St. Nicolai Notes

EXCHANGES ON THE WAY: LENTEN PRAYERS
Day 15: Third Friday
Mark 10:1-12

     Jesus, Companion and Teacher, sometimes your words seem to be full of grace and, at other times, full of challenge. We welcome your words when they are full of promise, when they calm us and generate bright hopes. But we chafe when You speak words that address our tendency to ease the challenges of fidelity, both to you, and to those with whom we are deeply connected.
     Some of us are looking for ways to escape our relationships. We tend to treat them as disposable, and we would like You to authorize their termination. But You invite us to perceive that our treatment of relationships as disposable commodities is sin that causes injury to those whom we want to set aside. We know that some relationships fail, no matter what effort is put into them, but keep us from looking for easy ways out.
     Forgive us for our failures of love and fidelity. Transform us more completely into your likeness.
May we practice tenacious love for you, our spouses, and all whom You have brought into our lives. Amen.