younger generation has been born. They are on the verge of entering the promised land. The road they are currently on is a bypass around the land of Edom. It is arduous, rugged, and hot. Many have grown old, they are tired, and they begin to complain to God.
Slowly imagine this scene in your mind as you read. Imagine yourself physically there in the scene. What do you hear? See? Feel? Sense?
Those Attached to this World Will Die in Their Sin
Please Take the Serpents from Us
Numbers 21:4-9
From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road, to by-pass the land of Edom. But with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!”
In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us.”
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover.”
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to reflect on the message in the First Reading.
The Lord gave these people many miracles and upheld every promise he made to them, the last of which was giving them the promised land. Despite all the miracles and all the protection from evil, the people who left Egypt with Moses remained unfaithful to God and ungrateful for his gifts for all these 40 years. And in God’s justice, he sent serpents to bite them with poisonous venom so that they could seek his mercy and live. Those who did not repent and trust in the mercy of God died, but those who looked at the bronze serpent on the staff lived.
Now let’s personalize this passage from our First Reading…
Be Completely Real…
Have you waited a long time for a prayer to be answered? When you think it hasn’t been answered or the answer is no, do you complain to God like the children of Israel did in Numbers 21? Do you refuse to love God when he is trying to teach you a lesson and help you grow in virtue and holiness? Do you accept hardship and loss with a pure heart? Do you love God even in difficult times, always offering gratitude even in tremendous suffering?
Ask the Lord to search your heart and probe your mind. Give the Holy Spirit time to respond.
Be honest with the Lord. Self-reflect on your relationship with the Lord. How do you feel when it seems your prayers are not answered the way you want them to be answered? Are you able to pray with gratitude anyway? Do you lack faith when you have to wait a long time? Do you quit praying when you don’t get what you want?
In the next part we will read a prayer of petition from Psalms. Pray this with an open heart, allowing the Holy Spirit to move as you say the words. Notice this petition includes praise and honor to the Lord, and and includes an act of faith. When you finish, make your own petition, praise the Lord, and make your own act of faith in his providence in you situation.
Let us continue our mental prayer with today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Those Attached to this World Will Die in Their Sin
Do Not Hide Your Face From Me
Psalms 102:2-3, 16-21
LORD, hear my prayer;
let my cry come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
now that I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
when the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
when he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
Let this be written for the generation to come,
and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
“The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
to hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.”
Visualize Christ…
Next, try to put yourself in the presence of Christ. We return to the Temple area to hear Jesus give a stern warning to the Pharisees. Moments after he forgives the woman caught in adultry, he is again accosted by the angry Pharisees. Take a moment to close your eyes and picture him speaking in a gentle but stern manner in his reply. The tension between the religious leaders is mounting, and Jesus knows they are plotting against him. He has become a threat to them. He is going to allude to his death in this passage.
Imagine yourself in the crowd. Maybe you are filled with fear over the growing animosity between the Pharisees and Jesus. Maybe you do not want Jesus to die and so you hear the words he is saying but in your heart you cannot accept them because you have an attachment to him and do not want your rabbi to go away from you. Prayerfully speak to Jesus about what is stirring your heart. What do you want to tell him?
Those Attached to this World Will Die in Their Sin
Believe that I AM, or Die in Sin
John 8:21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.“
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. So Jesus said (to them), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
Are You Listening?
Contemplate Jesus looking at you with a deep loving gaze. He speaks to you, “Who do you say that I AM?”
Take a moment now to speak from your heart. Who is Jesus to you? Tell him what he means to you.
Pray the next Lenten Meditation
Day 30 Lenten Meditation
Jesus Christ, Son of God, Save Us From Eternal Fire
“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Save Us From Eternal Fire” – join us in our 30th Lenten reflection for Liturgical Year I
One Response
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Thanks be to God💖