Dear Jesus,
Divine Physician and Healer of the Sick,
we turn to You in this time of illness.
O dearest Comforter of the Troubled,
alleviate our worry and sorrow with Your gentle love,
and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden.
Dear God,
we place our worries in Your hands.
We ask that You restore Your servant to health again.
Above all,
grant us the grace to acknowledge Your holy will
and know that whatsoever You do,
You do for the love of us.
Amen.
The tax collector in today’s Gospel prays a prayer very similar to the Jesus Prayer held so close to the hearts of our Orthodox brothers and sisters. As Luke tells us Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the interesting thing is both men know their true selves, and they both speak it in their prayers. The Pharisee says he is not greedy, dishonest or adulterous. He fasts and pays his tithes. His examination of conscience determines he does what he is supposed to do. More power to him, right? Not so fast.
The tax collector, on the other hand, prays simply that he is a sinner and begs for God’s mercy. He does not list any sins; he does not speak them. He knows them too well. He keeps his distance and cannot look up to heaven, whether through shame or sorrow. He beats his breast, not from pride but from remorse, repentance. He prays, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
The contrast with the Pharisee is obvious. This man takes his position. There is a place that is his in the temple area, and he goes there. But then Jesus says something that I do not believe is just the turn of a phrase, I see it as very deliberate: The Pharisee “spoke this prayer to himself.” Jesus did not say he prayed to God. The Pharisee spoke the prayer to himself. And suddenly we know that Jesus is speaking across the two millennia since, directly to us. Do we pray? Or do we pray to God?
Close to our Catholic hearts is the Our Father, the prayer that Jesus taught us. We learn it at a young age, we pray it often, multiple times a day if we take part in the Liturgy of the Hours. But all too often I ask myself — or, probably more accurately, the Holy Spirit gives me a poke — am I praying these beautiful, meaningful words from our Lord, or am I just reciting it because I know the words by heart? God have mercy on me!
In our First Reading, Hosea might be talking to Ephraim and Judah, but he’s speaking to me: Your piety is like a morning cloud. I have every intention of being holy, but as the day wears on, that holiness burns off, not because of what happens during the day, but because of my reaction to it. When there is conflict or criticism or distress, I can choose the holy path, we all can. But do we? Do I? O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Today’s readings are a perfect wakeup call for the middle of Lent. We try to deny things from our lives in a spirit of repentance, but that can’t be the whole story. God desires love, not sacrifice. So if we’re giving things up to free our hearts of them, we need to fill our hearts with something else, and that obviously is love. Then, the sacrifice has meaning and worth, because a heart has changed.
The Orthodox will tell you that the Jesus Prayer is very simple, but also that it is a long and difficult path. Its statement of faith and plea for help are easily said, but to commit to those simple words can take a lifetime. Faith is a journey. Communion with God is a process. What better time and place to start than here and now? Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Mike Karpus is a regular guy. He grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, graduated from Michigan State University and works as an editor. He is married to a Catholic school principal, raised two daughters who became Catholic school teachers at points in their careers, and now relishes his two grandchildren, including the 3-year-old who teaches him what the colors of Father’s chasubles mean. He has served on a Catholic School board, a pastoral council and a parish stewardship committee. He currently is a lector at Mass, a Knight of Columbus, Adult Faith Formation Committee member and a board member of the local Habitat for Humanity organization. But mostly he’s a regular guy.
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St. Margaret Clitherow was born in Middleton, England, in 1555, of protestant parents. Possessed of good looks and full of wit and merriment, she was a charming personality. In 1571, she married John Clitherow, a well-to-do grazier and butcher (to whom she bore two children), and a few years later entered the Catholic Church. Her zeal led her to harbor fugitive priests, for which she was arrested and imprisoned by hostile authorities. Recourse was had to every means in an attempt to make her …
Receive my confession, O most loving and gracious Lord Jesus Christ, only hope for the salvation of my soul. Grant to me true contrition of soul, so that day and night I may by penance make satisfaction for my many sins.
Savior of the world, O good Jesus, Who gave Yourself to the death of the Cross to save sinners, look upon me, most wretched of all sinners; have pity on me, and give me the light to know my sins, true sorrow for them, and a firm purpose of never committing them again.
O …
My word of the year is “fiat.” When I saw that word pop up on my phone screen, I froze. Instantly, I was scared of this word. Why? Because of today’s Gospel.
Through Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel, she uniquely participated in salvation history by completely abandoning herself and her will over to the will of God. It was so much more than a simple yes. Mary’s complete and total fiat called her to be the Mother of God, to witness her son’s Passion and death and so much more – talk about some pressure!
I started to worry about what this word fiat would mean for this year of youth ministry, for my life, for my relationship with God, for everything. Just as quickly as the fear came, though, it started to settle. Sure, I was still scared but it was a healthy fear, an exciting fear – the kind of fear where you leap into action. I knew I truly wanted to live this entire year as a fiat. I also knew that God was extending me a special invitation – to trust Him in all things, just as Mary did 2,000 years ago.
