Category: Meditations

Daily meditations to provide inspiration

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Minute Meditation – Prayer in Solidarity

Throughout my life, I have focused on prayer as a symbol of solidarity, because prayer is grounded in the profound interdependence of life. Our prayers of gratitude remind us that no one is self-sufficient. Our gifts and talents emerge from our relationships —the persons and institutions that have supported us, as well as the earth’s bountiful providence—that inspire and undergird any achievement on our part. From this perspective, the self-made person is the most pitiable precisely because they, in their lonely individualism, think they can go it alone without any help from God or their fellow creatures. This sense of self-sufficiency collapses when we face a health crisis, death of a life companion, a professional setback, a pandemic, or the realities of aging and mortality. Prayer links us with all creation. Our gratitude inspires relationship and connection. Recognizing that we are truly one in spirit and flesh with all creation, we are inspired to move from self-interest to global concern. We discover that in an interdependent universe, others have been the answers to our prayers, coming along at the right time to provide comfort and counsel, and that we can be the answer to others’ prayers, sharing the gifts we have received so that others might flourish in body, mind, spirit, and relationships.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Daily Meditation – Ask and It Shall Be Given

“In the spiritual life there are two great principles which should never be forgotten: Without grace we can do nothing; with it we can do all things. Sometimes it anticipates our desires; ordinarily, God waits till we ask for it. This is a general law thus expressed by Our Lord: ‘Ask, and it shall be given to you.’ Prayer is, therefore, not only a precept, it is a necessity. God places the treasure of His graces at our disposal, and its key is prayer. You desire more faith, more hope, more love; ‘ask, and it shall be given to you.’ Your good resolutions remain sterile, resulting always in the same failures: ‘ask, and it shall be given to you’. Precepts are numerous, virtue painful, temptation seductive, the enemy ruthless, the will weak: ‘ask, and it shall be given to you.'”— Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey p. xv

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Minute Meditation – We’re in This Together

Death can plunge us into despair. Confrontation with our mortality can also, as Francis reminds us, awaken us to the beauty and wonder of God’s creation and presence in our lives. Recognizing our mortality inspires us to experience our solidarity with suffering humanity. We are, as a plaque once erected on a Paris hospital noted, “the dying taking care of the dying.” Francis would have recognized that within the tragedy of the COVID-19 virus is the challenge to all people and nations to realize our interdependence and recognize the illusion of ethnic, national, or economic separation. As Jesus asserted, the sun shines and the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous—and the wealthy and poor—alike (see Matthew 5:45). Francis recognized the dangers of privilege and out of his own experience of conversion from privilege to prayer counseled his companions to go beyond class and status, emphasizing humility as the pathway of human heartedness and empathy.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Meditation of the Day – Undertake Great Tasks

“Undertake courageously great tasks for God’s glory, to the extent that he’ll give you power and grace for this purpose. Even though you can do nothing on your own, you can do all things in him. His help will never fail you if you have confidence in his goodness. Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in his hands. Abandon to the fatherly concern of his divine providence every care for your health, reputation, property, and business; for those near to you; for your past sins; for your soul’s progress in virtue and love of him; for your life, death, and especially your salvation and eternity—in a word, all your cares. Rest in the assurance that in his pure goodness, he’ll watch with particular tenderness over all your responsibilities and cares, arranging all things for the greatest good.”— St. John Eudes, p. 363

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Minute Meditation – Saint Francis of Assisi

No doubt, despite his personal generosity, Francis of Assisi, like many in our society, took his privilege for granted as God-given. Only later did Francis let go of his social and economic privilege so he could live in solidarity with all creation—rich and poor, human and nonhuman. I have come to recognize that privilege can insulate as well as isolate. Despite our relative wealth and comfort, the realities of privilege can spiritually harm both the privileged and the marginalized, whose poverty is often the shadow side of our abundance. We who are privileged can gain the world and lose our souls. Our sense of entitlement and alienation from those who struggle contracts our spirits and renders us oblivious to the voice of God speaking through our human and nonhuman neighbors. We fail to realize that many of our greatest achievements are the result of advantages we neither deserved or earned just as many persons’ poverty and failure come are the result of factors beyond their control. Initiative and hard work matter, but achievement is shaped by what we’ve been given, not just what we’ve earned. Tragically, the poverty of others is often connected to our own economic wellbeing.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Daily Meditation – Not Ruin, But Restoration

“So, if God has not resolved to cast His work back into nothingness forever, if this earth, sanctified by the footsteps of Christ, is destined, once radiant and renewed, to remain forever, then man must rise again in a future life to reconquer its scepter and kingship. Hence, once more, it follows that death means not ruin but restoration. If God has decreed that our earthly abode shall one day be dissolved, it is not for the purpose of despoiling us of it, but to render it subtle, immortal, serene. His aim may be compared to that of an architect, says St. John Chrysostom, who has the inhabitants leave his house for a short period, in order to have him return with greater glory to that same house, now rebuilt in greater splendor.”—  Fr. Charles Arminjon, p. 84

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Minute Meditation – God Give You Peace

As I pilgrimed through Assisi that morning, the town began to waken. Street cleaners and sanitation workers began their day. Innkeepers opened their doors and parents sent their children off to school. As the silent morning morphed into a busy day in which other pilgrims and tourists would soon fill the streets, I remembered the greeting that characterized Francis’s encounters, “May God give you peace” as I quietly blessed each recently awakened passerby. And so, as we embark with Francis on our daily pilgrimages in mystical activism, I pray, “May God give you peace” on the path you travel, and may your adventures be plentiful as you bring peace and healing to this good earth. Francis encouraged his companions to greet everyone with “May God give you peace.” Let that blessing fill your day. Whether spoken or silent, bless everyone you meet. Pray that every encounter brings peace and healing to the world. Experience your kinship with all creation, blessing the human and nonhuman world, including those you are tempted to curse. A life of blessing joins us with all creation and enables us to claim our vocation as God’s beloved companions one moment at a time.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce G. Epperly

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Meditation of the Day – Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

“Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.”— St. Francis of Assisi, p. 333

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Minute Meditations – God in All Things

Saints and mystics train their senses to be open to God’s presence. In my spiritual companionship with Francis, walking on Assisi roads and Cape Cod beaches, I have made a commitment to see God in all things and all things in God. I have exclaimed with Francis and his followers, “My God and all things.” I felt God’s call to pay attention to intuitions, insights,

dreams, and encounters, knowing that I may be entertaining angels without knowing it (see Hebrews 13:2). I am not alone in my journey to experience God in my personal life and citizenship. I suspect that you are on a journey of mystical activism, too. I invite you to consider making a commitment to look for divine messages everywhere. Listen to your life, and out of that listening, let your life speak in acts of transforming love.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

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Meditation of the Day – The Mystery of Christ’s Suffering

“The Passion is described as the mystery of Christ’s suffering. It was a mystery at the time because people could not reconcile it with what they had expected. In the sense that we can never fully understand the idea of God suffering, the Passion is still a mystery. Now if our sufferings are somehow or other to fit into the Passion of Christ—and this is no fiction because this is where they belong—there will surely be an element of mystery about them. They will make demands on our faith.”—Fr. Hubert van Zeller, OSB