During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

John 13:21-32

²¹After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” ²²The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. ²³One of his disciples — the one whom Jesus loved — was reclining next to him; ²⁴Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. ²⁵So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” ²⁶Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. ²⁷After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” ²⁸Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. ²⁹Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. ³⁰So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.”

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Every time we participate in  communion, we receive the bread that was dipped in the cup.
• We come to the table as we are.  We are all betrayers.
• Yet when we receive the Holy Meal, Satan does not enter us.  Because of the gift of Love on the cross we are transformed by the Holy Meal,  forgiven and unified with Christ in the body of Christ including the Cloud of Witnesses.
• On this evening before the Last Supper, how do you wish to reflect on way you betray Jesus?
• Embrace shame and accept the transforming love of Christ.
• On this evening before the Last Supper, how do you wish to reflect on the way the world betrays Jesus?
• Embrace shame and accept the transforming love of Christ.
• How is God inviting you to be a reconciling voice to the betrayal of Jesus?
• Believe you are called to this work.
• What is your invitation from God today?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the Wednesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 50:4-9A
Psalm  70:1-5
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

³Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Jesus knows.
• Jesus knows that he must endure the cross.
• Jesus transforms a cross of shame into the cross of love.
• We know.
• We know we must choose to endure the cross.
• We know we must let Jesus transform us into loving and compassionate disciples. It is the greatest gift of love.
• Consider the gift of love.
• How do you want to run the race of love today?
• Who in your cloud of witnesses is running the race of love with you today?
• What is your invitation from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the Wednesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 50:4-9A
Psalm  70:1-5
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

Psalm 70

¹   Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
O LORD, make haste to help me!
²   Let those be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life.
Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire to hurt me.
³   Let those who say, “Aha, Aha!”
turn back because of their shame.

⁴   Let all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
say evermore, “God is great!”
⁵   But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay!

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Who are the ones who are seeking your life?
• Who wants to hurt you?
• Who is judging you because of their own shame?
• Deliver me, O God, from death and hurt and judgment and shame..
• I need your help now to free me from these places of bondage.
• Deliver me so that I may return to you and rejoice in you.
• Deliver me.
• Now.
• What is your invitation from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the Wednesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 50:4-9A
Psalm  70:1-5
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

Isaiah 50:4-9a

⁴   The Lord GOD has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens —
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
⁵   The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I did not turn backward.
⁶   I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.

⁷   The Lord GOD helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
⁸        he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
⁹   It is the Lord GOD who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• This Wednesday morning of Holy Week, invite God to waken your ear.
• Listen.
• Listen to your breath.
• Listen to the Breath.
• Listen to your heartbeat.
• Listen to the Beloved.
• Listen as God wakens the world around you.
• Listen to Creation.
• Who needs to hear the Good News today?
• It is the Lord God who helps you.
• The weary need to be sustained by the Word.
• Listen for those who desire to hear.
• What is your invitation from God today?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the Wednesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 50:4-9A
Psalm  70:1-5
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

John 12:20-36

²⁰Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. ²¹They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” ²²Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. ²³Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” ²⁹The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” ³⁰Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. ³¹ Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. ³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. ³⁴The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” ³⁵Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. ³⁶While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”

After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Do you desire to see Jesus?
• Do you desire Jesus to cradle you, to look into your eyes, to bring light into your life?
• As troubling as it feels, you must lift you gaze, look into his eyes, follow Jesus, and be with the light.
• How do you desire to follow Jesus today?
• Look deeply within yourself.  How is Jesus drawing you to Him?
• How does the light want to shine within you?
• Believe in the light.
• How does the light want to shine forth from you?
• Believe in the light.
• What is your invitation from God today?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Tuesday, March 30, 2021, the Tuesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm  71:1-14
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
John 12:20-36

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

During Holy Week, readings and meditations will be posted four times a day.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

¹⁸For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

²⁶Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Inhale the foolishness of Christ.
• Exhale the wisdom of the wise.
• Inhale the foolishness the Suffering One.
• Exhale the wisdom of the wise.
• Inhale the weakness of the Compassionate One.
• Exhale the wisdom of the wise.
• Invite the foolishness of the Healing One to stir within you.
• Embrace the weakness of the Healing One.
• What is your invitation from God today?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Tuesday, March 30, 2021, the Tuesday of Holy Week (Year B)

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm  71:1-14
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
John 12:20-36

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2021 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction certification, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.