Lent

MORNING PRAYER ON MONDAYS IN LENT: CANTICLES

1 Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,* that you should follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, no guile was found on his lips,* when he was reviled, he did not revile in turn.

When he suffered, he did not threaten,* but he trusted in God who judges justly.

Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,* that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep,* but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

2 Come, let us return to the Lord* for he has torn, that he may heal us;he has stricken, and he will bind us up.

After two days he will revive us* on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord* his going forth is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

What shall I do with you, O E’phraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? * Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets* I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgement goes forth as the light.

HOLY HOUR ON TUESDAYS IN LENT

Sitting in Church in silence may be a new experience and not an immediately comfortable one. Attentiveness, mindfulness is not ‘doing nothing’ but takes effort:

‘You are not here to verify/ Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity/ Or carry report. You are here to kneel/ Where prayer has been valid’

T.S. Eliot ‘Little Gidding’

The old farmer knelt regularly before the reserved sacrament in the church at Ars in France and when the priest asked what he was doing he simply replied: “I look at Him and He looks at me.”

This silence is not the absence of noise but the abode of God, symbolized for us this evening by the consecrated wafer seen in the monstrance on the altar.

Blessed be God.

Blessed be His Holy Name.

Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.

Blessed be the Name of Jesus.

Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.

Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.

Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most Holy.

Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother. Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints

Blessed be God.