Month: July 2022

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Minute Meditation – Created to Change

Consider this: Have you ever longed for the body you had when you were eleven? How about when you were three? Do you ever wish you were in your eighty-seven-year-old body today? The answer to these questions is most likely no. But truly, the longing to return to your sixteen-year-old body is equally as bemusing as longing for your six-year-old body. They were both good bodies for a moment in time, but you as a human being are constantly changing.

Your body has endured much since your teenage years, and deserves your kindness, not your resentment, for the things she has overcome, survived, and accomplished. As a maturing person of depth and wisdom, you have much to offer those around you, and your body is your tangible connection to those who are seeking refuge and comfort. Together, the wisdom of your aging heart and the softness of your aging body welcome others to be nurtured.

—from Luminous: A 30-Day Journal for Accepting Your Body, Honoring Your Soul, and Finding Your Joy
by Shannon K. Evans

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Connected to the Earth

When you see yourself as a part of the greater whole, you not only give greater honor to the whole, but you also gain a healthy perspective on your own significance. This is just one of the many gifts that Creation has to offer us. Growing a garden, taking meditative hikes, and increasing your environmental stewardship are all ways you can find your place within the whole. Getting your body, soul, and mind in tune with the natural world can have significant benefits to your quality of life. You are not an isolated creature, not a mere accident tasked with going through life on your own. Your physical body is an integral and natural part of the planet you are on—one where your actions, attitudes, and even your thoughts impact the whole.

Stepping out into nature can remind you that you are not the center of the world. In relation to both the splendor and suffering of the earth, the way you feel about your physical appearance truly is a very small thing. You are part of something so much bigger—something so much better than the number on the tag of your pants. Animals delight in their life without ever considering their shape or size. Plants do their work of photosynthesis without self-consciousness. Spending time in Creation—and finding your interconnectedness to it—invites you to stop taking yourself so seriously. Step outside and let nature heal you. Appreciate the way your body connects you to the primal longing to belong— and belong here, you do.

—from Luminous: A 30-Day Journal for Accepting Your Body, Honoring Your Soul, and Finding Your Joy
by Shannon K. Evans

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – A Movement of Grace

The call to enter into the world of “the other” contains a costly component. Moving from accepted bias, taboos, and prejudices is not an easy step.

Often such taboos are reinforced by laws of both Church and state. They are firmly implanted in a culture or society’s conscious and unconscious mindset. While a person can “study” his or her way to a new understanding of “the other,” often it requires more than intellectual acceptance of a new position. The movement from understanding to action and advocacy is a movement of grace.

—Sister Margaret Carney, “The Franciscan Embrace of ‘The Other’”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Seek the Light

So committed is Pope Francis to embracing “the other” that his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” addressed our bitterly divided world. One line from it can sum up his papacy and the legacy of his namesake, St. Francis: “We encounter the temptation to build a culture of walls to prevent this encounter with other cultures, with other people. And those who raise walls will end up as slaves within the very walls they have built.”

That is advice worth following. If the walls we build around us are too high, light cannot reach us. We will never see the Promised Land, a world without borders, where all of God’s beloved—regardless of skin color, creed, or country of origin—are welcomed.

—Christopher Heffron, “The Noble Pursuit of Conversion”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Nobody is a Stranger

One key concept in every major religion is the belief in welcoming the stranger. The Bible is full of messages about this. Ezekiel 16:49 tells us that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the inhabitants’ refusal, despite their prosperity, to care for the stranger and the poor. The Gospel of Matthew teaches us, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” (25:35).

St. Francis would never have considered anyone a stranger. He would have thought of them as a child of God, his brother and sister. He would welcome them, feed them, and care for them. St. Francis viewed all creation as his brothers and sisters. He understood that we are each unique but connected through creation.

—Patrick Carolan, “Welcoming Our Afghan Brothers and Sisters”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

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Minute Meditation – Meeting in the Middle

These days, compromise is something that seems completely foreign to most people. Whether the subject be the Church, politics, COVID-19, education, or any number of other topics, we just can’t seem to find some common ground. We dig in our heels and engage in an endless tug-of-war. I’m right; you’re wrong.

If I compromise, I lose and you win. The result is much like situations that I face with my kids: yelling or silence, closed minds, hateful words, and hurt feelings. The only answer, if we want to change things or make progress on anything we care about, is to meet somewhere in the middle. I’m willing—are you? I’ll meet you halfway.

—Susan Hines-Brigger, “Faith and Family”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

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Minute Meditation – The Choice to Heal

As I write this, I am well aware that there are people who may have suffered at the hands of individuals or groups within the Church. I am not asking you to lie to yourself about these past events. Nothing worthwhile can be built upon a lie.

When we tell ourselves the whole truth about past events, we can respond in a way more likely to encourage the peace and freedom that God has always wanted us to enjoy as people made in the divine image. We cannot change things that happened to us in the past, but we do have some freedom about how we respond to them now and in the future. Our choices today can reaffirm the most unjust things we have experienced, or they can motivate us to create a more just present for ourselves and other people who have suffered similar or worse injustices. The choice is ours.

—Friar Pat McCloskey, “Ask a Franciscan”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Love Them as Christ Does

Every year, massive numbers of migrants attempt the passage into the United States. And every year, many don’t survive the journey. Whether those who attempt to cross make it here and find a way to stay, get caught and deported back across the border, or perish along the way, they are largely a shadowy, nameless, and faceless group in American society. They are nearly invisible, but when they are seen, they’re often viewed with distrust.

In St. Francis’ time, the lepers in the valley below Assisi were seen in much the same way. Today, migrants and other marginalized groups are the lepers in our society. And just as St. Francis realized in one of the most important moments in his life, we are called not only to see them, but also to embrace them, to love them as Christ does.

—Daniel Imwalle, “Franciscans at the Border”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue