Month: November 2021

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60 Second Wisdom – Why You Feel Lonely

You may be afraid of flying, spiders, heights, and snakes, but there is one fear that dominates the human experience. We all have it. It’s our greatest fear. It sabotages relationships. It produces existential loneliness.

“You may be afraid of flying, spiders, heights, and snakes, but there is one fear that dominates the human experience. We all have it. It’s our greatest fear. It sabotages relationships. It produces existential loneliness.

We’re afraid that if people really knew us, they wouldn’t love us. That’s our greatest fear.

The real tragedy is that by pretending to be the person we think other people want us to be, we destroy our chances at really being loved. Because when someone does come along to say, “I love you” there’s a little voice in our head that says, “No you don’t. You love the person you think I am.”

This is how people end up desperately lonely in a relationship.

Hugh Prather observed, “Some people are going to like me and some won’t. So I might as well be myself, and then at least I’ll know that the people who like me, like me.””

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60 Second Wisdom: 3 Things You Should Think About More – Matthew Kelly

“Some thoughts are beautiful, and some thoughts are ugly. Some help you become the best-version-of-yourself and some don’t.

Here are THREE THINGS you should think about MORE:

1. The best things that have ever happened to you.
2. The things in the past you thought you would never get over… and did.
3. The most fulfilling lives are not built on talent, beauty, money, things, or even success. They are built on love, humor, service, friendship, wisdom and chocolate.

Thoughts play a powerful role in our lives. What you choose to think about determines the direction of your life. Don’t like where your life is headed, change what you spend your days thinking about.

Think more beautiful thoughts and you – and your life – will become more beautiful.”

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The Little Way

The Little Way makes holiness accessible to us despite our weaknesses and our ordinariness. It is a way of trust and love. This fresh application of the Gospel message is the legacy of the Little Flower. She lived the Little Way as it sprang from her heart, then left it to the Church she loved.As we deal with family, friends, neighbors, employers, co-workers, teachers, and especially those who are difficult, we can each do the “little.” Even in encounters with strangers, we can do the little, in love, for Jesus. The Little Way is manageable, not overwhelming. It is a means by which any one of us can become a saint.That is not to say that St. Thérèse’s Little Way is easy! To love in each moment may not mean we achieve a desired outcome or response. There are times when loving is a heroic act of the will. It may simply mean that we make every effort to give our best in that moment. Then we offer those moments to God in a childlike spirit of trust and abandonment. We make this offering with confidence, knowing that He sees our hearts and our intentions. We entrust all of our small efforts to the Lord, believing that He receives them as our Heavenly Father.

//Good Catholic//

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Minute Meditation – Christ Is Proclaimed by Our Lives

The Franciscan path of prayer that leads to peace is a path of transformation and witness. Christ is proclaimed not by words but by the example of one’s life, one’s willingness to suffer or perhaps offer one’s life for the sake of another. Christ lives in that Christ lives in us––in our bodies, our hands, our feet and our actions. This is the challenge for our time with its emphasis on rationality and materialism, the challenge of divine risk, of allowing God to enter our lives and lift us out of the doldrums of mediocrity, privatism and individualism. We are called to be vulnerable to grace so that we may be transformed into the living Christ.

—from the book Franciscan Prayer

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Prayer Is a High-Risk Enterprise

Prayer that allows the mystery of Christ to change our lives, is a high-risk enterprise—an uncontrollable experience. Yet, the power of God’s grace is such that one who, like Francis of Assisi, is able to trust God sufficiently can enter into the “cave” of the heart, the place where Incarnation takes place, and be transformed into the triumph of love. Franciscan prayer, therefore, is Christ-centered, affective, contemplative, cosmic and evangelizing. The goal of prayer is to make Jesus Christ alive in the believer. To bring Christ to life is the way to peace.

—from the book Franciscan Prayer

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Peace Is the Fruit of Love

The life of Christ is the life of all life––the peace of creation, the justice of humanity and the unity of humankind. That is why the Franciscan path of prayer must ultimately lead to peace because it leads to the compassionate love of the crucified Christ. Peace is the fruit of love. Francis became a person of peace because he became a person of love—a love shown in his body and in his willingness to spend himself for others.

—from the book Franciscan Prayer

//Franciscan Media//