Great Lent Today
Day 2 - First Tuesday of the Great Lent
Prayer
"Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
Prompt our actions with your
inspiration, we pray, O Lord,
and further them with your constant help,
that all we do may always begin from you
and by you be brought to completion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
In His Steps - A Lenten Series
Today: Bethlehem: Birthplace of a King
Daily Meditation:
The Journey Begins
There are so many lessons for our journey in this prayer.
It starts with God's inspiration.
We are reminded of the breath of life that God breathed at the beginning of
creation
and the driving wind of the Holy Spirit's coming at Pentecost.
The grace for all we are about to do comes from God.
Today we pray to be open to it.
Today we also acknowledge that for us to what we need to do these six weeks,
we need God's continuing help.
Each day, with every prayer, every sacrifice, every act of generosity
we will need help which can only come from God.
And, finally, we need God's guidance to persevere to the end.
There will be tough choices, not only between good and evil,
but choices about what is the greater good.
We may even be called to do something quite heroic and self-sacrificing.
A wonderful prayer. Easy to remember, even memorize.
It is possible to say it every day.
(Source: Creighton University
Online Ministries)
Preface for meditation
by Prince Mathew
Great Lent is a wonderful opportunity to do our job, that is, mainly our
returning to Him, repentance. Indeed, repentance is the most blessed and
God-given way of returning to Him. In Orthodox perspective, our whole life as
believers is a way of constant returning to Him with gratitude – to the point of
union with God. Even in the midst of spiritual growth, our main job has to
remain in repentance. Then, God does His part, multiplying His blessing,
purifying, illumining and sanctifying us. It is only through our repentance, we
meet His grace.
According to St. John Chrysostom, repentance consists of confession, fasting,
prayers, forgiveness, almsgiving and humility. Here, we see why the Great Lent
is a blessed time, as we are reminded by all of these. Our endeavor on the path
of repentance makes us to remain in Him and ultimately to encounter His power
and glory.
The Great Lent is a spiritual journey, during which we do fast for fifty days.
This journey symbolizes the entire human life. This is about the way of our
returning for the reconciliation with God. It reminds us the fall of humanity
and the way of restoration. It teaches us what the human being is and what the
relationship with God means to us. It is indeed our turn to commit ourselves to
return to Him, confessing our sins, with fasting and prayers, in humility and
simplicity, in mindfulness and watchfulness, and in compassion and love, so that
we may make this journey to be fruitful; we may make this Lent, a time of
personal transformation, a renewal of our souls and bodies. We may eventually
rejoice in our arrival to the Light of Christ’s Resurrection.
Bible Reading:
Fifty-Day Gospel Planner
(Read all Gospels during the Great Lent)
Evening
Morning
Gospel Readings:
Luke
4:1-15 (KJV)
1And
Jesus being full of the Holy
Ghost returned from Jordan,
and was led by the Spirit
into the wilderness,
2Being
forty days tempted of the
devil. And in those days he
did eat nothing: and when
they were ended, he
afterward hungered.
3And
the devil said unto him, If
thou be the Son of God,
command this stone that it
be made bread.
4And
Jesus answered him, saying,
It is written, That man
shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word of
God.
5And
the devil, taking him up
into an high mountain,
shewed unto him all the
kingdoms of the world in a
moment of time.
6And
the devil said unto him, All
this power will I give thee,
and the glory of them: for
that is delivered unto me;
and to whomsoever I will I
give it.
7If
thou therefore wilt worship
me, all shall be thine.
8And
Jesus answered and said unto
him, Get thee behind me,
Satan: for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve.
9And
he brought him to Jerusalem,
and set him on a pinnacle of
the temple, and said unto
him, If thou be the Son of
God, cast thyself down from
hence:
10For
it is written, He shall give
his angels charge over thee,
to keep thee:
11And
in their hands they shall
bear thee up, lest at any
time thou dash thy foot
against a stone.
12And
Jesus answering said unto
him, It is said, Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God.
13And
when the devil had ended all
the temptation, he departed
from him for a season.
14And
Jesus returned in the power
of the Spirit into Galilee:
and there went out a fame of
him through all the region
round about.
15And
he taught in their
synagogues, being glorified
of all.
Matthew
6:1-6 (KJV)
1Take
heed that ye do not your
alms before men, to be seen
of them: otherwise ye have
no reward of your Father
which is in heaven.
2Therefore
when thou doest thine alms,
do not sound a trumpet
before thee, as the
hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the
streets, that they may have
glory of men. Verily I say
unto you, They have their
reward.
3But
when thou doest alms, let
not thy left hand know what
thy right hand doeth:
4That
thine alms may be in secret:
and thy Father which seeth
in secret himself shall
reward thee openly.
5And
when thou prayest, thou
shalt not be as the
hypocrites are: for they
love to pray standing in the
synagogues and in the
corners of the streets, that
they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They
have their reward.
6But
thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and
when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy
Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.
Bible Verse for the Day:
St. Luke 4:14 - Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of
the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
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