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Daily meditations to provide inspiration
“Our Lord’s love shines out just as much through a little soul who yields completely to His Grace as it does through the greatest . . . Just as the sun shines equally on the cedar and the little flower, so the Divine Sun shines equally on everyone, great and small. Everything is ordered for their good, just as in nature the seasons are so ordered that the smallest daisy comes to bloom at its appointed time.”— St. Therese of Lisieux, p. 4-5
At times reaching out for God can be something like searching for your own identity: It is futile and self-defeating. In both cases it is better to reach out to other people and serve their needs. In so doing you will find God if you are seeking God, and you will find yourself as well. Those who are forgetful of themselves are inevitably the ones we most admire and love. They are in possession of themselves and we know it. And yet we perversely seek for God where we are least ourselves, in our own self-centeredness.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
The things and people we cling to imprison us; the things and people we love free us. The most liberating experience of all is to love something or someone and not at the same time want to control the object of our love. True love allows the other his or her own freedom; yes, even desires that freedom; and in return the lover is free to love more and more selflessly. If I am willing to love you and let you go whenever and wherever you wish, we are both free and our love grows. Otherwise, need and dependence replace love, and we grow tired of what all of this is costing us emotionally. Some learn this basic fact of life, and they become the saints we all know. Others never do learn it, and they are constantly caught in webs of their own making, unable to break loose and enjoy the freedom of the children of God.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
God has called each of us to a special service of love and sharing. Most of the time that service is rendered in our ordinary, everyday living, but somehow we fail to see this fact and are constantly looking elsewhere to find ourselves. We think that our real call from God, our real identity, is just around the next corner, that surely God has something other in mind for us than the commonplace demands of our own families and friends, of our own neighborhood, our own town. And because of this attitude, we miss the real opportunities to discover who we really are, and we fail to grow to the stature in Christ that God intends for us. Jesus grew to manhood and holiness in the carpenter shop at Nazareth learning to live with and to love his parents, relatives and neighbors. We grow in love and holiness in the same way.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Prayer is not only a need that each of us has; it is also a power. Jesus has told us that whatever we ask in his name, God will give us. And because prayer is a power, it is also a responsibility and challenge. It is a responsibility because through prayer we can join with Christ in redeeming the world. If we pray only for ourselves or about ourselves, we have not yet learned to pray, for prayer is outward- reaching and all-embracing. A good barometer of where we are in our union with God is whether or not our prayer reaches out to all people. If my prayer centers mainly on myself, then that is where I am. The true prayer accepts Christ’s challenge to join with him in opening his or her arms to all. And as one’s prayer becomes more cosmic and other-centered, so does one’s thinking and attitudes.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
“In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.”— C. S. Lewis, p. 155
//Catholic Company//
One day is much like another in the search for God. But from time to time there is a sudden, unexpected revelation, or shining forth of God. You’re startled that you realize God is everywhere, in everything and everyone. Call it insight, epiphany, baptism in the spirit, or any other name, it is the same experience: The God within you is revealed fleetingly, and all the rest of your days are changed permanently. Something happens that you did not merit and that you cannot explain or communicate. But it is more real than any communicable experience, and you cannot formulate it or capture it in words; for to do so would be to have some hold on God, who cannot be captured in a phrase or formula. Nor can you, by remembering it, recapture the experience. It is gift; it is grace. The spirit blows where it will.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
“I saw my Guardian Angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but without effect for themselves; only we can come to their aid. The flames which were burning them do not touch me at all. My Guardian Angel did not leave me for an instant. I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me in one voice that their greatest torment was longing for God . . . [I heard an interior voice] which said, My mercy does not want this, but justice demands it.“— St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, p. 35
//Catholic Company//
In the crises and sorrows of our lives one of the first questions we ask is, will someone be there, will anyone help to support us? In my own life this has become almost the definition of God: the One who is there. Not just in crises, of course, but always. And yet it is most difficult to believe that God is there if there is not another human being there as well. Perhaps it is the weakness of my faith, but it is so hard to believe that God is here with me if there is no one else besides. When others stand with us and beside us, God shines forth in our midst. So maybe God keeps coming to us in the form of those “angels” who look like human beings.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
“However great our efforts, we cannot change ourselves. Only God can get to the bottom of our defects, and our limitations in the field of love; only he has sufficient mastery over our hearts for that. If we realize that we will save ourselves a great deal of discouragement and fruitless struggle. We do not have to become saints by our own power; we have to learn how to let God make us into saints. That does not mean, of course, that we don’t have to make any effort . . . We should fight, not to attain holiness as a result of our own efforts, but to let God act in us without our putting up any resistance against him; we should fight to open ourselves as fully as possible to his grace, which sanctifies us.”
— Fr. Jacques Philippe, p. 14-5
//Catholic Company//