Daily Reflection – Open Your Heart
Daily Reflection – Jesus’ Love is Total and Wild
Minute Meditation – Apostle of the Heart
They say that Mary Magdalene becomes the apostle to the apostles after she encounters Jesus risen. I wonder now if what she might have to teach them is this: the message of a heart that is rejoicing with resurrection joy. Though she is unable to explain what happened or how Christ is here, she explodes with the impetuous and overwhelming joy that it is to recognize the resurrected Christ when he calls your name. I wonder if she was sent out as the apostle of the heart, the one who hurries to where the others, who try to figure it all out with their heads, have gone so she can awaken their hearts.
Mary runs out to the apostles to tell them the good news so that they can stop trying to figure out the tomb and simply rejoice. When she reaches out for Jesus in the garden, he tells her that she cannot hold on to him. As much as I am sure her heart would have liked to stay there in that moment forever, in that cocoon where it was just her and her Lord, her heart awakening to the “alleluia” life of the resurrection, she has a job to do. This joy is not meant only for her. It belongs to all his followers, to the whole world. She is sent to the apostles, who are then sent to the ends of the earth. Mary Magdalene bears the Good News to the Good News bearers. She is the first to know resurrection joy and the first to share it.
—from the book Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels
by Colleen Mitchell
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Finding our Heart and Center
Today the original Porziuncola Chapel rests in the center of a much larger structure, the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, built hundreds of years after the death of Saint Francis. The chapel is well preserved so that visitors can experience this place much like Francis did in the early thirteenth century. The setting of the original chapel in the large basilica is a center that reflects one’s soul, wherein one finds beauty and truth, peace and forgiveness. It is as if the very core of one’s being is exposed for all to see and experience, a space within that has no boundaries or restrictions so that the spirit may soar. It is the place we call “heart.” The very setting of this chapel cannot but help us image a center. We know we can make any number of idols our center: our work, our value system or a relationship.
When we are physically within the chapel itself, it is like entering the heart of the gospel that calls us again to clarify our center, to realize that Jesus alone is the true center of life and that he is the one who gives meaning to the way we relate to all the other facets: work, values, people. When Francis understood his vocation at the Porziuncola as he listened to the Gospel in February, 1208, he cried out, “This is what I wish; this is what I seek; this is what I long to do with all my heart.” Go to St. Mary of the Angels, the Porziuncola. Upon entering the huge basilica one is drawn to the little chapel. One’s heart senses the invitation to come in and dwell awhile. Feel the stones, pick up the spiritual energy present here and once more understand the importance of having a heart, a center.
— from the book In the Footsteps of Francis and Clare
by Roch Niemier, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Daily Reflection – He Wants Our Hearts
The Masterpiece of God’s Heart
Be the Person Who Breaks the Cycle
Sermon Notes – February 27, 2022 – “Unchain Your Heart”
“Unchain Your Heart”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
February 26-27, 2022
Gospel: Luke 6:39-45
This week, we have Ash Wednesday for which we have rules of fasting and abstinence. You can look them up online for a reminder. People call this the Penitential Season. “Ugh! I have to give up something. It’s 40 days of punishment!” It’s more than 40 days because we don’t count Sundays, and it ends on Holy Thursday. That is 40-50 days of no cake, no coffee, no pie, no soda, and no booze. Be happy about it. I prefer to think of it not as a Penitential Season in the sense that it’s about deprivation, but as an exercise of spiritual freedom. We free ourselves from bondage to things so that we may be able to love. We are trapped in pleasures not worthy of us. Chocolate cake will satisfy us for just so long. Believe it or not, I have not had a piece of bacon in two years. Medical quacks! Anyway. We are enslaved to things rather than free to love. When you break those chains, you achieve freedom. If you are not chained to Facebook, games, or whatever else you have, you are free to love and free to experience God’s love. Satan stirs up all these things in our heart. But Jesus said, “My ways are easy.” His ways are not difficult…He said that. Denying our fantasies is not difficult. If we say that they are, we are accusing Jesus of lying. We make it difficult by listening to Satan and instead, we wind up pole vaulting over mouse droppings where everything is so hard and so dramatic. Hey! Come down off the cross, we need the wood!
I’ll tell you this story. I was at a Christmas dinner years ago with the bishops and the abbot, a priest, was there. He was telling us about how he offered Mass to the people in Venice, and it was so cold, he could see his breath. I said, “Well, Father, I offered Mass in Iraq in 136 degree weather and during a sand storm. But to me, that was just another day at the office. Would I do it again? Yes, because I love my soldiers. Was it pleasant? Not really, but it was a work of love free from attachment. You will find that you have greater happiness. You will find a greater love to allow more love into your soul rather than a love of things. Rather than having things taking up space in our souls, God is there. He is the one for whom our souls were made. As Saint Augustine said, “Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” Our souls were made for God alone. Everything else does not satisfy. People are so unhappy because they keep trying to fill that void with people, places, and things that are not God.
During this season and our works of love, I urge you to come to Confession, and make it a frequent habit. I urge you to offer more prayer. And don’t say, “Oh, I’m going to say two Rosaries every day.” Just try a decade at a time, okay? Start out small with baby steps. You aren’t monks. You aren’t cloistered. You aren’t consecrated and can sit there for an hour. In seminary, we sat there for hours praying for vocations in the world. Just pray. Hey, that computer has an off switch. It won’t hurt you a bit. Honest. I promise it won’t hurt you a bit. Those people on Facebook will not miss you. TikTok videos will go on without you. Someday, we will get our celestial discharge, and they will still go on without us.
This season is a time for us to grow. It is not a time for brutality or self-flagellation. It’s a time for freedom to free ourselves from bondage to things; to improve our vision so that we can see what is really important to us; and to grow in the joy of our spiritual lives. This is not transitory joy that’s good for only a few seconds, then gone, and we are left to deal with the consequences. Rather, this is a joy that nobody can take from us. This is what we do. Seek His love. Don’t ask anyone, “What are you giving up for Lent?” First of all, it’s none of your business. And yes, it is my business as your priest.
People ask, “What are you going to do for this Lent?” Well, I’m going to try to be holier. I’m going to try to free myself of the bondage to things. We all have our fun and things that we like to do. They are innocent in and of themselves. They are not sinful. But, putting them down and turning to prayer might be a much better alternative.
How will you apply this message to your life?
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to http://AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.” Sermon notes can also be found on the church Facebook page by searching for “Facebook Our Lady of the Annunciation Albemarle”
Minute Meditation – Everything Connected
The psalms keep teaching me that to be emotionally and spiritually whole, there’s no drawing lines inside the human heart. It’s like my students keep showing me. We can feel it all. Rejected and radiant. I think the psalms show our inner lives are a celestial place, a Milky Way, and as John Muir wrote about everything being connected, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
—from the book What Was Lost: Seeking Refuge in the Psalms by Maureen O’Brien
Minute Meditation – The Heart Longs for God
Spiritual desire is the longing of the heart for relationship with God that brings happiness and peace. Francis of Assisi was a passionate person, a dreamer, a lover and a person of desire. When he felt his desire filled in hearing the gospel, he found the answer to his deepest longings and changed his life accordingly. He became a follower of Christ. Francis’ life shows us that we must be attentive to our desires if we are to find the fulfillment of our lives in God.
— from the book Franciscan Prayer
//Franciscan Media//