Lenten Reflection – 11 March – Wednesday of the Second week of Lent, Readings: Jeremiah 18:18- 20; Psalms 31:5-6, 14, 15-16; Matthew 20:17-28
“Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise.”
Daily Meditation:
“Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom”…Matthew 20:21
The importance of Humility”
(Extract from a Sermon on St Philip Neri)
By St John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
“But I would beg for you this privilege, that the public world might never know you for praise or for blame, that you should do a good deal of hard work in your generation and prosecute many useful labours and effect a number of religious purposes and send many souls to heaven and take men by surprise, how much you were really doing, when they happened to come near enough to see it but that by the world you should be overlooked, that you should not be known out of your place, that you should work for God alone, with a pure heart and single eye, without the distractions of human applause and should make Him your sole hope and His eternal heaven your sole aim and have your reward, not partly here but fully and entirely, hereafter.”
“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:28
Intercessions:
Let us give thanks to God, our Father:
through the power of the Spirit He purifies our heart and strengthens us in love.
Let us humbly ask Him:
Lord, give us Your Holy Spirit.
Help us to receive good things from Your bounty with a deep sense of gratitude;
-and to accept with patience the evil that comes to us.
Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments,
-but above all in the ordinary events of daily life.
May we abstain from what we do not really need
-and help our brothers and sisters in distress.
May we bear the wounds of Your Son,
-for through His body He gave us life.
Closing Prayer:
God of Love,
through this Lenten journey,
purify my desires to serve You.
Free me from any temptations
to place myself above others.
Please let me surrender even my impatience with others,
that with Your love and Your grace,
I might be less and less absorbed with myself
and more and more full of the desire
to follow You, in laying down my life
according to Your example.
May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
“What did you say, woman?
You hear Him talking about the cross
and you ask for a throne?”
AnaStpaul 