Lenten prayers and reflections

We may not be able to gather in person this Lent, but we can join in weekly prayer for the children of Mary’s Meals. 

In these challenging times we believe that coming together virtually in this way will draw us closer as a community and connect us more deeply with the children and communities we serve.  

Please spread the word by sharing our Lenten reflections with your friends, family and Church community. 

We are honored and humbled to walk the 40 days of Lent with you.  

Looking for more ways to live your faith this Lent? Take some inspiration from our 40 Little Acts of Lenten Love. 

Lent is… 

A reflection for the Sunday before Lent (February 14)

Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  

1 John 4:7 

This week, we celebrate God’s enduring love for His children and how we are shaped and inspired by this love. 

One of the beautiful things about Mary’s Meals is our sense of loving community. We are a global family with a shared purpose – to provide hungry children with a daily meal in their place of education.  

No one individual makes our life-changing work possible. It can only be achieved by working together. Each little act of love adds up to something far greater than the sum of its parts. 

Prayer is… 

A reflection for the 1st Sunday in Lent (February 21)

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act.  

Psalm 37:4 

As we begin this Lenten journey together, our focus for this week is prayer. In the Psalms, the word “selah” is used to create a space to pause and reflect. During our Lenten journey, we will be pausing for prayer and reflection as a community.  

The season of Lent can feel differently each year, depending on what is on our minds and hearts – and this year is no exception.  

Often, we choose to spend time in reflection, considering the sacrifice that Jesus made for us and preparing to celebrate his resurrection and coming again. 

This Lent let’s take time to pause and reflect on the great need to care for children around the world who wrestle with the impact of poverty and hunger every day.  

Together, let’s read the Mary’s Meals prayer.  

Consider starting every day in Lent with this prayer. Allow yourself to hear each word and listen to your mind and heart.  

Hunger is… 

A reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent (February 28)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. 

Matthew 5:6 

As we continue our journey into the second week of Lent, let’s take a moment to consider this passage of scripture. What does it mean to hunger for righteousness?  

For many of the children who receive Mary’s Meals in their place of education, the physical feeling of hunger is all too familiar.  

Their hunger to have enough food to eat inspires a different kind of hunger in us. It is a hunger for justice; a hunger that we are called to feel in our souls.  

This type of hunger propels us to action and reminds us that there are problems in the world much bigger than we are. Hunger for righteousness can’t be satisfied while we know that there are still children in the world who don’t have enough to eat.   

However, when we come together as a community, our small acts of love combine to create one significant movement – a movement that is reducing the number of children who go hungry each day, and this is good news!  

Perseverance is…  

A reflection for the 3rd Sunday in Lent (March 7)

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.   

Micah 6:8 

This week, we pray for the dedicated local volunteers who make our work possible. They are strong, empowered, passionate and perseverant. 

These incredible men and women walk for miles carrying heavy pails of water and sacks of food. They wake before dawn to stir giant pots of porridge or serve up thousands of plates of rice and beans.  

For many, this sacrifice comes at the start of a long and tiring day spent digging fields or tending market stalls. But it is a sacrifice they are happy to make because they believe so passionately that the children in their community should have a daily meal in their place of education. 

Together, let us walk humbly alongside the people who make these journeys on behalf of their children by joining one another in prayer.  

Children are… 

A reflection for the 4th Sunday in Lent (March 14)

Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.  

Mark 9:36-37 

This week, our prayers turn to the children who receive Mary’s Meals at school. Each one has their own unique story to tell.  

Around the world, poverty and hunger prevent 59 million children from gaining an education. Sometimes, when we see a number this vast, the individual child can get lost in the enormity of the problem.   

Making the shift from numbers to people allows us to move from what we know in our heads to what we feel in our hearts.  

This change starts with resting on the realization that our heavenly Father knows each one of us by name. No one is too small, too far away, too isolated, or too hidden for His love to reach.  

Together, let’s pray for some of the individual children that receive Mary’s Meals – each one with their own names, families, friends, and dreams.  

Fullness is… 

A reflection for the 5th Sunday in Lent (March 21)

I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.  

John 10:10 

This week we consider the abundance that comes when we are full, not just with food, but with love, with knowledge, and with hope. 

During this season of Lent, we reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. He came to earth to give us all the opportunity to life to the full.  

We can follow him more intentionally when we try to act the way that he would, by helping to provide fullness of life to others through the means available to us.  

The children we serve experience fullness through the love of the volunteers who prepared their meals; the food that enables them to stay focused on their education; and the knowledge which gives them hope for the future – a future “full” of possibilities.   

While we celebrate that we are feeding these children, one of the reasons that we are drawn together through Mary’s Meals is that we can never feel truly satisfied while there are still children out there waiting for a meal in their place of education.  

A deep inner calling propels us to action. This is one of the beautiful things about our grassroots movement.   

Joy is… 

A reflection for the 6th Sunday on Lent (March 28)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.  

Romans 12:12 

This week, we are reflecting on the power of hope. We have all experienced difficult times in our lives and the last 12 months have been especially hard for many of us.  

During these times of hardship, it is our faith, our hope, and our sense of community that sees us through.  

We can take comfort in the knowledge that our prayers and support help to feed the hopes of more than 1.7 million children around the world through the provision of a daily meal in their place of education.  

Hope allows us to dream, and every child has the right to dream about what their future might hold. These children are not mere statistics or numbers. There is much that we can learn from them as we walk alongside them on this Lenten journey.   

Let’s join them in joyful hope by telling their stories and remembering them every day in our prayers.  

Love is… 

A reflection for Easter Sunday (April 4)

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.   

1 Cor 13:13 

As we approach the end of our Lenten journey together and prepare to celebrate Easter, we are reminded of the incredible love that Jesus has for us.  

Love has been the driving force in all our weekly reflections. We are separated from the children we serve by distance, technology, life circumstances and culture; yet our prayers and reflections over the past few weeks have drawn us closer to them.  

We’ve learned to stretch ourselves, to challenge our minds and our hearts because of this one thing – love. When we spend time reflecting on scripture and the work that God has called us to do, we are transformed.   

Maya Angelou tells us that, “love recognizes no barriers, it jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”   

What that destination looks like, and the journey we each take to get there, will be different for everyone.  

Together, let’s think about love. The love we hold for our neighbours, no matter where or who they are. And our love for the children that we may never meet, but who enjoy a daily meal in their place of education because of the way we have learned to love from our Lord. 

Thank you for joining us on this Lenten journey. We are so grateful that you chose to share these moments of prayer and reflection with us.