Dear Lord God, through this Lenten Season I have chosen to try and focus on learning while growing in and with You. You know that I entered this season of Lent asking that You show me what You want me to do; that You help me come out of these 40 days with a clearer understanding of Your will for me and how I can fulfill Your purpose. Today’s reflection uses the words of Saint Teresa to remind me that ‘if Christ Jesus dwells in a man as His friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that is we expect to please Him and receive an abundance of His graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through His most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding His life we find that he is the best example. What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our friends in the world, He will never abandon us when we are troubled or distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps Him near. Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led Him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For is at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.’ Her words are followed by today’s Lenten Action; which is to ‘Think about what God is asking of you in your current situation.’ As Holy week begins I cannot help but look at myself and ask myself if I have achieved what I hoped and prayed for this Lent; well one thing You have made cleared is that this is not the right way to look at myself nor question to ask myself. The question must be have I achieved what You wanted me to, and when I look at myself do I reflect Your image, the image of Jesus Christ. So I pray today’s Lenten prayer and cry out, ‘O my God! Source of all mercy! I acknowledge Your sovereign power. While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things. Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future.‘ Despite all that surrounds me, help me to make each day of this coming week equal in knowledge and wisdom to all the others to date this Lent. Help me to prepare to rise with You on Easter morning renewed, committed, and prepared to understand, accept and act as You will. I ask this in Jesus name, to who belongs all the honor and glory. Amen.
Irrational feeding darkens the soul and makes it unfit for spiritual experiences.
— St. Thomas Aquinas
10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! "Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" say all my familiar friends, watching for my fall. "Perhaps he will be deceived, then we can overcome him, and take our revenge on him." 11 But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. 12 O LORD of hosts, who triest the righteous, who seest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance upon them, for to thee have I committed my cause. 13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. 4 The cords of death encompassed me, the torrents of perdition assailed me; 5 the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. 7 Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
Bible Study: [Psalm 12] Of David. A royal thanksgiving for a military victory, duplicated in 2 Sam 22. Thanksgiving psalms are in essence reports of divine rescue. The psalm has two parallel reports of rescue, the first told from a heavenly perspective (Psalm 18:5-20), and the second from an earthly perspective (Psalm 18:36-46). The first report adapts old mythic language of a cosmic battle between sea and rainstorm in order to depict God’s rescue of the Israelite king from his enemies. Each report has a short hymnic introduction (Psalm 18:2-4, 32-36) and conclusion (Psalm 18:21-31, 47-50).
31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?" 33 The Jews answered him, "It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God." 34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, `I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, `You are blaspheming,’ because I said, `I am the Son of God’? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father." 39 Again they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. 40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. 41 And many came to him; and they said, "John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true." 42 And many believed in him there.
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