This is the seventh in a series of daily Lenten devotionals put together by Mother Leslie for this season of Lent, 2025. We hope this proves to be uplifting to you through your Lenten journey.
Day 7: Tuesday after the 1st Sunday in Lent
Poem: For Lifting Unfettered Prayer
In a building that is not a building
but the dusty halls of my spirit,
in a heart that is not just a heart
but an intended-to-be-holy temple,
there are sheep and there are cattle
that are not sheep and cattle
but the worries and concerns
and the sorrows of life,
and there are dulled coins and doves
that are not coins and doves
but the tarnished hopes and dreams
of an aging mind,
and they clutter and crowd the courtyard,
cloud the air with their smells and voices,
their noises of stress and hunger:
overpowering the words of prayer.
Saviour, come into the spaces
of this yearning-to-be-holy temple,
come and cleanse this heart of distractions,
help me clear the clutter, the noises,
make it more of a place of listening
open to the mystery of your presence,
a space of restfulness, a quiet center
for lifting unfettered prayer.
------ Andrew King, member of the Uniting Church of Canada, from his blog A Poetic Kind of Place
Proverb:
“Contemplation is the highest expression of [humanity’s] intellectual and spiritual life…It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.”
--Thomas Merton (Father Louis) (1915-1968), writer, poet, contemplative, ecumenist, and Trappist monk, from New Seeds of Contemplation
Painting: Christ and the Money Changers, Anthea Craigmyle
Prayer: Light of Light (inspired by Psalm 139)
Light of light, you have searched me out and known me.
You know where I am and where I go,
you see my thoughts from afar.
You discern my paths and my resting places,
you are acquainted with all my ways.
Yes, and not a word comes from my lips
but you, O God, have heard it already.
You are in front of me and you are behind me,
you have laid your head on my shoulder.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
so great that I cannot fathom it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit,
where shall I flee from your Presence?
If I climb to the heavens you are there:
if I descend to the depths of the earth, you are there also.
If I spread my wings towards the morning,
and fly to the uttermost shores of the sea,
even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand will hold me.
If I should cry to the darkness to cover me,
and the night to enclose me,
the darkness is no darkness to you,
and the night is as clear as the day.
For you have created every part of my being,
cell and tissue, blood and bone.
You have woven me in the womb of my mother;
I will praise you, so wonderfully am I made.
Awesome are your deeds and marvelous are your works.
You know me to the very core of my being;
nothing in me was hidden from your eyes
when I was formed in silence and secrecy,
in intricate splendour in the depths of the earth.
Even as they were forming you saw my limbs,
each part of my body shaped by your finger.
How deep are your thoughts to me, O God,
how great is the sum of them.
Were I to count them they are more in number
than the grains of sand upon the sea-shore-
and still I would know nothing about you- Yet still would you hold me in the palm of your hand.
--------- Jim Cotter (1942-2014) English priest, poet, and ally, from Psalms for a Pilgrim People.