Tag: Christian

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Minute Meditation – Intention / Attention

God looks at us the way a good dad looks at his son or daughter. When it comes to prayer, our heavenly Father sees our hearts, our sincere desires to pray well, not just our final products in prayer. So even if our praying of the rosary ends up being just a bunch of scribbles, we should remember that God can write straight with our crooked lines.

He can delight in our good intentions, our sincere desires to please him in prayer, even if we lose fervor or our minds go someplace else. Having a good intention is more important than maintaining perfect attention throughout the prayer.

—from the book Praying the Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter the Wonder of Heaven and Earth
by Edward Sri

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Intention/Attention | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – Death is Not an Ending

Our faith has a way of answering questions and helping us understand that their deaths and those of all our loved ones are not signs of an ending, but rather a new beginning for them. The separation is only physical, though that initially is very painful. Spiritually, we are never separated from them. That’s because the God we believe in and who revealed to us the truth about life, death and life eternal never separates people who love one another. God is love. Why would he separate loving people?

They are closer than ever. We can’t see them, but they can see us. They can hear us and they still watch over us; that’s what mothers do! And our faith reminds us that there is a reunion waiting for us when we have completed our journey on earth. What a reunion that will be!

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Notes from a Friar: A Mother’s Love“
by Jim Van Vurst, OFM

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Death Is Not an Ending | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – God Give You Peace

St. Francis of Assisi was a medieval man to his core, yet his problems were not dissimilar to what we face today: ongoing health crises, civil instability, emotional desolation, and deep anguish. But once he stripped himself of all things worldly, Francis understood that no wound was beyond God’s ability to heal. 

In a letter Francis wrote to Brother Leo, an early friar, his salutation should be on the lips of everyone who loves those suffering in mind or spirit: “May God smile on you and be merciful to you. May God turn his regard toward you and give you peace.”

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Erasing the Stigma of Mental Illness“
by Christopher Heffron

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‘God Give You Peace’ | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – God Appreciates Our Prayers

Whatever struggles you may face with the rosary, never walk away feeling discouraged. If your mind wanders, if you don’t feel the fervor, or if you’re very sleepy while praying, remember that the words you are reciting are biblical and holy. Simply pulling out your beads and saying the sacred words is giving something beautiful to God, even if your heart or mind is not as into it as you’d like.

Moreover, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, the intention to pray is itself the beginning of prayer. In fact, he wrote in his Summa Theologiae, “It is not necessary that prayer should be attentive throughout; because the force of the original intention with which one sets about praying renders the whole prayer meritorious.” If we sincerely desire to give God our best in the rosary, but we lose attention and fervor, that foundational good intention is still a beautiful gift to God. So even if our performance of the rosary is not as great as we’d like it to be, that doesn’t wipe out the foundation of a good intention.

—from the book Praying the Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter the Wonder of Heaven and Earth
by Edward Sri

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God Appreciates Our Prayers | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – Love Conquers Sin

It was because Christ was the perfect adorer of God, the perfect bridge between creatures and the Creator, that he could bridge the gap created by sin. Sin was not first in God’s intentions; but because we sinned, when God does come among us as Jesus Christ, his perfect adoration ends up being his perfect sacrifice.

He didn’t come to repair sin, he came to be the firstborn perfect creature; but because we sinned, he showed us just how great is God’s love: God not only becomes one of us, but he dies with and for us and made peace “through the blood of his cross.”

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

Love Conquers Sin | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – God’s Playful Spirit

What if our relationship with God is as simple but as joyful and sweet as spending the day playing with our grandchildren? We are delighted with their every tentative move, questioning eyes, captivating smiles, out-of-left-field antics, half-blurted syllables. Before someone hauls me before the Inquisition for heretical ideas, may I offer the scenario of the third joyful mystery, the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ? The three Wise Men traveled from afar, guided by the bright star, anticipating the once-in-a-lifetime meeting with the promised Messiah.

At the end of their long and harrowing journey, there was Jesus, asleep in the manger—a beautiful, gentle, innocent baby.

Our loving God will do anything to gladden our hearts. Anything to make our day. Surely, God will happily play with us, as Christ did with his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. Can we open our hearts, “become like children” (Mt 18:3), and allow God to play with us?

—from the blog “At Play in the Fields of the Lord“
by Ed Gamboa, MD

God’s Playful Spirit | Franciscan Media

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Theology of the Body – Session One – From the Beginning

This video is one installment of a 4-part series on the Theology of the Body presented by Fr. Mike. For free access to the entire series, please visit https://www.ascensionpress.com/tobtalk/

If the deepest secret of God is that God is love, and he made you in his image and likeness, then what’s the deepest secret about you? You are made for love. What does it mean to be human? What was God’s original plan for humanity? For relationships? For marriage? For sex? Why is the body important? In these four lessons, Fr. Mike leans into the teachings of St. John Paul II and Christopher West, unpacking the mysteries of the human heart, the human body, and relationships. In this first lesson, we learn about the origins of the Theology of the Body, what it means, and why what we do with our bodies matters. We are taken back to the beginning in Genesis Chapters 1-3, the creation of Adam and Eve. Despite their differences as male and female, we discover how they were equal in terms of dignity yet complementary in their differences.

This series is brought to you for free by Fr. Mike’s local ministry, bulldogCatholic. This series is worth more than $80, but bulldogCatholic is providing it free of cost to you. Please donate to support their mission! https://bulldogcatholic.org/seeds-of-…

If this information is as fascinating to you as it is to us, you can dive deeper with Christopher West and the @TheologyoftheBodyInstitute