Minute Meditation – Only a Breath Away

We are not on a lonely journey, all alone on a long road. Our loving Father never takes his eyes off us. We all are subject to feelings of fear and anxiety. All the great saints repeatedly tell us, “Don’t let those negative feelings control you.”

It’s damaging to the good that God has created in you. It paralyzes your potential and your natural gifts and talents. How do you thrust those feelings away? Know the truth! There is another who loves you as you are and cares deeply about your situation. Your loving, ever-present, ever-caring Heavenly Father is only a breath away.

—from the book Three Minutes with God: Reflections to Inspire, Encourage, and Motivate
by Monsignor Frank Bognanno

//Franciscan Media//


Minute Meditation – The Touch of Jesus

The touch of Jesus. How it burned! And how sweet the sensation of this love in its searing penetration. Francis lay upon the cold ground of his hut at St. Mary of the Angels and felt nothing but the touch of Jesus in his feet and hands and side.

He would die with the brothers witnessing the way a traveler with Jesus dies. Poor. Broken in body. Radiant in the light of the Spirit glowing from his eyes and from the marks of Jesus’ touch. And the peace of his departing would seal the genuineness of their own vocations as Lesser Brothers of the Lord.

To be real at the end. In that the brothers would be sure they were also authentically on the road with Jesus. They need only persevere as Francis had and Christ Himself would touch them with his perfect Peace.

He looked around the hut and prayed for everyone he saw dimly standing above him and for the Lady Clare and her sisters. The Dream was theirs, the Journey lay before them.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM

//Franciscan Media//


Minute Meditation – A Journey of Decisions

In the long days and longer nights before the Dream came true, Francis wondered if the Journey he had set upon would really bring him to his destination. When he was a boy, every trip he took out beyond the walls of Assisi brought him to some place where he could say, “I’m here in this place; I have arrived.” But this Journey was different. It pointed to the very roots of Christ’s own life. Its end was somewhere in the real meaning of Jesus’ words. It was a trip backward to the literal gospel life and forward into the Kingdom and inward to the heart where dwelled the Trinity. And you could never say, “I have arrived.” It was a Journey of decisions as radical as the gospel itself. At every fork in the road, there was a narrow, difficult way and a wide, easy way to travel. And Francis was continually surprised with the paradoxical joy that the harder road would bring, time after time. Still, at every road the easier way attracted him with almost hypnotic persuasion.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, page

//Franciscan Media//