Week #13
Forty Weeks ~ Sacred Story
Week 13 Prayer Exercises
Encouragements & Wisdom
In addition to this week’s prayer materials, there are Wisdom and Encouragements (PDF).
Part One
Listening to Your History
1 I will select my 15-minute quiet times for the week ahead and visualize where I will go each day and at what times. I will petition the Lord for the grace to keep sacred my times of prayer and strive to pray in a place that is technology-free; a place apart. I will bring my notebook to each prayer period and commit to spending no more than 15-minutes in each formal prayer session.
2 For this week’s 15-minute prayer sessions, I have one simple prayer exercise for Sunday through Saturday.
3 I continue to stay with my letter to Christ Jesus asking for His help, insight, patience, grace and healing for my life story. I will either keep writing or speaking to Christ, or sit with my letter in prayer. Since the letter is also a snapshot of my whole life, it is of supreme spiritual worth to be present to Christ with my life story. So I will either continue writing or pray over what I have written and confessed.
I will awaken to the present moment.
I will take each day and each exercise as it comes.
I cannot do Sacred Story better by going faster.
I will ask God to help me.
I will awaken to my spiritual nature and to the inspirations that inspire faith, hope and love.
I will awaken to the inspirations that inspire cynicism, impatience and lusts. I will wake up!
Be Not Afraid! I will not make any decisions that bend into my fears and my anxieties. They are founded on bad information and will not lead to my peace.
Focus Affirmation for Week Thirteen
I will say this affirmation aloud once daily:
Lord Jesus Christ, I believe you came into the world, born of Mary, so that I may have life, and have it abundantly.
Read this at the beginning of the week
We are a people of faith who live in the light of the Cross of Christ, the light of the Resurrection of Christ and the light of the Second Coming of Christ. We are His sisters and brothers. We live because we are loved by God.
During these days as you reflect on your Whole-Life Confession, remember that confession includes grateful praise along with admission of sins and faults. Remember that Christ, the Divine Physician, came so that you can triumph through your failings and weaknesses, by His healing and forgiving grace, to produce fruit that endures to eternity. Remember how St. Ignatius marveled once that he did not think, in the entire history of the Church, there was ever someone who sinned as much as he did, who was also given so many graces. “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.” (Rom 5:20)
If you have not yet made your confession, you have time to both write a letter and time to go to confession this week. These weeks of prayer are about developing a deeper relationship with God in Christ. Do not surrender to your anxiety or perfectionism that may suggest that you have not done enough of the prayer sessions to make a confession or write a letter. If you feel you are behind, do what you can to keep moving forward.
If you have made your confession, use your 15-minute prayer periods this week to be with Christ and the letter you wrote to Him. Bring your notebook to your prayer sessions. After each session, write one sentence for what brings you the most hope as you read your letter, and one sentence for what causes you the most discouragement as you read your letter. Linger over the words and phrases that brought you hope and peace. Remember the experience of your confession and allow its graces to penetrate deeply into your heart.
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