2024 Magnificat Lenten Companion

By Magnificat

Lent is a time to refocus our hearts and revive our love of the Lord and one another.

A Companion for the Forty Days of Lent (from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday)

Designed in a convenient, easy-to-use format:
- Inspiring daily reflections from some of the most gifted Catholic writers
- Faith-filled essays
- Prayers, poetry, and devotions
- Meditations for the Way of the Cross
- A treasury of spiritual insights

By spending a few moments meditating on the inspiring daily reflections and the short prayers that follow them, you will accompany Jesus through his Passion and Death, emerging on Easter Sunday to the overflowing joy of his Resurrection.

Let the profound yet practical insights you will find in this little spiritual treasury form and focus your spiritual life, filling it with new conviction and purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639670581

Book preview

Lenten Penance Service

FATHER RICHARD VERAS

Greeting

There is a temptation to see Lent as a time of self-improvement, during which my focus is on myself. However, my sin shows me that my hope can never be in myself. My only hope is that someone save me. Saint Paul says: I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want…. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:19, 24-25a). Let our focus be not on ourselves, but on Jesus. Let us turn toward Jesus Christ and beg for a renewed experience of his presence. He is the one who saves me from my miserable condition; it is his merciful gaze that awakens and transforms me.

Hymn

The Glory of These Forty Days

Opening Prayer

God our Father, we are like Peter sinking into the water, whose faith falters until Jesus grabs his hand; we are like the thief deserving crucifixion, whose hope does not exist until he hears the words of Jesus; we are like the Samaritan woman lost in our shame, who knows not love until she finds Jesus waiting for her at the well. Bring us back to you through the encounter with your Son Jesus Christ, the origin and goal of our faith, hope, and love. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Word of God

Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. Jesus answered him, It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ Then the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me. Jesus said to him in reply, It is written:/ ‘You shall worship the Lord, your God,/ and him alone shall you serve.’/ Then the devil led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written:/ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,/ to guard you,’/ and:/ ‘With their hands they will support you,/ lest you dash your foot against a stone.’/ Jesus said to him in reply, It also says, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’ When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. (Lk 4:1-13)

Meditation

How does Jesus resist the temptations of the devil? He is not relying on moral strength or trying hard to adhere to a code of ethics. It is Jesus’ unwavering love, trust, and affection for his Father that renders the devil and his temptations powerless.

The child who gets lost from his mother in the toy store cares nothing for any of the toys until he finds his mother again. No toy can tempt him away from his search for his mother. This is not because the child is a moral giant, but because the child wants his mommy!

Jesus sees everything, from bread to all the kingdoms of the world, as meaningless without the love of his Father. When the devil tempts Jesus to test his Father’s love, Jesus knows that love which is manipulated is not love at all, and cannot compare to the free and abundant Love which is his Father.

The devil wants Jesus to doubt the Father and to conceive of himself without the Father; for when Jesus’ heart is with his Father, the devil’s temptations are revealed for the nothingness that they are.

As long as I conceive of myself as alone, and as long as I conceive of God as far away from the truest and deepest longings of my heart, I will always sin. I will continually set my heart on things that will never answer its infinite longing.

Zacchaeus set his heart on wealth, the adulteress set her heart on a fleeting feeling of love, Nicodemus set his heart on his good reputation; it is only the presence of Jesus that opens their hearts to something more. It is not their own strength but the gaze of Jesus that changes them. This same gaze attracts the rich young man and Pontius Pilate, but they both sadly turn away and return to their respective prisons of wealth and power.

Our hope is not in our strength, but in gazing upon Christ who first gazes upon us.

Examination of Conscience

For the times when I forget that I need a Savior, and arrogantly rely on myself as if I am sufficient to myself: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me!

For the times when I trust my sinful attachments more than the Father’s love: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me!

For the times when I allow my own reactions and opinions to supersede the truth of the Father revealed to me through Christ in his Church: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me!

For the times when I shun the presence of Christ, whether it be his sacramental presence or his presence through the people he puts in my life: Lord Jesus, have mercy on