Category: Meditations

Daily meditations to provide inspiration

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Minute Meditation – Clear, Precious, and Beautiful

Francis wrote his immortal Canticle of the Creatures while in Clare’s care at San Damiano. The incredible power and poetry of this song has long fascinated all who read, study, or sing it. One word in that poem, written in Umbrian dialect, and written during a time of daily nursing by Clare, catches the eye. It is the word clarite. “Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful” (Canticle, 5). This is the adjective for the stars. They are “clarite et pretiose et belle,”—clear, precious, beautiful. In the long dark time of his illness, was it Clare who was this “pretiose, belle, clarite” companion whose light helped him endure encroaching blindness and searing pain? She had been—and would remain—the North Star for all who wanted to follow his way.

— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Clare’s Charism

Clare offers two extraordinarily important lessons. The first is obvious. It is the recognition of how important women—and this woman in particular—are to the Franciscan story. The second is more subtle. It is the lesson that Clare’s importance stems from the fact that she was the recipient of a powerful charism of her own—a gift bestowed by the Spirit of the Lord and given to her in a fullness and forcefulness that was hers alone. That charism, matched with the equally full and forceful charism of Francis, created something akin to nuclear fission. It unleashed a mighty power of example and of hope for people who wanted to live the authentic Christian message.

Too often we suppose that our study and imitation of these great saints is a sure path to our own beatitude. Her story shows us that what matters is not the effort to “draw down” from the spiritual wealth of others whom we admire as though only a supplicant’s sharing of another’s gift can make us good. What she shows us is that we need only have the courage to unlock what is within us, to spend our days powered by the graced anointing that we already possess.

— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Creating a Rule

As Clare had labored over the years in doing the fine handwork that helped support the monastery, she now set herself the task of a written text. As with the many hours spent creating corporals and altar linens using needle and thread, she made a plan for her design. Her threads were the various strands of regulation and admonition, imitation of other exemplars, and the hard-won wisdom of her sisters. Each of these threads had its own color, its own heft and weight, its own role to play in creating her design. She would center the most important words of all, Francis’s dictates, in the most vivid colors.

These would be encased within a carefully tailored web of words of darker threads that manifested obedience to pontiff and church. For that reverence was also at the heart of the Franciscan way and the threads of somber color conveyed the solemn obligation. Small hints of color and original stitchery would reflect the unique San Damiano spirit, the evidence of women’s ways of walking in Jesus’s footprints. Thus, she and her sisters embroidered an enclosure of words chosen to protect their vision as surely as their stout outer walls. Little by little the work moved forward. As with Francis, the written record was firmly rooted in a lived experience.

—from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Reflect God in Your Life

Clare’s emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ is an emphasis on the human person as well, what we are and what we are called to be. Christ crucified is the mirror in which we are to see our reflection, our strengths and weaknesses, our failures and our capacity to love. She wants us to reflect Christ in our lives, to help build up the Body of Christ through transformation in love, and to participate in the church. She is a mystic who calls us to go forward into God by letting Christ take on our flesh so that we may reflect the face of Christ to the world. She tells us not to be dissuaded in the path to God, to be resolute in our convictions and trust the guidance of the Spirit in our lives. Her thought is centered on the essence of human identity: Be yourself and allow God to dwell within you. Christ will then be alive and the world will be created anew.

— from the book Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love
by Ilia Delio, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Everything is a Gift

To Francis everything in him and around him was a gift from his Father in Heaven. He expected nothing, so he was grateful for everything. Even a piece of earth was cause for rejoicing, and he thanked God always for everything that was. He held everything to his heart with the enthusiasm of a child surprised by some unexpected toy. The air he breathed, the sounds he heard, the sights and smells of all the world entered his grateful soul through senses perfected by gratitude and purity of heart.

Nothing was evil, for everything came from God, and evil came only from a heart that chose not to love. The heart through passion or selfishness or pride could choose not to love and that was evil, but no thing or no person was evil in and of itself. When Francis passed people on the road or met them on their doorsteps as he begged, he could not hide his delight in them, in their very existence. All people to Francis were good gifts to brighten his day with the mystery of their unique personalities.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

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Minute Meditation – Reaching Out to the Other

He began that day to breathe out more than to breathe in, to turn outward rather than inward, to do rather than think about doing. He had finally found the courage to leap across that deep chasm that separated him from the other, from loving what he feared would demand more of him than he could give. In keeping his eyes on the leper, in thinking only of this person before him, he forgot himself, he forgot the chasm beneath him, and he ran straight across the void into the arms of love and happiness. And all his life he struggled to preserve that original insight into love and to act it out daily. Love was looking into the eyes of the other; and forgetting the dark void between you and forgetting that no one can walk in a void, you start boldly across, your arms outstretched to give of yourself and to receive of the other.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

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Minute Meditation – God’s Friendship

Friendship, God’s especially, is a gift. You receive it reverently and gratefully, and you hope you measure up to this person’s trust in opening up to you and in having the courage to reach across the chasm of uncertainty to you, believing that, yes, you will say, I like you, too. Of course, Jesus must have known he would say yes, but Francis still thought it all so wonderful! Even into this poor, proud little town of Assisi God’s love reached down and filtered through the narrow streets until it surprised you coming around a corner unawares, lost in your own selfish thoughts.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

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Minute Meditation – The Word is Life

Once Francis heard and understood the Word of God, he tried to put it into practice in his own life. For him the Word was life and not to live it was to deprive oneself of really living. That was what the Dream was all about in his own mind: to dare to live radically and simply, to take a chance on Christ. And what caused inestimable joy in Francis and his brothers was that the gospel worked. If you tried to live it without reservation, you suddenly experienced a whole new worldview, and you felt as though you had never lived before. Living became so precious that every moment was delicious and filled with the danger of risk and challenge, and the meaning of love came clear.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

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Minute Meditation – Lady Poverty

Lady Poverty was the symbol of the paradoxes of the gospel: richness in poverty, life in death, strength in weakness, beauty in the sordid and shabby, peace in conflict and temptation, fullness in emptiness and, above all, love in detachment and deprivation. She made everything hard soft, and everything difficult easy. If Lady Poverty were true to herself, she would also turn loneliness into companionship and sharing, once Francis could muster enough courage to give them up for her. If he gave Lady Poverty his need for love and companionship, she would give them back to him. Of that he was certain. It only remained for him to act on that conviction.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Finding Our Internal Power

The more we try to rely upon external threats, the less we are in touch with our own internal power. They tend to cancel one another out. Conversely, the more we are in touch with our own inner power, the less need we have for any external force, threat, or pressure. I would almost describe spirituality as a concern for our being, our inner motivation and attitude, our real inner Source, as opposed to any primary concern for our doing. Doing will always take care of itself when our being is right. It is our preoccupation with external forms and successes that makes us superficial, judgmental, split off, and often just downright wrong—without knowing it.

— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 93

//Franciscan Media//