Lent, Day Thirty-Eight, Fifth Friday of Lent

Lent, Day Thirty-Eight, Fifth Friday of Lent
When your life is more and more becoming a prayer, you notice that you are always busy converting yourself and gaining an ever-deeper understanding of your fellow [human beings]. You notice, too, that prayer is the pulse of the world you live-in. If you are really praying, you can't help but have critical questions about the great problems the world is grappling with, and you can't get rid of the idea that a conversion is not only necessary for yourself and your neighbor, but for the entire human community. This conversion of the world means a "turning around" a revolution which can lead to renewal.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
With Open Hands, pg 76

Scripture:
⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:8-11

PRAYER
God forever glorious, grant me the grace to be counted among your chosen ones, those who are beloved by you. Do this for me in spite of my tendency to cling to my old and sinful practices. Help me to turn my life into an ongoing prayer that smoothes the way not only for my own transformation but also for the renewal of the whole human community. Amen.

LENTEN ACTION
Find stories of true personal transformation that also spill over into a conversion for others. Perhaps these stories might come from the lives of the saints, from the history of humanitarian efforts, or from personal witness. Record these stories for your own inspiration and add to them periodically.