Tag: contentment

Posted on

Minute Meditation – The Gift of Contentment

Advent is a good time to reflect on the many gifts we already have, and even on the many material things that make our lives more pleasant and less difficult. But we don’t have to be very far along in the spiritual life to understand that having more isn’t going to fill an emptiness in our souls. Contentment is a great gift that we don’t always appreciate. It’s not as rare as we might think. Instead of asking whether we’re happy, perhaps we can get into the habit of asking how content we are. Contentment has in it an element of peace that’s greatly needed in our lives and in our world today. And the more content we are with what we possess, the more likely we are to hold those things lightly and to give to those whose needs are greater and more genuine than our passing desires. The prophet Isaiah speaks of prosperity and success being like a river or the waves of the sea: infinite but constantly in motion. We are to hold our treasures lightly, knowing that they come from God.

— from the book Simple Gifts: Daily Reflections for Advent 
by Diane M. Houdek

//Franciscan Media//

Posted on

Minute Meditation – An Invitation to Contentment

Jesus never meant us to live in a world where we have to make a choice to be either a Martha or a Mary—where in order to seek holiness, we would have to change the temperament God gave us. Jesus was offering Martha, who was stuck in her either/or mindset, another option, the “both-and” option. He was extending to her an invitation to the one necessary thing, the one thing we need to live in intimacy with him, no matter how we are wired. He was extending to her in that moment, just as he extends to us now, an invitation to contentment, to live unhurried and unafraid, knowing that he is present, right here in the chaos of our everyday lives. And we can embrace that contentment whether we are natural sitters or natural servers.

He is an equal-access Savior. The truth is that any one of us could choose to sit at Jesus’s feet and still be anxious and worried, distracted, missing out on the grace of the Savior’s presence—just as we could also be in the kitchen contentedly laying supper out on a platter, while we tuned into Jesus’s presence right there in our midst and drank of all that he had to offer. What Jesus wants for you and me has very little to do with whether we sit or stand, serve the supper or contemplate at his feet. What he wants for us is to be so keenly aware of his divine presence with us that whatever we do takes on the nature of the extraordinary, and we live in a sense of wild gratitude. We can live knowing that we are completely surrounded by God, knowing that we are not working for his approval but for his pleasure. We can know that we are able to be utterly and completely confident and content in who we are and how we are wired because he is here, visiting us with his love and grace.

—from the book Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels
by Colleen Mitchell

//Franciscan Media//

Posted on

Minute Meditation – God Feeds Us with Loving Kindness

Food freely given exacts from us a promise to go beyond its selfish reception to the unselfish realm of deep gratitude. There we commit ourselves to give to others what we have received. My food mentors—grandmother and mother—cooked not because their sense of dignity depended on others’ opinions of them but because they knew that treating tablemates to the best they could offer was the backbone of every family and nation. Though ingratitude and indifference might have come to their table, it disappeared when they left it. Poured forth from previously pursed lips was a litany of gratitude complemented by what these good souls always wanted to see: sighs and smiles of contentment.

—from the book Table of Plenty: Good Food for Body and Spirit
by Susan Muto 

//Franciscan Media//