Lenten Prayers: Thursday After Ash Wednesday

Each day during lent members of Sts. MM&M offer their prayers and meditations.

by Father Lee Davis on March 04, 2022

40 Days Led by God into the Desert

During the next 40 days as we are led by God into the desert, we will be joined by various voices from our parish. These voices will lead us through reflection and prayer so that we may be empowered to leave behind the things that tie our Spirits down and help us to learn again to be the people of The Way.

The way of love that Christ showed us how to be.

Through fasting from the frenzied feeding of false desires. Through study of the Word, Meditation, and acts of service, God opens our eyes to the presence of the Holy in the world and frees us to share in God’s generous love. By staying close to the Saving Victim, Christ in his passion, by dying and passing from death to life, we join with the saints and angels in praising God for the everlasting Easter joy.

Prayer:

Creator God, the world of innocence has been cursed by sin, the land has been blighted, the people blinded. Savior God, you have become victim, you have suffered betrayals, you have not been listened to, you have not been loved, you have been used for money. Spirit of God, we long for innocence to be restored but we are caught between these conflicting ways. Lord Have Mercy Upon Us.

Begin your fasting from false desires with joy to prepare for Spiritual battle. Use these forty days to cleanse the soul, purify the body. Abstain, as you would from food, from habits that are destructive and indulge instead in the Spirit’s virtues of Love. Persevere in Love with all your passion. So then we shall be fit, rejoicing in Spirit, to witness the passion and death of Christ, and Christ’s passing from death to life, to the world.

Prayer:

We implore you, Christ, by your four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; by your prophets who foretold your incarnation; Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, by the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy innocents, angels, apostles, martyrs and saints of our land, to empower us to take your yoke upon us; to help deliver us from the world and its trappings, from the dangers of this life, from enemies, terror, and shame, from the demons of the world that they may have no hold over us now. Amen.

Only Jesus can preserve us from our sins. Only Christ can establish us in all righteousness and receive us at our lives’ end into heaven. Open your hearts and mind during these forty days; to ask and allow the Spirit to turn your hearts from prejudice and pride, to spur you to generous giving, to create space for Love to exist in your hearts. Let us love one another and all people, for Love is from God. The unloving know nothing of God, for God is Love. Let us recall the Divine Laws of Love.

Prayer:

Lord, you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so friends; if God so loved us we ought to love one another. The cross we shall take it…the Bread we shall break it…the joy we shall share it; the Gospel we shall live it…The Love we shall give it…the light we shall cherish it…and in doing so; the Dark – God shall perish it. Amen.

May these forty days be filled with the incarnate light of Christ in your hearts and open to you the Way of Love for the sake of the world. Amen.

Fr. Lee+

Tags: prayer, faith, lent

About the Author
Father Lee Davis

After a diverse career in marketing and finance and a sudden realization of the love and power of God that he discovered aboard a Navy ship, Father Lee Davis has the distinction of being baptized, confirmed, and received for Holy Orders on the same Sunday. He studied at Bexley Hall Seminary in Columbus, Ohio where he received a Master's of Divinity degree in 2009 and then served as priest-in-charge of St. Andrew's in Hollywood, Florida as well as an assisting priest at St. Benedict's in Plantation. Father Lee also worked as a Hospice Chaplain. When he left after a little more than two years, St. Andrew's had grown in membership and under his guidance extended its outreach into the community. He was also a pivotal leader of the Jubilee Center of Hollywood, a vital outreach ministry to the homeless and hungry, and served on the Board of Directors for St. Lawrence Chapel, serving the homeless in Pompano Beach. He also served on several diocesan committees working with the youth of the diocese.


In December 2012, Father Lee was called as rector of St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Damascus, Maryland. During his 8 year tenure there the vestry of the parish noted that "His dynamic leadership, inspired preaching, creative ideas and compassionate pastoral care combined to bring a new level of excitement, commitment, and growth among the congregation." Through his leadership, he developed partnerships with other organizations in the community, helped establish a transitional home for victim's of domestic violence, began the process of developing affordable senior housing on some of the acreages of land owned by the church, and grew stewardship achieving their first balanced budget in over a decade. At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, he led the congregation into the development of an online presence and with a couple of dedicated lay members started a feeding program for families in need which continues today. He served in the Diocese of Washington DC helping in the implementation of a Diaconate Formation program as well as being on the Board of Directors of the Washington Episcopal Clergy Association and serving on the Diocesan Executive Council.


Amidst the COVID pandemic, Father Lee accepted the call to be our rector and began his tenure in September 2019. His leadership has already blessed our community.

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