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Minute Meditation – Saints Lead Us to the Table

The lives of the saints are not meant to make us feel small, they are not meant to feel unattainable, and they are not the stories of superhuman beings. The saints became vessels of God’s hope to God’s people. They allowed themselves to be transformed by the truth of Scripture, practicing the traditions and teachings of our faith in a way that welcomed all people to the table. As a universal Church, we can learn from these three holy people how to love our neighbor, make space for others, and live daily lives marked by the love of the Gospel.

The saints draw us into the conversation of faith, life, and the ways in which we can love each other and, in doing so, love God. They draw us out of isolation, indifference, and darkness to walk along a road that leads us to a table where everyone is welcomed to come and break bread with the Messiah.

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Our Saints, Ourselves“
by Vanesa Zuleta Goldberg

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Only a Breath Away

We are not on a lonely journey, all alone on a long road. Our loving Father never takes his eyes off us. We all are subject to feelings of fear and anxiety. All the great saints repeatedly tell us, “Don’t let those negative feelings control you.”

It’s damaging to the good that God has created in you. It paralyzes your potential and your natural gifts and talents. How do you thrust those feelings away? Know the truth! There is another who loves you as you are and cares deeply about your situation. Your loving, ever-present, ever-caring Heavenly Father is only a breath away.

—from the book Three Minutes with God: Reflections to Inspire, Encourage, and Motivate
by Monsignor Frank Bognanno

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Godly Moment

In keeping his eyes on the leper, in thinking only of this person before him, Francis forgot himself, he forgot the chasm beneath him, and he ran straight across the void into the arms of love and happiness. And all his life he struggled to preserve that original insight into love and to act it out daily. Love was looking into the eyes of the other; and forgetting the dark void between you and forgetting that no one can walk in a void, you start boldly across, your arms outstretched to give of yourself and to receive of the other.

In his last words to his brothers, his Testament, he said: “When I was in sin, it appeared too bitter to me to see lepers; and the Lord himself led me among them, and that which seemed bitter to me was changed for me into sweetness of soul and body.” It was all there in those words: the walk to the leper was the Journey; what happened to you then was the Dream come true.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Praying with Our Bodies

Although our culture separates body and spirit, the very incarnation of Jesus speaks to a higher reality. Just as Jesus embodied both divinity and humanity, so, too, do our bodies hold our humanity and the Holy Spirit. To live out the maximum spiritual health we were made for, we are called to the work of integration; and engaging our bodies in the act of prayer is the fast track to get there.

If our prayer lives are feeling dull, we must remember there are actionable steps we can take to enliven them. Integrating our bodies into our spiritualities through various means of prayer can help us embody a gospel that looks a little more vibrant, integrated, and whole—a gospel that looks a little more like the one Jesus gave us.

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “5 Ways to Pray with Your Body“
by Shannon K. Evans

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Life and Love Within Myself

In my best, my most alive moments—in my mystical moments, if you want—I have a profound sense of belonging. At those moments, I am aware of being truly at home in this universe. I know that I am not an orphan here. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that I belong to this Earth Household, in which each member belongs to all others—bugs to beavers, black-eyed susans to black holes, quarks to quails, lightning to fireflies, humans to hyenas and humus. To say “yes” to this limitless mutual belonging is love. When I speak of God, I mean this kind of love, this great “yes” to belonging.

I experience this love at one and the same time as God’s “yes” to all that exists (and to me personally) and as my own little “yes” to it all. In saying this “yes” I realize God’s very life and love within myself.

—from the book The Way of Silence: Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life by Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Boundless Graces

One of the fundamental laws of human life and of the spiritual life is that the measure we give to others will be the measure we will receive. If I give love and forgiveness, I will receive it, perhaps from others, but most certainly from God. If we refuse to love, or to forgive, we will sooner or later become victims of our own lack of love. The evil we do or wish to others will end up turning against ourselves. God does not punish anyone. People punish themselves. Today, make up your mind to love, to give of yourself to God and to others. Forgive someone. Let your measure to others be bountiful love and sincere forgiveness, and that love and mercy will be poured back to you bountifully.

Prayer: Lord, right now I pray for someone I need to forgive, someone I need to love. Amen.

—from the book Three Minutes with God: Reflections to Inspire, Encourage, and Motivate by Monsignor Frank Bognanno

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Embrace the Beatitudes

At the heart of Francis’s and Clare’s biblical vision was the Sermon on the Mount, and most especially the Beatitudes. Just as Jesus turned the world upside down, ushering in God’s new age of shalom, liberating captives, and proclaiming God’s shalom (see Luke 4:18–19), Francis’s message of peace and simplicity turned upside down the divisiveness and violence of twelfth-century Italy and the opulence of the Roman Catholic Church.

Francis lived out the prophetic spirit of the Beatitudes, presenting an alternative vision to both church and state, as he sought to be God’s companion in healing the world, beginning with the transformation of church, and expanding his mission to include healing the whole earth, Christian and non-Christian, human and nonhuman. Francis invites us to embody the Beatitudes in our time.

—from the book Simplicity, Spirituality, Service: The Timeless Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure
Rev. Dr. Bruce G. Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – God’s Tears

God hears the cries of the poor, the anguish of parents whose children are victims of gun violence, and the anger of those who have been marginalized and oppressed and whose history has been hidden by people of privilege and power. God also delights in the singing of sparrows in the early morning and the flashing of fireflies on a summer evening. God feels the pain of an injured baby bird, fallen out of its nest, and the loneliness of a pet mourning the death of its human companion.

God’s experience of the world is cruciform in nature. The cross is more than an event on Calvary’s hill. The cross reveals God embedded in all creation, sharing our joys and sorrows. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he was crying God’s tears. When Jesus died on the cross, his pain was real, and so was God’s. God feels the anguish of those who have been abandoned and persecuted. God has not abandoned you. Do you feel that?

—from the book Simplicity, Spirituality, Service: The Timeless Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure by Rev. Dr. Bruce G. Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Choose to Love

If we choose to love, if we decide to accept the demands of being a loving person, we immediately take on the responsibility of being for others, in service and in times of opposition, in trials and persecution, also in peace and joy. We accept this dynamic not in the way we would like, but as determined by the needs of others around us. Frequently, this means putting more heart into what we are about in all the ordinary tasks of daily life; it means reaching deeper into the source of our energy when it seems like it is too hard to allow the ministry or a child or another to keep making demands.

It takes a self-possessed, mature person to respond thus. But these same people know freedom; they are free from self and free for others, free to live the challenge of the gospel and open to the most that life can call forth. Such people know joy!

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

//Franciscan Media//