Liturgy 016: First Monday of Lent

From Baptismal Waters to the Wilderness, Let's Get to Work

🙏 Prayer of Confession

Take a good deep breath, and bring to mind all that is incongruent in your life between your values and your behaviors, between your faith and your works.

Without guilt or shame, name these things before God as a leaning towards sincerity on this first leg of the Lenten Journey.

Then pray these words inspired by an ancient prayer for purity:

Merciful God, nothing is hidden from you. To you all hearts are open, all desires known. Would you purify the intentions of my heart? By the power of your Holy Spirit, may I perfectly love you and magnify your name. Through Christ our LORD, Amen.

📖 Scripture | Mark 1:11-12

Read these words slowly,
listening for the movement
of the Holy Spirit.

¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” ¹² At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness...

🧘 Reflection

This is the Christian life — a voice from heaven affirming your existence and essence as a child of God… immediately followed by a dark-night-of-the-soul wilderness of isolation and temptation.

Life with God is not easy.
Life without God is not easy.
Life is not easy.

If only Christianity was a silver bullet that fixed all that was wrong with our lives in an instant. Just offer a short effectual prayer with minimal spiritual effort, and all your jealousy insecurity fear anxiety and childhood traumas will disappear. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But that fantasy is not the way of Jesus. That’s the way of entitled millennials 😁

Lent is an invitation to get to work on our souls.

That lingering unforgiveness you carry towards yourself and others? These are the days to face such demons.

Yes. The Father loves you. Yes. Jesus has come to be with you. Yes. You are the beloved child of God. So now, the Spirit leads you into the wilderness of examining your inner life, preparing you for storms ahead.

If you are anything like me, you know there are all kinds of weeds that need tending in the garden of your soul. There is that incessant cynicism, unhealthy habitual vice, all seven deadly sins¹, and that pesky voice of criticism paralyzing you from offering your gifts in service to the world.

Write one thing you are carrying in your soul, that you know is incongruent with your faith. All throughout the season of Lent, think and pray through it, resisting its temptation, and imagining a life where you are liberated by the power of the Spirit.

💡 Quote

If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.
—Unknown (Often attributed to St. John of the Cross)

🕊️ Blessing

May the Spirit prompt you, in the tradition of Jesus, to do the wilderness work of being purified. May Lent not be a detached religious turning of the calendar, but an invitation to live a life of congruence, where faith and life are integrated as a single ongoing act of worship unto God. Amen.

1. Pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.