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Lent is a time for us to grow closer to the Lord.
Prayer is a key piece of this, and praying with Scripture is a wonderful way to enter into conversation with the Lord.
In today’s video, Fr. Mark Toups—author of The Ascension Lenten Companion and the Rejoice! Advent series—teaches us how to pray with the Word of God.
Come and learn.
How to discern God’s will is one of Fr. Mark-Mary’s favorite topics. He has some principles he uses to guide his discernment. He narrows these principles down to four: needs, responsibilities, desires, and capacities. Needs: We need to be intimate with God’s word. He has already given us his word, but often we haven’t read it before discerning. Have a regular relationship with the Word of God. The primary place we should look to learn his will is in Scripture. Responsibilities: School, your career, or your living situation are examples of responsibilities that you should consider when figuring out God’s will for you. God probably isn’t calling you to travel the world as a missionary if you’re the father of five kids under seven. If you’re a student who needs to study, God probably is not calling you to go on a service trip with friends. Desires: Even though they shouldn’t determine everything, your desires do matter. If a desire doesn’t go against the other principles, then do it. Capacities: If you want to do service and grow in your relationship with God, understand your limitations. If you’re honest about your capacities, God will understand. Maybe you just don’t have the capacity to make that extra commitment. Whether or not you can do something is important, and if you can’t that’s nothing to be ashamed of. God is probably calling you to something else. If you push yourself too much you may end up hurting yourself and others. Lastly, we can all do a better job serving the needs of the poor. When discerning, do not forget what you can do for them. Remember, we are pilgrims. Little by little, we’re going to make it.
We can refer to scripture, and to our own lives, to see evidence that names are very powerful. What we call someone can indicate how close we are to them. What we call God can do the same thing. There is power in the name of God. Which name do you use when you talk to him?
“The road to Emmaus thus becomes a symbol of our journey of faith: the Scriptures and the Eucharist are the indispensable elements for encountering the Lord. We too often go to Sunday Mass with our worries, difficulties and disappointments…. Life sometimes wounds us and we go away feeling sad, towards our “Emmaus,” turning our backs on God’s plan. We distance ourselves from God. But the Liturgy of the Word welcomes us: Jesus explains the Scriptures to us and rekindles in our hearts the warmth of faith and hope, and in Communion he gives us strength.”—Pope Francis
The story of Emmaus carries a depth of feeling that resonates with us because we’ve all experienced some level of disappointed hopes and dreams in our lives. Dreams jobs turn to daily drudgery. Failed relationships leave us brokenhearted. Illness and injury break our bodies and sometimes our spirits. If we’re in the midst of such a time, the pope’s words can sound hollow to our ears. And yet, if we heed them, we will discover the deeper truth to which they point. The Word of God can speak a word of hope and promise to our despair. The Bread of Life can fill an emptiness, a hunger, that gnaws at us. Sometimes all we have to do is show up. We have to make that much of an effort. Often we go with no expectations, almost no hope. And God surprises us with the right word, the right thought, a much-needed smile or hug from someone. The message of Easter is that God shows up when we least expect it: a voice in the garden calling our name, a stranger on the road, a tap on the shoulder, breakfast on the beach or dinner after a long day at work. Sometimes the alleluias are quiet, but no less heartfelt for all that.
— from the book The Hope of Lent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis,
by Diane M. Houdek
//Franciscan Media//
“If you wish to explore the Holy Scripture, and you overcome your laziness and apply yourself, thirsting for the knowledge, then every good thing will be yours. You will fill your mind with the divine light. Then, when you apply that light to the doctrines of the Church, you will very easily recognize everything that is true and unadulterated, and lay it up in the hidden treasures of your soul.”— St. Cyril of Alexandria, p. 167
//The Catholic Company//
What precisely is the meaning of the temptations in the desert to Jesus’s humanity? That would seem to be the meaning and application for us today. In short, I see the three temptations as the primal and universal temptations that all humans must face before they dare take on any kind of power—as Jesus is about to do. They are all temptations to the misuse of power for purposes less than God’s purpose. They are sequentially the misuse of practical everyday power, the misuse of religious power, and the misuse of political power. These are the constant tragedies that keep defeating humanity. Jesus passes all three tests, and thus “the devil left him” because he could not be used for lesser purposes. If you face such demons in yourself, God can and will use you mightily. Otherwise, you will, for sure, be used!
But let me point out something we almost always fail to notice. We can only be tempted to something that is good on some level, partially good, or good for some, or just good for us and not for others. Temptations are always about “good” things, or we could not be tempted: in these cases “bread,” “Scripture,” and “kingdoms in their magnificence.” Most people’s daily ethical choices are not between total good and total evil, but between various shades of good, a partial good that is wrongly perceived as an absolute good (because of the self as the central reference point), or even evil that disguises itself as good. These are what get us into trouble.
—from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM