Displaying items by tag: lectio divina
Lectio Divina December, 2024
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice, and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.
Lectio Divina November, 2024
Opening Prayer
Lord, the meaning of our life is to seek your Word, which came to us in the person of Christ. Make me capable of welcoming what is new in the Gospel of the Beatitudes, so that I may change my life. I would know nothing about you were it not for the light of the words spoken by your Son Jesus, who came to tell us of your marvels. When I am weak, if I go to Him, the Word of God, then I become strong. When I act foolishly, the wisdom of his Gospel restores me to relish God and the kindness of his love. He guides me to the paths of life. When some deformity appears in me, I reflect on his Word and the image of my personality becomes beautiful. When solitude tries to make me dry, my spiritual marriage to him makes my life fruitful. When I discover some sadness or unhappiness in myself, the thought of Him, my only good, opens the way to joy. Therese of the Child Jesus has a saying that sums up the desire for holiness as an intense search for God and a listening to others: «If you are nothing, remember that Jesus is all. You must therefore lose your little nothing into his infinite all and think of nothing else but this uniquely lovable all…» (Letters, 87, to Marie Guérin).
Lectio Divina October 2024
Opening Prayer
Father, You show Your almighty power in Your mercy and forgiveness. Continue to fill us with Your gifts of love. Help us to hurry towards the eternal life You promise and come to share in the joys of Your kingdom. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Lectio Divina September, 2024
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice, and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, Son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.
Lectio Divina August, 2024
Opening Prayer
God our Father and protector, without you nothing is holy, nothing has value.
Guide us to everlasting life by helping us to use wisely the blessings you have given to the world.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Lectio Divina July 2024
Opening Prayer
Father, guide and protector of Your people, grant us an unfailing respect for Your name, and keep us always in Your love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Lectio Divina June 2024
Opening Prayer
Lord, Father of goodness and mercy, You have sent your Son Jesus from heaven to reveal to us the authority and the sweetness of your love. Send us your Holy Spirit as He descended upon Christ on the baptism in the Jordan River, and the heavens open with your voice of salvation: "You are my Son, my beloved," may our hearts not discuss, nor close, but in full confidence that they can welcome your light and embracement of the Father, now and forever. Amen.
Lectio Divina May 2024
Opening Prayer
Lord, You are! And this is sufficient for us, to live by, to go on hoping every day, to walk in this world, not to choose the wrong road of being closed and lonely. Yes, You are forever and from all time; You are constant, O Jesus! Your being is our constant gift; it is an ever ripe fruit that feeds and strengthens us in You, in Your presence. Lord, open our heart, open our being to Your being; open us to life with the mysterious power of Your Word. Help us to listen, to eat and savor this food for our souls, which is indispensable for us! Send us the good fruit of Your Spirit so that He may bring about in us that which we read and meditate about You.
Lectio Divina April 2024
Opening Prayer
Our living God,
our heart is glad and rejoices and we feel secure in our faith that we have a living person to believe in, Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead. Let him show us the path of life, let us live in the joy of his presence and give us the grace to make us witnesses, so that we can proclaim with our whole life that Jesus is our risen, living Lord now and forever.
Lectio Divina March 2024
Opening Prayer
God, we do not want to die; we want to live.
We want to be happy but without paying the price. We belong to our times, when sacrifice and suffering are out of fashion. God, make our life worth living.
Give us back the age-old realization, that life means to be born again and again in pain, that it may become again a journey of hope to You, together with Christ Jesus, our Lord.