Trust doesn’t work like a light switch, though. We don’t just flip the switch and suddenly begin to trust in the Lord. It’s something that takes practice, a habit we have to grow in. So how do we do that?
One way to grow in trust is to continuously turn to the Lord in prayer – because how can we trust someone if we don’t know who they are? Prayer is where we spend time with the Lord and share our hearts with Him. It is where we grow in relationship with Him and come to know who He is.
Prayer is also a very Marian thing to do. Before Mary gives her fiat, she is troubled by Gabriel’s greeting of “hail favored one” and she ponders in her heart what it means. When Jesus was missing in the temple for three days and He responded that He must be about His Father’s house, Mary kept those things in her heart. But she didn’t just keep them in her heart, she shared them with the Lord and so was able to trust Him in every moment. Mary prayed so that she could give her fiat again and again all the way up to and after the cross.
Today, we have the opportunity to trust the Lord with whatever is on our hearts. Turn to Him in prayer, give whatever is on our hearts over to Him and grow in trust. And if we don’t know where to begin, we can look to Mary – Mary who pondered all things in her heart, Mary who models perfect trust and abandon when she says, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”
Erin is a Cleveland native and graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville. She is passionate about the Lord Jesus, all things college sports and telling stories and she is blessed enough to get paid for all three of her passions as a full-time youth minister and a freelance sports writer.
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All that is known of Dismas is that he is the Good Thief crucified with Christ on Calvary. The other thief is known as Gestas. A completely unsubstantiated myth from the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy that enjoyed great popularity in the West during the Middle Ages had two thieves who held up the Holy Family on the way to Egypt. Dismas bought off Gestas with forty drachmas to leave them unmolested, whereupon the Infant predicted that they would be crucified with Him in Jerusalem, and that Dismas …
Dear St. Anthony, your prayers obtained miracles during your lifetime. You still seem to move at ease in the realm of minor and major miracles. St. Anthony, Performer of Miracles, please obtain for me the blessings God holds in reserve who serve Him. Pray that I may be worthy of the promises my Lord Jesus attaches to confident prayer. (Mention your special intentions.)
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “listen”? Many would say “paying attention to sound, or listening to music”. Others may think, listen is, “to hear something with thoughtful attention”.
Has it ever crossed your mind that listening is key to your faith journey? It’s a part of what I’m pondering this Lent as it came up during my most recent spiritual direction session. I was told a quote by Pope Francis: “This is the first step in order to grow on our journey of faith: listening.”
I’m a cradle Catholic; baptized as an infant. I’ve heard the Word of God proclaimed during Mass since I was an infant. Many times, and not just in my youth, the Word went into my ears and I could recall what was said, yet was I really listening for the meaning?
The Catholic Catechism breaks it open this way:
CCC 144 “To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to ‘hear or listen to’) in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is the most perfect embodiment.”
Through out my youth and most of my adult life I did not submit myself to the Word that I heard. I absolutely would not compare myself to Abraham or the Virgin Mary. Yet when I hear the Psalm Response “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts,” I also hear the words of our Holy Father Pope Francis: “When we listen to the Word of God, we obtain the courage and perseverance to offer the best of ourselves to others.”
There is so much to listen to in the world today. Courage and perseverance are absolutely necessary to be able to sort through the multitude of media, images, words, and sounds that surround each of us. There have been times where all of these things have paralyzed me, making my own voice mute. It has made my ability to act on what I’ve heard a challenge.
It is so hard to listen to God’s voice in the cacophony of the world. I need to remember the witness of the Virgin Mary and of Abraham who listened to the Word of God in the silence of their hearts.
Help me Lord, to remember to listen for your voice in the midst of all the noise because I cannot hear you if my heart and mind is full of other things. Help me to find the silence in my heart to hear your voice and return to You and your gracious, merciful ways. Amen.
Beth Price is part of the customer care team at Diocesan. She is a Secular Franciscan (OFS) and a practicing spiritual director. Beth shares smiles, prayers, laughter, a listening ear and her heart with all of creation. Reach her here bprice@diocesan.com.
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Abbot and miracle worker, called “the Wise.” Born in Capua, Italy, he became a monk in Monte Cassino and was called to the attention of a Princess Aloara of the region. When she built a new convent in Capua, Alder became the director of the religious in the established house. He performed many miracles in this capacity. Aldemar was reassigned by his abbot to Monte Cassino, a move that angered the princess. As a result, Aldemar went to Boiana, Italy, where a companion involved in the …
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill my heart with Your holy gifts.
Let my weakness be penetrated with Your strength this very day
that I may fulfill all the duties of my state conscientiously,
that I may do what is right and just.
Let my charity be such as to offend no one,
and hurt no one’s feelings;
so generous as to pardon sincerely any wrong done to me.
Assist me, O Holy Spirit,
in all my trials of life,
enlighten me in my ignorance,
advise me in my doubts,
strengthen me in my …