Category: Meditations

Daily meditations to provide inspiration

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Minute Meditation – Gazing on Christ

St. Clare of Assisi does not give us a set of prayers that she created, but in her writings we discover her spirituality and her path to God. She invites us to gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate Christ. Clare gazes on all of creation because it has the potential to speak to her of God. She considers the experiences of her life in the light of the Gospels. She contemplates the crucified and glorified Christ and opens herself to be transformed by the Divine One who loves her. She deeply desires to imitate the One she loves to become the image of the Word of Love.

Images of Clare portray her holding the monstrance of the Eucharist, lifting Christ up for all to see. She shows the Most High God to the world. 

— from the book  Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition 

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Broken and Healed

Our all-loving God does not desire that we seek suffering to become holy, but he does desire that we surrender to him in our suffering so that in our brokenness, his mercy can make us whole again. In being broken open by suffering, we are offered the opportunity to let those open spaces be filled with the mercy and compassion of our God, and in the depth of that mercy to be moved to love him more deeply. Surrendering to suffering is the path we walk backwards through the pain of the fall toward the life of Eden.

— from When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Created You to Be 
by Colleen Mitchell

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Warmth of God’s Mercy

It is God’s love that is still holding me by the shoulder as, spoonful by spoonful, I consume the warmth of his mercy into my physical and spiritual being. And when I am fully restored and well, it will be with love and great delight that he touches my hand and calls me to serve again.

We are not called to live a life of servitude to a demanding Father. We are his children whom he wants to heal and feed, then lift into service as evidence of his great love and delight in us. Let us not confuse the two any longer but open our eyes and be fed so that we might serve him from the fullness of our hearts and our confidence in his love.

— from When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Created You to Be 
by Colleen Mitchell

//Franciscan Media//

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Meditation of the Day – One with Christ

“Whenever that sacrifice of Christ is memorialized in the Church, there is an application to a new moment in time and a new presence in space of the unique sacrifice of Christ Who is now in glory. In obeying His mandate, His followers would be representing in an unbloody manner that which He presented to His Father in the bloody sacrifice of Calvary. After changing the bread into His Body and the wine into His Blood: He gave it to them (Mark 14:22). By that communion they were made one with Christ, to be offered with Him, in Him, and by Him. All love craves unity. As the highest peak of love in the human order is the unity of husband and wife in the flesh, so the highest unity in the Divine order is the unity of the soul and Christ in communion.”— Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, p. 401-2

//The Catholic Company//

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Minute Meditation – Prayer Takes Us Beyond Ourselves

Prayer begins through our recognition of ourselves as creatures, finite and yet aware of something greater. It is an impulse that takes us outside of ourselves, inspired by the expectation of some deeper meaning or the longing for an infinite existence. Prayer doesn’t issue from a sense of resignation about our condition but rather from a sense of hope: There must be something more. Through the act of prayer, a person attempts to reach beyond the boundaries of space and time and touch something transcendent, some ultimate Other who is responsible for everything that exists. Prayer expresses an all-pervasive longing for happiness, not in terms of emotional satisfaction but in terms of personal fulfillment. The impulse that grounds the act of prayer is an unconditional and sensitive openness to that which transcends all the ins and outs of everyday life. Prayer addresses the basic questions of human existence.

— from the book Inspired: The Powerful Presence of the Holy Spirit 
by Fr. Gary Caster

//Franciscan Media//

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Meditation of the Day – In Times of Spiritual Laziness

“In times of spiritual coldness and laziness, imagine in your heart those times in the past when you were full of zeal and solicitude in all things, even the smallest. Remember your past efforts and the energy with which you opposed those who wanted to obstruct your progress. These recollections will reawaken your soul from its deep sleep, will invest it once more with the fire of zeal, will raise it, as it were, from the dead, and will make it engage in an ardent struggle against the Devil and sin, thus being restored to its former height.” — St. Isaak of Syria, p. 146

//The Catholic Company//

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Minute Meditation – Breathing with God

The gift of the Holy Spirit—whom Jesus called the “promise of the Father”—was given to the apostles at Pentecost. And in the miraculous events that accompanied the sending of the Holy Spirit, it became quite clear that the saving action of God would compellingly move forward. Those present in the Upper Room were recreated according to the order of grace to share the life of God, who is love. They were able to, as it were, “breathe with God.” This love poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit is no mere human sentiment but the indwelling presence of the divine. It courses through them as gently and imperceptibly as the air they breathe. The Holy Spirit is the unseen power that fuels the ministry and activity of the apostles and gives them the courage to speak in Jesus’ name.

— from the book Inspired: The Powerful Presence of the Holy Spirit
by Fr. Gary Caster

//Franciscan Media//

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Meditation of the Day – Entrust Everything to Him

“My daughter, faithfully live up to the words which I speak to you. Do not value any external thing too highly, even if it were to seem very precious to you. Let go of yourself, and abide with Me continually. Entrust everything to Me and do nothing on your own, and you will always have great freedom of spirit. No circumstances or events will ever be able to upset you. Set little store on what people say. Let everyone judge you as they like. Do not make excuses for yourself, it will do you no harm. Give away everything at the first sign of a demand, even if they were the most necessary things. Do not ask for anything without consulting Me. Allow them to take away even what is due you – respect, your good name – let your spirit rise above all that. And so, set free from everything, rest close to My Heart, not allowing your peace to be disturbed by anything. My pupil, consider (62) the words which I have spoken to you.”—Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul p. 596

//The Catholic COmpany//

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Mary’s virginity is not some kind of strained enclosure or an unnatural denial of the body. It is a choice that leads to a new kind of fruitfulness born of love that is human and inclusive and deeply spiritual, as well. St. Francis writes:

We are mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ when we carry him in our hearts and in our bodies, lovingly and with a pure and sincere conscience, and give birth to him through the working of his grace in us which should shine forth as an example to others. We are his spouses when we are wed to Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. We are his brothers and sisters when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven (“Letter to All the Faithful”).

— from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM

//Franciscan Media//