Michael Raburn Phd

Lent Heart Prayers Michael Raburn Phd

These prayers were originally written for Lent, the period beginning on Ash Wednesday, leading up to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, culminating in Easter. Each of these is essentially a breath prayer with enough explanation attached to each to convey the intended meaning. Breath prayers are short phrases you repeat throughout a given period (like a mantra or a chant). Each day, take five quiet minutes as early in the morning as you can and read through the given chapter. Then repeat the prayer (which is the chapter title) over and over - both in your mind and out loud (as the flow of your day warrants). Keep praying that thought throughout the day. In some cases, you may want to shorten the prayer even further, even down to a single word. You can do one per day, but if a certain prayer really grabs you, pray it for several days in a row. What we're doing here is "fasting" from a way of thinking/seeing ourselves and the world, replacing the negative input we are fed (and tell ourselves) with God's way of thinking about us and seeing us. The repetition is necessary to drive these thoughts deep into our hearts, where some of the worst hurts and lies about our identity reside. It takes work to replace those with truth.