Liturgy 017: Second Monday of Lent | Surrendering Judgment
🙏 Begin Your Week in Prayer and Contemplation
🙏 Prayer of Confession
Take several slow deep deliberate breaths to quiet your mind, and be centered in your soul. Then, acknowledging the presence of God, pray the following words:
Merciful God, I confess I have sinned against you. With my thoughts, words, and deeds. With what I’ve done and left undone. I have loved you with portions of my heart, but not my whole heart. I have not been merciful with my neighbors. For your sake, Lord Jesus — forgive me and renew me. And this day, may I delight in your will and your way, as I live in your presence. Amen.
📖 Lectio Divina
Read the following words slowly.
Listen for a personal word from the Holy Spirit.
Mark 8:31-33
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
🖼️ Reflection
You probably spent the day with church people yesterday.
Have you ever thought about church people, and just said to yourself — what is wrong with them?
Um… 👀 ✋ I surely have.
(If I saw you yesterday, I’m not talking about you. Promise.)
In Mark 8, Jesus reveals that his path involves being rejected and killed by priests, scholars, and politicians. Peter cannot get down with that. All church people, btw.
And I don’t know how you read Jesus’ tone when he responds by referring to Peter as Satan. But when Jesus says, “You have set your mind on the things of man, not the things of God," I wonder:
How do I set my mind on the things of God?
Particularly when there are people in my life who drive me crazy? Particularly, when my world is not panning out the way I imagined?
🧘 Contemplative Practice
Here’s one way that I’ve found helpful.
It’s not easy. But it is simple.
In an extended moment of silence and solitude…
Empty yourself of judgment (write/think it all out)
Surrender your choice and need to pass judgment (give it to God)
Deeply listen and connect with the love of God… (practice God’s presence)
This doesn’t change circumstance, but with continual practice, slowly, over time, by the grace of God — compassion, peace, and self-giving love will begin to form in you.
“Taking up the cross” will not be an ambitious religious desire, but a graciousness towards yourself and others in union with God.
💡 Quotes
Contemplative prayer is a practice for a lifetime, never perfected yet always enough. Each time we pray, our habitual patterns of thinking and feeling will inevitably interrupt and distract us from deep listening, but it is through our repeated failings that we encounter God’s grace and experience a transformed mind.
— Richard Rohr
Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?
— Pastor Eugene Peterson’s translation of Mark 8
🕊️ Blessing
May you have in mind the things of God that cultivate love, joy, and peace.
Amen.