For your prayerful meditation on the three practices of Lent

I invite you to read the quotes below in the spirit of Lectio divina: notice what word, phrase, or line catch your attention, tug at your heart, speak to you. Take a few minutes to ruminate on it. Then, based on your meditation, offer a prayer to God. It might be a prayer of remorse or gratefulness or a cry for help or direction or protection or for a family member or friend or courage or our country. Then, the way a sunbather lets the radiance and warmth of the sun shine on her, spend some time in silence letting God’s love shine on you.

PRAYING

Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit. ~ Joan Chittister

GIVING TO THE POOR AND NEEDFUL

Bread for myself is a material question.
Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

FASTING

“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers. . .
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

~ Isaiah 58: 3, 4b – 10