40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday in the First Week of Lent, 10 March 2022 Esther C12, 14-16, 23-25 <*(((>< + ><)))*> Matthew 7:7-12
In this season of Lent, help us rediscover you, God as our Father, one who truly relates with us your beloved children; and as we rediscover you God as our Father, may we begin to realize more deeply that prayer is not about for asking never ending petitions from you but an expression of our relationship with you in Jesus Christ.
Forgive us, dear God, when we pray only because we need something from you; may we absorb deeply the beautiful attitude of Queen Esther to you on that grave situation when she prayed to you, expressing her total abandonment to you, speaking more of her relationship with you nurtured by her forefathers through the Sacred Scriptures:
Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish, had recourse to the Lord. She lay prostrate upon the ground… and said: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you. Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand. As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers that you, O Lord, always free those who are pleasing to you. Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you, O Lord, my God.
Esther 12, 14-16, 23
Create a clean heart in me, God; give me that sense of belonging to you, that experience of personal relationship that you are the very one whom I ask for and seek first above all. Amen.
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