Category: Daily Reflections for Lent

Jesus, Expand Me that I may Walk as YOU would and that my Mercy shines light like a Light, In Your Name.

This Lent and in Everyday – Seek Justice!

Fasting and Abstinence are two forms of sacrifice during the Lenten season in which we deny our desire for food (fasting) and meat (abstinence) so that we are better able to focus on Jesus.

Can you imagine what it was like for Peter, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, and all of Jesus’ other close friends on the day after he died? It was the Sabbath, so they couldn’t do anything to keep busy. Was that a blessing or a curse?

He said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. —John 19:30

Stephen Jenkinson teaches in hospitals, medical schools, and palliative care settings that our culture often puts people on a “not allowed to die” list.

One of my favorite liturgies of the year is the Holy Thursday Mass at my parish, when all are invited forward to get their feet washed and wash the feet of another person. I know not all churches invite everyone in the pews to do this,

When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” —Matthew 26:20-21

I escaped being the victim of a major betrayal until I was 29 years old when one of my closest friends and housemates inexplicably turned on me,

I will sing of your salvation. —Psalm 71:15

During Lent last year, our church offered a variety of small groups as we tried to take concrete actions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. There were groups focused on reducing clutter (“making space for grace”),

I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations. —Isaiah 42:6

There has always been debate about this passage.

Every year on Palm Sunday, I wonder how much of the Passion the kids in the pews should be hearing. Anyone who has listened to the entire Passion story knows it is intense and disturbing. Then again, many parents don’t think twice about letting their children see a movie that contains violence and killing or read books about the same.

So from that day on they planned to put him to death… Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.