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 your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time or prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father and Lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.
Salvation history is a history of repentance and conversion. Here is the history of many women and men who moved by grace have repented, converted, changed the trajectory of their lives. There is the story of Abraham whose family had been worshippers of idols in Ur. His conversion and that of his family from idolatry to the worship of the one true God begins by Abraham’s obeying the voice of God, emigrating from the lands of Ur to the land of Canaan. Abram would become Abraham the father of God’s people, our Father in faith, because of his conversion he’s changed in trajectory. There is the story of Ruth. After her husband died, Naomi, her mother-in-law, insisted that she returns to her family. Finally! I can get rid of my daughter-in-law – Naomi might have thought. Moved by grace, Ruth refuses to leave her, and in fact, decides to go with her to Bethlehem. She says: Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. And your God, my God. The God of Israel becomes her God. This conversion, this change in trajectory, led Ruth to marry Booz and to have a son named Obed, who would one day become the grandfather of King David. King David himself knew well what conversion is all about. During the final battle against the ammonites, King David sent his army to wage war, but he chose to remain in Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, he notices Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of his great warriors. We know the story well: the King seduced Bathsheba, and she conceived a son. And the king tried to hide his sin. First, from Uriah, by using him as a shield. When this did not work, he sent Uriah to battle, placing him in the frontline, where he knew he would not come out alive. After hearing of his death, the king took Bathsheba for his wife. The problem solved. Until God confronted him through the Prophet Nathan, convicting him of the evil he had done. Aware of what he had done, the King acknowledged his sin and pleaded for forgiveness. Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offense. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. My offenses truly I know them; my sin is always before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned; what is evil in your sight I have done. After his grave sin, King David repented, converted, changed trajectory, returned to God with a contrite heart. And how is he remembered? As a man after God’s own heart. If we fast forward a few centuries later, we cannot forget the conversion of Saint Paul as a powerful example of changing trajectory. Describing his life before his conversion, Saint Paul writes: For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. But all of this changed on the road to Damascus, when he encountered the risen Lord, who confronted him saying: Saul, why do you persecute me? Or how about the great Saint Augustine? Who for many years rejected his Christian upbringing, fathered a son with a young mistress, but who one day would convert, change trajectory, and confess: Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness.
We can go on and on with many, many other examples. These well-known ones might help us make one point: You, Lord, want us to convert, to repent, to change the trajectory in our lives. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew present to us your first words as you began your public ministry, in a way this was your first sermon, your first homily. What did you say? Repent and believe the good news. Repent. For the kingdom of heaven has come near. Repent. Through your public ministry, you taught us that change of direction is what you expect from us, especially when we have gone astray such as in the parable of the prodigal son. Your teaching comes to life when you encounter the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery, both of whom lived radically different lives after their conversion. In the gospel, you reproach the towns in which most of your miracles had been worked because they refused to repent. You say: Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Lord, we do not want to be Chorazin or Bethsaida, unwilling to repent. We want to be Abraham, Ruth, King David, Paul, Augustine, all of whom repented, converted, changed trajectory in their lives after their encountered with you. In this time of prayer, I can ask myself: Which direction am I going in my life? Am I going the right way or have I gone astray by choices I have made? If I am going the right way, conversion is not finished. We remain unfinished, unfinished products, always capable of becoming more and more like you, Jesus, and every Jesus on earth.
So let us not become lukewarm, self-satisfied. Let us continue to struggle to the end. If I have gone astray by choices I have made in life, why not change ways? Why not repent and convert? In a way it is quite simple: All I need to do is come to my senses, get up, and go to confession. There in the confessional, God will embrace me and rejoice. For I was dead and I have come to life. I was lost and have been found. Lord, you came to heal the sick, to call sinners. Grant me the grace to know my sickness, to know my sin. The last thing we want is to live in pretense, pretending that conversion is for everyone else but not for me since I am okay. Repentance and conversion do not begin with hovers, but with me. I need to convert. I need to repent. I need to change or rectify the trajectory of my life, again and again and again. Mary, refuge of sinners, my mother, help me repent, convert, change the trajectory, so that I may be with you and your son in heaven.
It´s the end
I thank you, my God, for the good solutions, affections and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect, my Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.
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