10 minutes wih Jesus are group of Catholic priests who share friendship with Jesus, plus keenness to help young people of all ages to learn the art of loving Jesus and speaking to Him. You can find them in WhatsApp, Spotify, Ivoox, Telegram, Goggle Podcasts and Apple Podcast. Every saturday, we are going to share one meditation by 10 minutes with Jesus. Enjoy it.
My Lord and my God. I firmly believe that you are here; that you see me; that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask you for pardon of my sins and grace to make this time of Prayer fruitful. My mother Immaculate, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.
Lent 2020
With Ash Wednesday begins the forty days of Lent which is the time that the church gives us for a more intense life of prayer and of penance, nor this in preparation for the great feast of Easter. We begin Lent with a special day of fasting and abstinence. Fasting meaning one meal and two snacks an abstinence meaning abstaining from meat. The law of fasting required only applies to Catholics who are aged between normally 18 and 60. But it varies from country to country and there’s only one other such day during the year and that is Good Friday. It’s a little bit of a tough day. I have to confess that I wake up on us wednesday already feeling hungry just thinking about the day ahead. But look the church isn’t so gloomy about Lent. In fact, she tells us Lent is a great time. She quotes St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians when he says “well now is the favorable time. This is the day of salvation”. And obviously the church is applying that to Lent, and in particular to Ash Wednesday. So not such a gloomy time after all. It is a special season as a favorable time. A time when God is making available to us special Grace’s which really aren’t there at other times. So it is a special season.
The reward
Their notice by doing this you lose all reward from your father in heaven. And a little later Jesus goes on to say: “when you pray do not imitate the hypocrites. Tthey love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them”. And then, again, a little later, on when you first do not put on a gloomy look as the hypocrites do. They pull long faces to let men know they’re fasting. Well let’s stop and look at that a little more closely to understand what you were saying to us Lord, because you were talking about the three practices of lent: arms giving, praying and fasting. Tjhese are the traditional three practices of Lent. And our Lord talks of a thing. I suppose you could say the length of the Pharisees when they give arms what they’re really thinking of is parading. These good deeds in front of everybody having them trumpet it before them and they did actually literally do, that they would have hardman with trumpets and their brother trumpets in preparation for the act of pouring money into the donations basket. So everybody would look around and see just how much money they were putting in. So literally trumpeting their good works. In the second one, they the saying of prayers, Jesus says they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues everybody can see them. And marvel at how pious these men are. And then the third instance Jesus also talks about their fasting when they put on especially long faces so everybody can say: “Oh wow that guy is really fasting”. Well now look at it this man Jesus is telling us they all see fasting and praying and giving arms in a purely superficial way. Now that is a little warning to us. You and I could look on Lent in every superficial ways all being about the externals.
An example
For example, I could just think well lend is all about just giving up sweets cutting down on food. Maybe give him the cigarettes but what I’m really thinking of is that in fact maybe especially food in cigarette the food and sweets. That I really think well this is great at the end of Lent I’d be nice and slim which is great. But it’s not what Lent is about are my lungs will be healthier again great but it’s not what Lent is about. Jesus want me to go much much deeper the gospel passage goes on Jesus says. But when you pray go to your private room and when you shut your door pray to your father who is in that secret place and your father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. Well what is that private room Jesus is not just speaking about a physica-room. Maybe now you are in your own room, in your bedroom, listening to this podcast but it’s not that there’s a saint very already. A saint in the life of the church, Saint John Cassian, and he explains there what Jesus is talking about. He says we pray in our room whenever we withdraw our hearts completely from the tomb of the noise of our thoughts and our worries and when secretly and intimately we offer our prayer to the Lord. We can see that private room is being our heart you Jesus are asking me to go into that inner room of your heart. This Lent and to really pray secretly and intimately. And one of the things that we’re going to do in that secret in intimate prayer is to examine my heart what things are there that should not be there. Remember a heart is the place of our desires and longings. Our heart is set on what we love and all of us to some degree or other are suffering from what we might call heart disease. The problem is that our heart is not set properly in its relationship to God. That’s why we need prayer to others. That’s why we need what we called arms giving and even to ourselves. And that’s why we need fasting those three practices are related fasting to oneself prayer to God. Arms giving to others because they are trying to put right our relationship where our heart stands in relationship to oneself to God and to others.
Pope Francis says
Pope Francis put it very well when he said that Jesus tells us that it’s not a matter of applying makeup to the soul, but of changing it with almsgiving and fasting without a choose of service and detachment and with prayer. So makeup of the soul would just be purely superficial. We really want to change our soul, change our heart. We need it. We need a total overhaul of our hearts. We ask God a pure heart create for me. God put a steadfast spirit within me. Every conversion is a change of heart. Aand this often requires a kind of reality check first. And we can be asking our Lord again. Lord give me this reality check this great book written by the famous Russian writer the last century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He started his life as young man as convinced communists. And so during the Russian army, in the Soviet Army, and during the Second World War, he kind of at the beginning of a conversion. He was arrested. It’s a long story, in which he essentially is a reality check and he comes to see how pompous and cruel and proud he was. He writes about it in his book, he realizes how crude he was towards his subordinates. “I tossed out orders to my subordinates that I would not allow them to question convinced that no orders could be wiser”. And goes on my power soon convinced me that I was a superior human being should commands. I address fathers and grandfathers with a familiar downgrading form of address. And so on he realizes how “pompous I have been”. And that’s the beginning of his conversion. We have to ask our Lord as we begin Lent. Lord shine a light on my heart. I need to break this old heart of mine and to start again. Now does the Lord speaks: “come back to me with all your heart, fasting weeping morning”. Let your hearts be broken. Not your garments torn. Let’s ask Jesus for a deeper tearing or breaking of our hearts, not something superficial. This length merely the garments are much deeper. Jesus and Mary happy to start again and create for me a new heart.
It´s the end
I give you thanks my God for the good resolutions, affections and inspirations you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask you for help to put them into effect. My Mother Inmaculate, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord,my guardian ange,l intercede for me.
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