Lenten Resolve

Get outside. If you can't get outside, gaze upon the nature you bring into your house. Look at a plant. Look to nature to nurture you. It is as reliable as the God who provides it.

Prayer: Beyond

We trust that beyond the hurting there may be forgiveness,

that beyond the silence there may be the word,

that beyond the word there may be understanding

that through the understanding there is love.

We trust that beyond absence there is a presence,

that beyond the pain there can be healing,

that beyond the brokenness there can be wholeness,

that beyond the anger there may be peace.

We share with you the agony of your grief.

The anguish of your heart finds echo in our own.

We know we cannot enter all you feel

nor bear with you the burden of your pain.

We can but offer what love does give;

the strength of caring,

the warmth of one who seeks to understand,

the silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.

This we do in quiet ways,

that on your lonely path

you may not walk alone.

Lenten Resolve

It is difficult to distinguish between knowing when you "have enough" and "want more."Ask the questions: "What do I need?", "What do I want?", and throughout the day ask, "Do I really need more?"

Prayer: Hilary of Poitiers

In every way Christ teaches us to be like him in humility and goodness. In weakening and breaking the impulses of our rampant passions, he strengthens us by the example of his leniency, by granting us in faith pardon of all our sins.

Lenten Resolve

Do not expect so much from the "more" - and so little from the "less." Expect a lot from less. You will not be disappointed.

Prayer: "A Prayer" from God's Trombones

(A negro spiritual)

O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before thy throne of grace.
O Lord -- this morning --
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning --
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord -- open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.

Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners --
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lord -- ride by this morning --
Mount your milk-white horse,

And ride-a this morning --
And in your ride, ride by old hell,
Ride by the dingy gates of hell,
And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.

And now, O Lord, this man of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning --
Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,
And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take him, Lord -- this morning --
Wash him with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth --
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning --
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.

And now, O Lord --
When I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow --
When I've been called everything but a child of God --
When I'm done travelling up the rough side of the mountain --
O -- Mary's Baby --

When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death --
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet --
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin' up morning -- Amen.

Lenten Resolve

Celebrate the ordinary and mundane. Your heart knows the comfort and the beauty in common things. Allow yourself to actively sense them. Let your senses and heart inform your head and imagination.

Novena of Grace in Honor of Francis Xavier

Jesuits and their colleagues worldwide pray a Novena of Grace in honor of Francis Xavier, one of the founding Jesuits who was missioned to the Far East and the Indies. This nine-day period of prayer was instituted in gratitude for the canonization of Xavier and Ignatius of Loyola in 1622. The prayer runs from March 4th to March 12th. The Novena is imbedded below.


Lord God, our Father, we honor the memory of the Apostle of the East, St. Francis Xavier. The remembrance of the favors with which You blessed him during life and of his glory after death, fills us with joy; and we unite with him in offering to You our sincere tribute of thanksgiving and of grace.

We ask You to grant us, through his powerful intercession, the inestimable blessings of living and dying in the state of grace. We also ask You to grant us the favors we seek in this novena.

(Pause for personal petitions)

But if what we ask is not for the glory of God and the good of our souls, grant us, we pray, what is more conducive to both. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Closing Prayer

Almighty God, by the preaching of St. Francis Xavier You won many peoples to Yourself. Give his zeal for the faith to all who believe in You, that Your Church may rejoice to see the virtue and number of the faithful increase throughout the world. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Lenten Resolve

Welcome your role in the drama of creation. (Also, use Proverbs 8 to see Lady Wisdom's role.) Imagine the part you play as a leading role, but once in a while, keep still and let God speak the parts.

Prayer: Francis de Sales

We must not think that God tests us in order to lead us to evil, for that simply cannot be. God tests his most beloved servants so that they might prove their love and fidelity for him, and that they might accomplish great and shining works.