Tag: Heal

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Minute Meditation – The Sacred Nature of Growth

Our bodies tell stories that we would often rather keep quiet. Whether it’s cellulite, weight gain, stretch marks, stomach rolls, or big feet, our bodies tell the story of growth—the story of our rising and falling, our loving and losing. We are told we should be embarrassed about these signs of life; we are told to cover them up, make them disappear, or find any solution other than accepting them. But what if we decided not to? What if, instead of being ashamed that those pants no longer fit, you affirmed yourself for the growth, maturity, and substance that you’ve gained since you last wore them? Not pretending that there is a direct correlation but letting what is visible remind you to see and honor what is invisible.

Sure, maybe you went up a size since last year, but let that discovery remind you of the more important ways you have grown in that same amount of time. Maybe you took a big risk, got a job promotion, had a baby, learned about a justice issue, set an important boundary, deepened your faith, or cared for an aging parent. Look at all the important ways you have grown. Look at how much more these things matter than the inches around your waist. The truth is that your relationship with your body can never be healed through diet and exercise—not in a real, lasting sense. There will always be something to dislike or criticize—always. Healing your body-soul connection has to come from touching on the sacredness of this vessel you inhabit. That means honoring the many ways your body leads you to develop, expand, and become more than you used to be. That means refusing to punish, restrict, and demean it. That means giving it room to flourish and grow.

—from Luminous: A 30-Day Journal for Accepting Your Body, Honoring Your Soul, and Finding Your Joy
by Shannon K. Evans

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Choice to Heal

As I write this, I am well aware that there are people who may have suffered at the hands of individuals or groups within the Church. I am not asking you to lie to yourself about these past events. Nothing worthwhile can be built upon a lie.

When we tell ourselves the whole truth about past events, we can respond in a way more likely to encourage the peace and freedom that God has always wanted us to enjoy as people made in the divine image. We cannot change things that happened to us in the past, but we do have some freedom about how we respond to them now and in the future. Our choices today can reaffirm the most unjust things we have experienced, or they can motivate us to create a more just present for ourselves and other people who have suffered similar or worse injustices. The choice is ours.

—Friar Pat McCloskey, “Ask a Franciscan”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Holy Spirit Within

Consciousness, our soul, the Holy Spirit, on both the individual and the shared levels, has sadly become unconscious! No wonder some call the Holy Spirit the “missing person of the Blessed Trinity.” No wonder we try to fill this radical disconnectedness with various addictions. There is much evidence that so-called “primitive” people were more in touch with this inner Spirit than many of us are. British philosopher and poet Owen Barfield (1898–1997) called it “original participation” and many ancient peoples seem to have lived in daily connection with the soulful level of everything—trees, air, the elements, animals, the earth itself, along with the sun, moon, and stars. These were all “brother” and “sister,” just as St. Francis would later name them. Everything had “soul.” Spirituality could be taken seriously and even came naturally. Most of us no longer enjoy this consciousness in our world. It is a disenchanted and lonely universe for most of us. We even speak of the “collective unconscious,” which now takes on a whole new meaning. We really are disconnected from one another, and thereby unconscious. Yet, religion’s main job is to reconnect us (re-ligio) to the Whole, to ourselves, and to one another—and thus heal us. We have not been doing our job very well.

—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr 

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Meditation of the Day – Guarding the Faith from Assault

“Some people who think themselves naturally gifted don’t want to touch either philosophy or logic. They don’t even want to learn natural science. They demand bare faith alone—as if they wanted to harvest grapes right away without putting any work into the vine. We must prune, dig, trellis, and do all the other work. I think you’ll agree the pruning knife, the pickaxe, and the farmer’s tools are necessary for growing grapevines, so that they will produce edible fruit. And as in farming, so in medicine: the one who has learned something is the one who has practiced the various lessons, so that he can cultivate or heal. And here, too, I say you’re truly educated if you bring everything to bear on the truth. Taking what’s useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy itself, you guard the Faith from assault.”— St. Clement of Alexandria, p. 13

//Catholic Company//

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Meditation of the Day – He Asks the Sick to Believe

“Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands, mud and washing. The sick try to touch him, ‘for power came forth from him and healed them all’. And so in the sacraments Christ continues to ‘touch’ us in order to heal us. Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’. But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the ‘sin of the world’, of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.”—Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1504-05

//Catholic Company//

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Daily Message from Pope Francis – Let Jesus Heal Your Heart

THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2021

“Sister, brother, you are here, let Jesus look at and heal your heart. I too have to do this: let Jesus look at my heart and heal it. And if you have already felt His tender gaze upon you, imitate Him, and do as He does. Look around: you will see that many people who live beside you feel wounded and alone; they need to feel loved: take the step. Jesus asks you for a gaze that does not stop at the outward appearance, but that goes to the heart: a gaze that is not judgmental, — let us stop judging others — Jesus asks us for a gaze that is non-judgmental, but rather welcoming. Let us open our hearts to welcome others. Because love alone heals life, love alone heals life.”Pope Francis

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Give Us This Day – Bountiful the Giver

04-26
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus – Apr 23, 2021 – 1 min(s) read
In our sickness we need a saviour, in our wanderings a guide, in our blindness someone to show us the light, in our thirst the fountain of living water which quenches forever the thirst of those who drink from it. We dead people need life, we sheep need a shepherd, we children need a teacher, the whole world needs Jesus!  

If we would understand the profound wisdom of the most holy shepherd and teacher, the ruler of the universe and the Word of the Father, when using an allegory he calls himself the shepherd of the sheep, we can do so for he is also the teacher of little ones.  

Speaking at some length through Ezekiel to the Jewish elders, he gives them a salutary example of true solicitude. I will bind up the injured, he says; I will heal the sick; I will bring back the strays and pasture them on my holy mountain [cf. Ezek 31:11–16]. These are the promises of the Good Shepherd. . . .   

Such is our Teacher, both good and just. He said he had not come to be served but to serve, and so the gospel shows him tired out, he who laboured for our sake and promised to give his life as a ransom for many [Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45], a thing which, as he said, only the Good Shepherd will do.   

How bountiful the giver who for our sake gives his most precious possession, his own life! He is a real benefactor and friend, who desired to be our brother when he might have been our Lord, and who in his goodness even went so far as to die for us!  

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Seeking God in Suffering – Help Me Believe!

Help Me Believe!

DAY 9 | Mark 9:14-29

“Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” —Mark 9:23-24

This is both a beautiful and a dangerous story about Jesus casting out a demon. Jesus both challenges the boy’s father to believe in him, and Jesus rebukes his disciples for not believing enough.

The beauty of the story is that Jesus demonstrated his power over demonic influence and sickness to heal someone. We believe the same power of Christ lives in us! The danger with this story, though, is that some people interpret it to say that when a person is not healed of a serious illness, they do not have enough faith. But that is not the truth.

We believe that God is all-powerful. We believe that Jesus still does miraculous healings. We also believe that—on this side of eternity—sickness can lead to physical death. Jesus did not heal everyone while he walked the earth; Jesus doesn’t heal everyone today. But Jesus does promise eternal life for all who believe in his name (John 3:16). This is the truth.

My daughter got a tattoo that says “Believe” when both her father and I were battling cancer at the same time. Rather than succumb to worry, she chose to believe that God was in control, no matter the outcome. Sometimes when our circumstances feel overwhelming, our prayer can simply be “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

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Jesus, we believe in your power to heal both our souls and our bodies. We trust that no matter what happens to our bodies, our souls are secure in you forever. Thank you. Amen.

//Reframe Ministries//