Category: Meditations

Daily meditations to provide inspiration

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Meditation of the Day – We Feel Humiliation Keenly

“Although we feel the humiliation keenly when we are insulted, persecuted, or calumniated, this does not mean that we cannot suffer such trials with sentiments of true humility, subjecting nature to reason and faith, and sacrificing the resentment of our self-love to the love of God. We are not made of stone, so that we need be insensible or senseless in order to be humble. Of some martyrs we read that they writhed under their torments; of others, that they more or less rejoiced in them, according to the greater or lesser degree of unction they received from the Holy Ghost; and all were rewarded by the crown of glory, as it is not the pain or the feeling that makes the martyr, but the supernatural motive of virtue. In the same way some humble persons feel pleasure in being humiliated, and some feel sadness, especially when weighted down with calumny; and yet they all belong to the sphere of the humble, because it is not the humiliation nor the suffering alone which makes the soul humble, but the interior act by which this same humiliation is accepted and received through motives of Christian humility, and especially of a desire to resemble Jesus Christ, who though entitled to all the honors the world could offer Him, bore humiliation and scorn for the glory of His eternal Father.”— Fr. Cajetan da Bergamo, p. 19-20

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Minute Meditation – Prayer and Detachment

We begin to pray well as soon as we realize that complete detachment is never an accomplished fact. It is never realized completely, nor perhaps should it be. But in the process of trying to be reasonably detached, we pray. And prayer becomes more intense the more aware we are of our entanglements with things and people that distract us from God. This is not to say that things and people are not good. They are. But something has happened somewhere along the line; call it original sin or anything you like. The fact remains that most of our heartaches come from exaggerated attachments. It sounds old-fashioned to use words like “detachment,” but our experience tells us daily that we are not really free and that there must be someone to love who transcends the need to be loved, a lover who invites rather than demands our love.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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Minute Meditation: God is Ever-Faithful

When the heart rebels and says, “I will reach out for love wherever it may be found,” and the mind echoes, “Yes, and I will not see,” and the conscience says, “I don’t care anymore,” then memory rises like a bright and redeeming sun and says, “Yes, but you have been here before and God saved you in the nick of time. God comes if you ask just one more time, remember?” And again it is memory that cries aloud, “God is faithful and will not abandon those who trust in God.” And the past is made present through memory’s alchemy. This saves us time and again, and we praise and thank God who gives us the past to make the present a wise and redemptive future.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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Meditation of the Day – The Pity and Compassion of the Lord

“Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways. Sometimes He calls souls by means of sickness or troubles, or by some truth He teaches them during prayer, for tepid as they may be in seeking Him, yet God holds them very dear.”— St. Teresa of Avila, p.26

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Minute Meditation – Joy is a Gift From God

Joy is a gift from God, one of God’s surprises that comes to us when we are expecting something else. And yet we can also say that joy is won. It is won by those with heart enough to surrender to God. God gives the power to surrender, but we alone can choose to use that power. So in that sense we win our joy in God. And “win” is a good word here, for the surrender is never made without a struggle; and in this case by losing the struggle against God and surrendering to God, we win! Another paradox, another reality that only the Spirit of God can explain. Only in the power of God’s spirit is our defeat our victory, and our surrender our real possession.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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Meditation of the Day – Some Make Light of Their Faults

“Some beginners, too, make light of their faults, and at other times indulge in immoderate grief when they commit them. They thought themselves already saints, and so they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another great imperfection. They also importune God to deliver them from their faults and imperfections, but it is only for the comfort of living in peace, unmolested by them, and not for God; they do not consider that, were He to deliver them, they would become, perhaps, prouder than ever.”
— St. John of the Cross, p. 9

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Minute Meditation – God is Always Present

Always it is the same: You suddenly realize that God has been there all along, that yes, God is present in your life. And the words of praise and thanksgiving rise to your lips, perhaps after great sorrow or suffering or that darkness of mind which seems endless and terrible when it is upon you. And what is it that brings that realization of God’s all-loving presence? Isn’t it that something changes inside you that cannot be explained by anything you did or anyone else did to you or for you? Often something you have been hoping for or praying for just happens. Perhaps you wake up one morning and something is different. You accept what you couldn’t before, or you look in the mirror and laugh at yourself. And peace seeps through your whole being, and everything seems good again in spite of pain or sorrow or loss.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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Meditation of the Day – The True Temple

“We have to accustom ourselves to pray in all places and at all times. The real place to pray in is the soul, for God dwells there. If we wish to obey our Lord’s counsel, when we pray we should enter the chamber of our soul, close the door, and speak to the Father, whose loving eyes seek ever our own. This inner chamber of our soul is the true temple, the sacred sanctuary, and we carry it with us and can at any time either remain there or quickly return to it, should we have been obliged to leave it.”— Dom Augustin Guillerand, p. 111

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Minute Meditation – Perseverance in Prayer

It seems to me that nothing is ever achieved without a certain daily doggedness that comes from a conviction about what you are working for and toward. Nowhere is this more evident than in prayer, for the daily fruit of prayer is at best a vague sense of peace, but more often that not, it is merely a sense of having tried. However, from time to time there is the breakthrough of God that is worth the daily drudgery and is only possible because of the daily perseverance that preceded it. Not that you merit a breakthrough because you persevered, but a certain attitude of receptiveness and patience, of humility and longing grows imperceptibly but surely in the heart of anyone who prays regularly in season and out. And the cumulative experience of your prayer reinforces the conviction that prayer, after all, is communion with the God you cannot see, so that in the end you are secure in having “known” God. 

—from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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Minute Meditation – Blessed Be God!

How good are you, O Lord! Whether your hand lies lightly or heavily upon us, it is your goodness that moves you to touch us. And we know you by this touch, this action in our lives. Something happens that we don’t expect, and we find ourselves growing in a way we didn’t think possible or didn’t even imagine existed. And we know that you have touched us again.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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