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This plan follows the Sunday liturgy:  reading + psalm + reading + gospel       From  www.simplebible.info         Previous R-R-P 

O Holy Spirit, please guide me as I read these passages for today.                     
May these passages give me hope, strength, wisdom, compassion, courage and peace for my daily life     Chinese text

Reading:  Isaiah 46-49

The Lord called me before I was born.
From my mother's womb he knew my name.

While I was thinking that I had toiled in vain,
all the while my cause was with the Lord.

The Lord who formed me in the womb
and assigned me to rescue his people,

that same Lord said to me:

'I will make you the light of the nations,
so that my salvation will reach to the ends of the earth'.

The Lord also says to his people:

"Does a woman forget her baby,
or a mother the child within her womb?
Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you".

Reflection: 
Parents/teachers/pastors sometimes think: "all my work for nothing...I've been toiling in vain"
...we haven't seen any good results after all our work of "planting seeds"
...yet all the while "our cause was with the Lord" who causes seeds to grow in his good time

Prayer: Lord, please help me get on with planting seeds....and trust you to make the seeds grow

O God, hear my cry,
you who are my refuge and help.

In you alone is my soul at rest. 
My help comes from you.

Take refuge in God, everyone in trouble.
Trust him at all times.

O God, you are my God, for you I long.
My body and soul thirst for you
like a dry, weary land without water.

Your love is better than life,
my lips will speak your praise.

On my bed I remember you.
On you I muse through the night.

You are the Creator of the world.
You care for the earth, you give it water.

To you our praise is due,
wherever we are on earth.

Reflection: 
Physically we thirst for something to drink.
Spiritually we thirst for God.
Jesus spoke about the best spiritual drink: the spring of living water...the Holy Spirit.
And on the other side of the coin, Jesus thirsts - for our love.
c.f. Preface of Lent 3 -  speaks of Jesus' thirst to receive the faith of the Samaritan woman.
c.f. Crucifix in houses of Mother Teresa's sisters:  at top of every crucifix are  the words of Jesus on the Cross
(with the same double meaning): "I thirst" 

Prayer: Lord, my soul clings to you. Your right hand holds me fast

Paul left Corinth and went to the city of Ephesus where he found a dozen men who had been baptized by John the Baptist

He asked them "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?"

They replied "We have not been taught about the Holy Spirit"

When Paul explained Jesus to them, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Paul then prayed with them using the laying on of hands, and the Holy Spirit came down on them.
They began to speak in tongues and to prophesy

Reflection:
The next few weeks before Pentecost are a good time to think more often about the Holy Spirit
and pray that he would down on us (again) as he came down on the believers in the above story

Prayer: Holy Spirit, please fall afresh on me and  increase your influence in my life

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Temple.
In the Temple there were money changers, and people selling pigeons.

Jesus tipped over their tables and drove them out of the Temple.
He said to them "My house is a house of prayer,
but you have turned it into a place for robbery".

Blind and lame people came to Jesus in the Temple.
He healed them all.

Then he went out of the city to the village of Bethany
and spent the night there.

Reflection: 
There's "money in religion" - Christian churches, Buddhist temples.
Tithing and planned giving.... often more important that prayer giving.
Pastors in some parts of the world sometimes happy to do a baptism/wedding/funeral....for the money.
Not so keen to visit hospitals/prisons - no salary

Prayer: Jesus, please protect  all places of prayer from corruption