Daily Prayer

 

Day 17, Lord, wash away my hidden faults, from pride persevere Your servant

  Two things are very important to lead a prayer life that is, zeal and constancy. Always be joyful whatever comes in our life and persevere in hardship. ‘In the service of the Lord, work not half-heartedly but with consciousness and an eager spirit. Be joyful in hope, persevere in hardship; keep praying regularly.’ Rom. 12: 11-12. If we can cry bitterly with tears for our sins through humility and we are blessed by God with that gift of prayer which He will entrust to us as He gave to all His saints. We should pray like this: Lord, ‘Wash away my hidden faults. And from pride persevere your servant, never let it be my master. So shall I be above reproach, free from grave sin. May the words of my mouth always find favour, And the whispering of my heart, In your presence, Yahweh, My rock, my redeemer’ Ps. 19: 12-14. The pride should not be our master when we lead a spiritual life. A clear conscience should be there to understand our weakness and failures. ‘I have conversed this present day with all good conscience before God until this present day.’ Acts. 23:1 This will make us to be humble in front of God and men.  A pure soul never use so many words in front our Lord instead she will cry or lament for her sins.

Daily Prayer

Midnight Prayer

 Day 16, Lord, let me awake in the watch of the night to praise You!

 We should have the zeal to do the prayer in the midnight. Br. Victor gave advice to Bros., to do the holy hour in the midnight. Praying in the midnight is a great virtue, by constant prayer we will be blessed with this grace to pray. But not to be dishearten from this. Jesus understands this and we have to keep our thirst to do such kind of sacrificial prayer. First of all we should try to wake up in the middle of the night between 1 and 2’o clock. Psalmist says about this mystery: ‘My eyes are awake before each watch of the night, to ponder your promise.’ Ps. 119: 148. While getting up praise God with one or two Psalms with a great devotion with love towards our Lord. Continue it for few days, then our Lord will increase our faith and zeal towards Him. According to our Constancy in prayer, God will increase the timing of our prayer by His tremendous grace. This is the best time to meditate the Word of God and ponder into our heart. We have to train ourselves to that kind of heart and will; to serve the Lord with a great zeal. Psalmist again says: Psalm 102:1–2 (NJB): 1” Yahweh, hear my prayer, let my cry for help reach you. 2 Do not turn away your face from me  when I am in trouble; bend down and listen to me, when I call, be quick to answer me!” Our Lord will listen our prayer and He is very quick to answer our prayers

 

Daily Prayer

 

Day 15, Lord, make me humble, let me find favour in Your presence

  So humble ourselves in the presence of our Lord. Br Victor in a talk told that, meditate Sirach. 3: 18 thousand times before you pray or open the Bible to meditate the Word of God. ‘The greater you are, the more humbly you should behave, and then you will find favour with the Lord.’ Sir.3: 18. The humility is the most difficult virtue. The humble will accept all the persecutions gladly without retaliating. The humble never expect any reward after doing good to others. The humble always try to serve others wholeheartedly. The humility always comes from our heart and act by the will of God. The humble will be satisfied in the content with what they have. ‘Religion, of course, does bring large profits, but only to those who are content with what they have. The humble never will be greedy for anything and never proud in their heart.’1Timo. 6:6. Then God will carry our all our burdens, sins and all other ailments in our daily life. Be like a beggar in front of Him. Jesus asks us to learn from him the gentleness and humbleness. ‘Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for hour souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’Mattl.11:28-30. If we trust in Him, he will guide us to get the strength to carry all the worries and tribulations in a smiling way. When we pray to God in strong faith he will provide us whatever we ask.

Daily Prayer

 

Day 14,  Lord, day and night, let me hear Your Holy Word

  Let us be silent in nature while praying and wait for the Lord. He will give the  words through His Spirit to pray because the Spirit is inspiring us and interceding for us in front of God. Romans 8:26–27 (NJB): 26 And as well as this, the Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; 27 and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God’s holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God. Then again be silent and meditate the mercies of our Lord towards us sinners. Stop our thoughts and worries of this contemporary world; all this will decay. Our worries and doubts will be hindrance to approach our Lord.

