Note: As a personal, spiritual discipline, reviving my practice in the Lenten season of 2017, I revise the prayers I wrote then for each of the forty days of this Lent; each petition focusing on a theme, a concern weighing on my mind and heart or a care of my soul and spirit.
+
On a day’s reflection on the restlessness of yesterday’s early morn (being a meditation on Mark 14.7 and John 6.5-13)…
O Lord, I feel afresh my frailty. I, especially during these viral-times of isolation, do not have the wealth of strength or sense or substance to serve my sisters and brothers, whether near or far, in grave need.
Yet I remember the words of Your Son: “You always have the poor with you and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish.”
O Lord, alway pour Your Love into my heart that I have kindness for all who suffer and that I may be kind, doing whatever I can whenever I can with whatever I have for whomever is in need.
O Lord, alway teach me to trust that You, with whatever I offer, great or small, as that child with but five loaves and two fish, can feed our hunger.
Amen.
Illustration: The miracles of the loaves and fish, Jacob de Backer (1555-1591). Note: de Becker depicts that moment in the Gospel according to St. John when, in preparation for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to (Jesus), “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 