Category: Meditations

Daily meditations to provide inspiration

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Minute Meditation – Finding our Heart and Center

Today the original Porziuncola Chapel rests in the center of a much larger structure, the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, built hundreds of years after the death of Saint Francis. The chapel is well preserved so that visitors can experience this place much like Francis did in the early thirteenth century. The setting of the original chapel in the large basilica is a center that reflects one’s soul, wherein one finds beauty and truth, peace and forgiveness. It is as if the very core of one’s being is exposed for all to see and experience, a space within that has no boundaries or restrictions so that the spirit may soar. It is the place we call “heart.” The very setting of this chapel cannot but help us image a center. We know we can make any number of idols our center: our work, our value system or a relationship.

When we are physically within the chapel itself, it is like entering the heart of the gospel that calls us again to clarify our center, to realize that Jesus alone is the true center of life and that he is the one who gives meaning to the way we relate to all the other facets: work, values, people. When Francis understood his vocation at the Porziuncola as he listened to the Gospel in February, 1208, he cried out, “This is what I wish; this is what I seek; this is what I long to do with all my heart.” Go to St. Mary of the Angels, the Porziuncola. Upon entering the huge basilica one is drawn to the little chapel. One’s heart senses the invitation to come in and dwell awhile. Feel the stones, pick up the spiritual energy present here and once more understand the importance of having a heart, a center.

— from the book In the Footsteps of Francis and Clare
by Roch Niemier, OFM

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Mirror of Eternity

St. Clare of Assisi wrote to Agnes: “Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!” We may wonder how we can do that. We may wonder how to calm our minds enough to see the reflection of Divine Love. One way is to breathe slowly and breathe again slowly, and breathe again deeply. Focusing without too much effort, just breathe again, again, and again. Believe that the Loving Presence thrives on stillness. Stillness blossoms into adoration. Adoration longs for Loving Presence. With longing, place our minds before the mirror of eternity. The world today can be blessed by those who breathe a peaceful vibration into the atmosphere. A “distraction” could be calling us to take what is coming to mind and bless it so that we can place it before the mirror of eternity. We must breathe now––breathe again and again. We must be still…and place our minds before the mirror of eternity.

—from the book  Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition 
by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Dependent Only on God 

Poverty reminds us of the deepest truth of our human existence; that we are created by God and are dependent on God in an absolute sense. It is the sister of humility since it prompts us to recognize that all we have is gift. Humility is the acceptance of being what we are, with our strengths and weaknesses, and responding in love to the gift of being. Humility can open one to the renewing spirit of grace and make possible the return of creation to the Father.

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

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Clare of Assisi fought for the “privilege of poverty” because she knew that if she failed to be dependent on others, she would ultimately fail to be dependent on God. Had she sought a nice, clean, fresh, minty type of God in heaven, she might have opted for more autonomy. But she believed that God has come among us and revealed to us, in the poverty of being human, how to live united in love, to God and to another. She realized that only the poor and humble can share in the poor and humble love of God. Clare’s path to God through the depths of poverty impels us to admit that real relationship with God requires true humble humanity. Only when we come to the truth of who we are (and who we are not) as poor persons can we come to that place of vulnerability in our lives where God can enter in. Only then can we know what it means to be a human person embedded in a world of goodness.

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

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Rich in Our Poverty

Clare puts forth the tremendous mystery of the human person both as rich and poor. The mystery can be stated in this way: We are rich in our poverty but we must possess poverty to know our wealth in God. Clare does not see the meaning of poverty as living in deprivation but living fulfilled in God. Her understanding of poverty is paradoxical. To embrace poverty is to be endowed with riches; to possess and desire poverty is to receive God’s promise of the kingdom of heaven. The poor person is not the one in need of material things but the one in need of God and the one who needs God possesses God and to possess God is to possess all.

