Tag Archives: Prayer

The Journey to Easter

A depiction of the risen Christ

Lent is an annual opportunity to accompany Jesus in his forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert and in his suffering and death on Mount Calvary to his resurrection on Easter Sunday. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture and of Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2025 to consider how:

  • Lent symbolises our own journey through life to our death and resurrection to eternal life.
  • It is a journey filled with hope
  • If we live it well, we will have a true springtime, a new blossoming of our spiritual life
  • As Jesus was generous in suffering and dying out of love for us, we should show our love for him by being generous in the way we live Lent
  • We can choose areas of struggle from the the three traditional aspects of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, or charity

Learning from the humanity of Christ

 

Everyone wants to be a better person. But what do we mean by this? Who is the standard, the model? It is obviously Christ himself, perfect man as well as perfect God.  In this meditation we use texts from Scripture to consider the humanity of Christ and some of the many virtues we can learn by contemplating it, among them:

  • Love for God and neighbour
  • Spirit of service
  • Kindness and compassion
  • Forgiveness
  • Humility
  • Fortitude
  • Chastity
  • Joy

Journey to Bethlehem

The road to Bethlehem

In this season of Advent we can learn much about how to focus our spiritual life from Our Lady, as she makes her way to Bethlehem with St Joseph. Among the lessons Mary teaches us are:

      • Docility to the will of God
      • Self-giving to others
      • Bearing hardships without complaining
      • Purifying our soul through penance
      • Life of prayer
      • Bringing Christ to others

One in the Communion of Saints

One of the most consoling truths of our faith is the reality of the Communion of Saints – the Church triumphant in heaven, the Church suffering in purgatory, and the Church militant on earth, all helping one another. In this meditation we use texts from Scripture, the Catechism, St Bernard, St Therese of Lisieux and St Josemaria to consider how:

  • The saints in heaven “fix the Church more firmly in holiness” by their example and prayer for us
  • We should have as the goal of our life to be with them for all eternity
  • The souls in purgatory suffer greatly and are exceedingly happy, relying on our prayer for them and interceding for us before God
  • In the Church militant, we are helped by the prayers of all in this Communion and we should feel responsible to help the others by our struggle for holiness and our prayers and works.

Humility

One of the most fundamental virtues is humility. Many of the saints, among them St Augustine and St John Vianney, stress how important it is. In this meditation, we use texts of  Sacred Scripture, St Augustine, St John Vianney and St Josemaria to consider how:

  • Humility is the foundation of the other virtues
  • Our Lady is a great example of humility
  • Humility centers our attention on God and others, not on ourselves
  • God loves a humble person and rejects the proud
  • We all have pride, in different ways
  • By praying about it, we are helped to identify our particular manifestations of pride so that we can struggle against them

The spiritual Olympics

Spirirtual olympics

Athletes go through a rigorous training regime in order to achieve their goal of winning a medal in the Olympic games. Our goal is much higher: eternal life with God in heaven. We too need a training regime. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture, especially of St Paul, and of saints like Augustine, Bernard and Josemaria, to consider how, like athletes, we need:

  • A goal
  • Determination to reach the goal
  • Sacrifice and self-control
  • A training program: a plan of life
  • A coach: a spiritual director
  • Ability to keep going when we encounter failures and disappointments
  • Someone to heal our injuries: a priest
  • Effort to follow the rules: the moral law
  • Time-outs to rest and reconsider our plan: retreats and recollections
  • Determination to finish the face and receive the prize

Loving with the Holy Spirit

Mary at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles.The Holy Spirit is love and, as St Paul writes, love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Since God has loved us first, we should love God with our whole heart, and love one another. In this meditation we use the Scriptures and a letter of Mgr Fernando Ocariz to pray about important aspects of love for our neighbour:

  • Understanding
  • Forgiveness
  • Spirit of service

The Light of Easter

Christ is risen. Easter.

The resurrection of Christ brings light into a world in darkness. That darkness may be of unbelief, of sin, of lack of hope. In all cases, Christ is the light who can dispel the darkness with the light of his Resurrection. In this meditation we consider how we can respond to this light of  Christ in three ways:

  • Accepting the light
  • Keeping the light alive and making it burn more brightly
  • Sharing the light with others

Lessons from Holy Week

Holy Week should be holy not only in its name and in the events we commemorate, but in the way we live it. In this meditation we consider the numerous lessons we can learn from this week and how we can put them into practice. We will consider:

  • Palm Sunday – praising God by our life
  • Holy Thursday – frequenting the sacrament of Penance
  • Washing of the feet – spirit of service
  • Institution of the Eucharist – love for the Eucharist and prayer for priests
  • Prayer in the garden – spirit of prayer
  • Passion and death – spirit of penance
  • Jesus gives us his mother – love for Mary
  • Resurrection – joy and hope

The spirit of Lent

Face of Christ in the Passion

In Lent we prepare for the celebration of our redemption by Christ’s death and resurrection. In this meditation we consider how:

  • We can accompany Our Lord in his forty days of fasting and prayer in the desert by our own greater effort in prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
  • Lent is a time for conversion, of starting anew in our spiritual struggle.
  • As Christ loved us to the end by dying on the cross for us, we should be generous in our Lenten discipline.
  • When we live Lent well, we have a true springtime, new life and growth, in our spiritual life