  How our Lord will help us no one knows. He will be there in all our troubles and tribulations Wisdom of Solomon 18:21 (NJB): ’for a blameless man hurried to their defence. Wielding the weapons of his sacred office, prayer and expiating incense, he confronted Retribution and put an end to the plague, thus showing that he was your servant.’ Jesus is coming, the spotless and blameless to redeem us by his sacred office, the prayer and incense. How wonderful it is if our Lord hear our prayers as well as when we hear His voice, His Word. 

Daily Prayer

Day 13, Lord, take away all my pride in possessions and all other earthly matters go off from my mind and heart. 

  While we are praying we should use less words and speak to our Lord in the language of love and with full heart and conviction. ‘In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this. Our Father who art in Heaven…………’ Matt. 6: 7-9. St There’s of Avila wrote a book ‘The way of Perfection’ about the “Our Father ………”Prayer which Jesus taught the Apostles and disciples. Meditate about the mysteries of God. Meditate the mysteries in the Rosary and pray it from our heart with full of love towards the Mother of Jesus, our Mother. Kneel down in front of His footstool, the earth and bend our head down, lift our heart and mind to our Lord and pray like this: ‘Lord, I am an unworthy in front of you, I am a sinner, have mercy on me Lord!’ Lord! Let my pride in possessions and all other earthly matters go off from my mind and heart.’

  Honour Him always in words and deeds. Do not make empty promises to God. Be faithful to our promises and oaths towards our Lord. " I am bound by the vows I have made, God, I will pay you the debt of thanks, Ps 56:12" Do not forget to do anything which God has asked us to do. Plead to Him for cleanse us from all our sins.

 

Daily Prayer

 

Day 12,  Leave the crowd, go to a lonely and secret place to pray, as Jesus did!

  We should leave the crowd to receive grace of God in its fullness. Jesus never wasted the time even for a minute serving his Father. After finish the preaching; he leaves the crowd and goes to a lonely place for prayer. ‘After sending the crowds away he went up into the hills by himself to pray.’ (Matt. 14: 23) Jesus went alone to pray. We need the personnel prayer for the union with God. In the Morning and Evening; Jesus done the personnel prayer according to the Fathers’ will. ‘In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.’(Mk. 1: 35) Our Lord has given us so many examples of prayer life by his own way of life. He prayed and fasted for forty days in the desert and was tested by Satan. ‘Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days being put to the test by the devil. During the time he ate nothing…………’Satan knew he was hungry and he tempted Jesus and asked him, ‘if you are Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.’ But Jesus replied, ‘Scripture says: Human beings live not on bread alone.’ Lk. 4: 1-13 He prayed fervently even he was tested by Satan but he didn’t fail in anything. When he has chosen the apostles, he prayed whole night lonely in a mountain. He chose the apostles after long hours of prayer.  ‘Now it happened in those days that he went onto the mountain to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them apostles.’ Lk. 6: 12-13

Daily Prayer

 

Day 11. Prayer is the key to open the house, which our Lord prepared for each one of us. 

  Our Lord is inviting us to find our secret place, the castle which God has given us. Let us pray with a humble and wailing heart. The intensity of tears and in the fullness of love of God is the invitation, to be alone with Him in silence. The tears are the blessing from God those whom love Him and make themselves humble in front of God and men. We should be like beggars in the presence of God like Lazerous sitting in front of the gate of a rich man’s house. This will happen, when we humble ourselves and produce the wholesome virtue of holiness. Then we start producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  “Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self control.” Gal. 5: 22. This is the way prayer goes and prayer is always to be filled with the love of God. 

  Jesus already made the castle or house for each one of us when he resurrected and ascended into heaven. But we have to be qualified for that according to His will. The first thing we have to do is pray, pray and pray!!! Prayer is the key to our castle which God has prepared for us. Prayer is the union with God and the oneness with Him. Pray to our Lord for the holiness with a contrite heart.  “But my eyes always are drawn to the person of humble and contrite heart and those trembles at his Word.” Is. 66:2. There is no other way to approach the divine door of Kingdom. That’s what Jesus says: ‘In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you……….’Jon. 14: 2-3. Each castle will be different according to the measure of our faithfulness.