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

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Minute Meditation – Finding God in Creation

While both Clare and Francis left the world to pursue God insofar as they abandoned their status, wealth and security, never did they renounce the world for the sake of God. Rather, they realized that the created world was the world embraced by God; thus God could not be found apart from the world. The world, not the monastery, was the true cloister.

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

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Story of Redemption

When Clare entered San Damiano, she came into possession of the beautiful Byzantine cross before which Francis had prayed. Now it was her “book” of prayer, her silent reminder each day: “Take up your cross and follow me.” In that Face, she saw mirrored the love that would insist that one who lays down a life is the greatest of Friends and the model of all Christian friendship. The story of redemption portrayed on the Cross helped her to anchor her soul in that mystery. One speaks of “reading” an icon. What did Clare read in that Cross? She found the images of those who accompanied Jesus to Calvary, the angels mourning the outrage they witness, the centurion piercing that beloved Heart with his lance. There, too, she would see the image of Christ ascending back to the heavenly firmament—his Father’s hand outstretched to welcome him.

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

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Weaving Prayer and Work

Sustaining them in these trials was the work of prayer. To such communities the church entrusted the “office” of praying the liturgy of the hours. The day—and night—was punctuated by formal prayer. In this way hymns, psalms, and prayers—recited or sung—would continually rise from earth to heaven. In this way the glory of God never ceased to be celebrated and the needs of humankind never ceased to be a source of trusting petitions. If those first sisters did, indeed, count the insults and privations as “great delights” what would explain such joy but the exaltation that flows from a love that “surpasses understanding.”

It was through the daily cycle of prayer that such “blessed assurance” grew in them. The rounds of hours of the breviary brought the richness of psalms and Scripture texts into dialogue with their daily tasks. Meditation upon the Byzantine Cross, the adoration of the Eucharist, attending Mass, hearing sermons—all gave new meaning to each day’s trials or triumphs. Weaving prayer and productive work created the balance within their hearts and minds that allowed them to keep moving. The poor sisters lived filled with consolation, with assurance. They dared to believe that promise of Jesus. They were learning that he was true to his word and their joy was, indeed, full and free. They learned to reverse their own standards of judgment in favor of the riddle that calls one to lose life in order to gain it. That women could live without the safety net of approved monastic vows and ample endowments and follow Christ in such literal fashion was news indeed. And the women themselves were the first to understand that.

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

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Minute Meditation – A Whole Life of Giving

A couple of days before Solanus died, he told Fr. Gerald, “I look on my whole life as giving, and I want to give and give until there is nothing left of me to give.” On the morning of July 31 Msgr. Edward Casey, who had been spending a few days with Solanus, thought he seemed to rally a little. He left the room to write a report to the family. About that time a nurse and an orderly came in to bathe Solanus with oil. When they finished, they gently laid him back on the pillow. They heard him softly whisper something, but they could not understand him. Suddenly he sat up, stretched out his arms, and in a clear voice said, “I give my soul to Jesus Christ.” These were his last words. Lying back on the pillow, he breathed forth his soul. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, at the very hour and on the very date of his first Holy Mass, fifty-three years before. The sisters and the doctors, with Msgr. Edward, were consoled on entering the room to see the look of peace on Solanus’s face.

—from the book Gratitude and Grit: The Life of Blessed Solanus Casey,
by Brother Leo Wollenweber, OFM Cap, page 88-89

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Saving Souls

Solanus could meet people where they were in their spiritual life and draw them closer to God. When non-Catholics came for help, he respected their position and faith. Certainly “ahead of his time,” he was able to reach out to people of other faiths in a simple, friendly way long before Catholics discovered ecumenism. Yet he sometimes might suggest gently that they investigate the claims of the “Mother Church.”

“Perhaps you are more Catholic than you think you are,” he would say with that little twinkle in his eye and a warm smile. Always grateful for his own Catholic faith, he respected others for whatever faith they had, and he counted several ministers and rabbis as sincere friends.

—from the book Gratitude and Grit: The Life of Blessed Solanus Casey, 
by Brother Leo Wollenweber, OFM Cap, page 64