Tag: Meditation

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Minute Meditation – Fruits of the Rosary

We should strive to get better at praying the rosary. If my daughter were sixteen years old and still couldn’t draw a square, that would be a problem. Children need to develop their drawing abilities as they grow, and similarly, we children of God need to mature in our rosary praying throughout our lives, so that we can encounter Jesus more profoundly in this devotion.

So whether we’re a beginners with a lot of questions about the rosary or avid devotees who have been reciting it for many years, we should all strive to meet Jesus and Mary more in this great devotion and experience the profound fruit the rosary can bear in our lives.

—from the book Praying the Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter the Wonder of Heaven and Earth
by Edward Sri

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Fruits of the Rosary | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – Intention / Attention

God looks at us the way a good dad looks at his son or daughter. When it comes to prayer, our heavenly Father sees our hearts, our sincere desires to pray well, not just our final products in prayer. So even if our praying of the rosary ends up being just a bunch of scribbles, we should remember that God can write straight with our crooked lines.

He can delight in our good intentions, our sincere desires to please him in prayer, even if we lose fervor or our minds go someplace else. Having a good intention is more important than maintaining perfect attention throughout the prayer.

—from the book Praying the Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter the Wonder of Heaven and Earth
by Edward Sri

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Intention/Attention | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – Death is Not an Ending

Our faith has a way of answering questions and helping us understand that their deaths and those of all our loved ones are not signs of an ending, but rather a new beginning for them. The separation is only physical, though that initially is very painful. Spiritually, we are never separated from them. That’s because the God we believe in and who revealed to us the truth about life, death and life eternal never separates people who love one another. God is love. Why would he separate loving people?

They are closer than ever. We can’t see them, but they can see us. They can hear us and they still watch over us; that’s what mothers do! And our faith reminds us that there is a reunion waiting for us when we have completed our journey on earth. What a reunion that will be!

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Notes from a Friar: A Mother’s Love“
by Jim Van Vurst, OFM

//Franciscan Media – Facebook – 5/28/2024//

Death Is Not an Ending | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – Love Conquers Sin

It was because Christ was the perfect adorer of God, the perfect bridge between creatures and the Creator, that he could bridge the gap created by sin. Sin was not first in God’s intentions; but because we sinned, when God does come among us as Jesus Christ, his perfect adoration ends up being his perfect sacrifice.

He didn’t come to repair sin, he came to be the firstborn perfect creature; but because we sinned, he showed us just how great is God’s love: God not only becomes one of us, but he dies with and for us and made peace “through the blood of his cross.”

—from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM

Love Conquers Sin | Franciscan Media

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Minute Meditation – God’s Playful Spirit

What if our relationship with God is as simple but as joyful and sweet as spending the day playing with our grandchildren? We are delighted with their every tentative move, questioning eyes, captivating smiles, out-of-left-field antics, half-blurted syllables. Before someone hauls me before the Inquisition for heretical ideas, may I offer the scenario of the third joyful mystery, the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ? The three Wise Men traveled from afar, guided by the bright star, anticipating the once-in-a-lifetime meeting with the promised Messiah.

At the end of their long and harrowing journey, there was Jesus, asleep in the manger—a beautiful, gentle, innocent baby.

Our loving God will do anything to gladden our hearts. Anything to make our day. Surely, God will happily play with us, as Christ did with his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. Can we open our hearts, “become like children” (Mt 18:3), and allow God to play with us?

—from the blog “At Play in the Fields of the Lord“
by Ed Gamboa, MD

God’s Playful Spirit | Franciscan Media

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The Beauty of the Beatitudes

The Beauty of the Beatitudes

As Christians, the beauty of the beatitudes is that they remind us that this world is not our home. What we have in this life does not define our worth, nor does it represent anything that is lasting. The reason that Jesus says that those who are truly blessed are those who suffer (poverty, mourning, and the like) is not because he wants us to suffer; it’s because he wants us to realize that nothing in this world can ever fully satisfy. Only he can.

And so, even though suffering may appear at first to be without benefit, if it helps us depend more on God, grow in empathy, and focus us on what really matters, how can it be anything but a blessing?

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Acting on the Beatitudes“
by Casey Cole, OFM

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God Wants Our Truest Selves

God Wants Our Truest Selves

Jesus does not want masks. He does not want projections of our superficial selves that bear no resemblance to who we really are. When he calls us to follow after him, he does not want the person we wish we were or the person we pretend to be. No, when he calls us, he wants the person he created, the person we are becoming in his love, our truest selves.

If we want to follow after him, we must strip ourselves of everything that is superficial, inauthentic, forced, or pretend. We need to let go of all those partial and superficial selves. They just get in the way.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

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God is Wild

God Is Wild

The prophets were a wild bunch. They had to be because they were the spokespeople of a wild God, a God who didn’t care much about temples and offerings but who cared a lot about the way people were treated and the opening of the human heart.  We tend to think the prophets were fortunetellers predicting the Christian future, but they were much more. They named the ever-present illusions and self-deceptions. They were non-clergy with a radical message from a God seeking intimacy, and for all their efforts, they largely got persecution and death, down to the last of the prophets, John the Baptist.

Nice religion is always threatened by the “glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Suddenly, God is in charge instead of our explanations of things. I love to remind people that the word “nice” is never found in the Bible. God is not nice, it seems; God is wild.

—from the book From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality
by Richard Rohr

//Franciscan Media – 4/2/2024//

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The Catechism in a Year – Day 346 – Meditation and Vocal Prayer

Because man is both body and spirit, our prayers can be vocal and meditative. We learn that vocal prayer expresses the movements of our hearts and minds, enabling us to pray with the fullness of our being. Another form of prayer is meditation, which the Catechism tells us is “above all a quest.” In meditation, we employ our thoughts, imagination, and emotions to deepen our union with Christ. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2700-2708.

Click on link: https://youtu.be/UtjNh0p43sw?si=eQ6wkAL1PSYFbwrX

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Meditation of the Day – Exercise Your Spiritual Muscle

“Throughout Sacred Scripture, we find that when God’s people fast, the power of their prayers is increased, especially when they are engaged in spiritual warfare. In the Old Testament, the Lord told Isaiah that a fast properly undertaken would ‘loose the bonds of wickedness … undo the thongs of the yoke … let the oppressed go free’ (Is. 58:6) … In the New Testament, we find that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness in preparation for His battle with Satan, who came to tempt Him (see Lk 4:1-2) … If prayer is a spiritual weapon, fasting is the spiritual whetstone on which it is sharpened. It’s the spiritual muscle that, when exercised regularly, strengthens the thrust of that weapon to pierce the Enemy and drive him away.”— Paul Thigpen, p. 42