Minute Meditation – Freedom in God
A good spirituality achieves two huge things simultaneously: It keeps God absolutely free, not bound by any of our formulas, and it keeps us utterly free ourselves and not forced or constrained by any circumstances whatsoever, even human laws, sin, limitations, failure, or tragedy. “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free!” as Paul writes (Galatians 5:1). Good religion keeps God free for people and keeps people free for God. We cannot improve on that.
—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr
Daily Message from Pope Francis – A Little Piece of Advice
Monday, September 27, 2021
“I will give you a little piece of advice: after each Confession, sit still for a few moments in order to remember the forgiveness you received. Hold on to that peace in your heart, that inner freedom you are feeling; not your sins, which no longer exist, but the forgiveness that God has granted you, the caress of God the Father. Just hold on to that; don’t let it fade. The next time you go to confession, think: I am going to receive again the embrace that did me so much good.”
Pope Francis
Daily Reflection – Wisdom of Fulton Sheen
Minute Meditation – Triumph of the Cross
Jesus was free because he was rooted in the love of God and, therefore, humble. Ultimately, Jesus was free enough to offer his life as a sacrifice for the sake of God’s truth. Humbly rooted in love, Jesus was free to die on a cross. And in that freedom, God’s freedom of love was revealed, the love that brings about a new future. The cross signifies to us that if we are free enough to love then we are free enough to die, and if we are free to die then we are free to live. As long as we are in relation to a God who is freedom-in-love, then death will be part of our journey. For every distance of separation from God must be overcome by death, by giving up isolated existence for a greater union. Finite human life longs for fulfillment of relationship, for union, and only death can remove the veil that separates us from the infinite love of God. Yes, freedom is the gift of love but love prevails in freedom. Violence, suffering and death do not have the last word in God. The last word is love.
— from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective by Ilia Delio, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – God is Not Afraid of Mistakes
God is not afraid of mistakes, it seems. God knows that God can turn everything around—into good. There are no dead ends in the economy of grace. So, God allows us to play the field and eat of almost all the trees in the garden. This is scary, but Paul, as usual, offers a crescendo statement of the same: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). Jesus lives it in his climactic forgiving breath (John 20:22), wherein he eternally frees humanity from its shame and guilt. Consider it this way: God’s main problem is how to give away God! But God has great difficulty doing this. You’d think everybody would want God, but the common response is something like this: “Lord, I am not worthy. I would rather have religion and morality, which give me the impression that I can win a cosmic contest by my own efforts.”
— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Love Doesn’t Cling
The things and people we cling to imprison us; the things and people we love free us. The most liberating experience of all is to love something or someone and not at the same time want to control the object of our love. True love allows the other his or her own freedom; yes, even desires that freedom; and in return the lover is free to love more and more selflessly. If I am willing to love you and let you go whenever and wherever you wish, we are both free and our love grows. Otherwise, need and dependence replace love, and we grow tired of what all of this is costing us emotionally. Some learn this basic fact of life, and they become the saints we all know. Others never do learn it, and they are constantly caught in webs of their own making, unable to break loose and enjoy the freedom of the children of God.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – The Way to Spiritual Freedom
Selflessness and material generosity flow from and into spiritual freedom. And this free spirit leads us unerringly out of ourselves to God who is perfect freedom and in whom and for whom we move with the uninhibited freedom of a child. We become aware that we are children of a God who loves us with a Father and Mother’s love, and everything we do becomes a gift for God, to please and thank God for being who God is to us. Gradually, the negativism and disapproval of life’s persistent critics means little at all when compared to our determination to do the will of the One who made us and redeemed us. Even our occasional ignorance of what that will is, is purified in our intention to do it as best we can.
—from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Practice Letting Go
Letting go of our external attachments through simple living does help us to show up with our best selves. Finally, though, such lettings-go are prelude and path to the ultimate letting go, which costs not less than everything: our attachment to our own self. Of course, all of us will have to do this at the end of our days. But as Jesus, St. Francis, the Buddha, and plenty of other mystics and spiritual masters have taught and shown us, it’s possible through practice to let go even in this life, to stop taking ourselves so seriously, to walk in the spacious freedom that comes from having nothing to prove, nothing to grasp at. In that condition of complete simplicity, which we may only experience in glimpses during this life, we find our truest belonging in and among all things and their Maker. And we know, as St. Julian did, that “all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
— from the book Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living
by Kyle Kramer
//Franciscan Media//
I Heard God Laugh – The Fifth Shift
How available to God are you in your life? What’s stopping you from being 100% available to God? There is an amazing sense of freedom when you realize that one of your best abilities is availability!