Tag: Meditation

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Meditation of the Day – Undertake Great Tasks

“Undertake courageously great tasks for God’s glory, to the extent that he’ll give you power and grace for this purpose. Even though you can do nothing on your own, you can do all things in him. His help will never fail you if you have confidence in his goodness. Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in his hands. Abandon to the fatherly concern of his divine providence every care for your health, reputation, property, and business; for those near to you; for your past sins; for your soul’s progress in virtue and love of him; for your life, death, and especially your salvation and eternity—in a word, all your cares. Rest in the assurance that in his pure goodness, he’ll watch with particular tenderness over all your responsibilities and cares, arranging all things for the greatest good.”— St. John Eudes, p. 363

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Minute Meditation – Saint Francis of Assisi

No doubt, despite his personal generosity, Francis of Assisi, like many in our society, took his privilege for granted as God-given. Only later did Francis let go of his social and economic privilege so he could live in solidarity with all creation—rich and poor, human and nonhuman. I have come to recognize that privilege can insulate as well as isolate. Despite our relative wealth and comfort, the realities of privilege can spiritually harm both the privileged and the marginalized, whose poverty is often the shadow side of our abundance. We who are privileged can gain the world and lose our souls. Our sense of entitlement and alienation from those who struggle contracts our spirits and renders us oblivious to the voice of God speaking through our human and nonhuman neighbors. We fail to realize that many of our greatest achievements are the result of advantages we neither deserved or earned just as many persons’ poverty and failure come are the result of factors beyond their control. Initiative and hard work matter, but achievement is shaped by what we’ve been given, not just what we’ve earned. Tragically, the poverty of others is often connected to our own economic wellbeing.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

//Franciscan Media//

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Daily Meditation – Not Ruin, But Restoration

“So, if God has not resolved to cast His work back into nothingness forever, if this earth, sanctified by the footsteps of Christ, is destined, once radiant and renewed, to remain forever, then man must rise again in a future life to reconquer its scepter and kingship. Hence, once more, it follows that death means not ruin but restoration. If God has decreed that our earthly abode shall one day be dissolved, it is not for the purpose of despoiling us of it, but to render it subtle, immortal, serene. His aim may be compared to that of an architect, says St. John Chrysostom, who has the inhabitants leave his house for a short period, in order to have him return with greater glory to that same house, now rebuilt in greater splendor.”—  Fr. Charles Arminjon, p. 84

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Minute Meditation – God Give You Peace

As I pilgrimed through Assisi that morning, the town began to waken. Street cleaners and sanitation workers began their day. Innkeepers opened their doors and parents sent their children off to school. As the silent morning morphed into a busy day in which other pilgrims and tourists would soon fill the streets, I remembered the greeting that characterized Francis’s encounters, “May God give you peace” as I quietly blessed each recently awakened passerby. And so, as we embark with Francis on our daily pilgrimages in mystical activism, I pray, “May God give you peace” on the path you travel, and may your adventures be plentiful as you bring peace and healing to this good earth. Francis encouraged his companions to greet everyone with “May God give you peace.” Let that blessing fill your day. Whether spoken or silent, bless everyone you meet. Pray that every encounter brings peace and healing to the world. Experience your kinship with all creation, blessing the human and nonhuman world, including those you are tempted to curse. A life of blessing joins us with all creation and enables us to claim our vocation as God’s beloved companions one moment at a time.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce G. Epperly

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Meditation of the Day – Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

“Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.”— St. Francis of Assisi, p. 333

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Minute Meditations – God in All Things

Saints and mystics train their senses to be open to God’s presence. In my spiritual companionship with Francis, walking on Assisi roads and Cape Cod beaches, I have made a commitment to see God in all things and all things in God. I have exclaimed with Francis and his followers, “My God and all things.” I felt God’s call to pay attention to intuitions, insights,

dreams, and encounters, knowing that I may be entertaining angels without knowing it (see Hebrews 13:2). I am not alone in my journey to experience God in my personal life and citizenship. I suspect that you are on a journey of mystical activism, too. I invite you to consider making a commitment to look for divine messages everywhere. Listen to your life, and out of that listening, let your life speak in acts of transforming love.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

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Minute Meditation – Saint Francis of Assisi

Francis lived in a God-filled world. For the pilgrim of Assisi, the heavens declare the glory of God—and so do sparrows, wolves, and worms. Our cells and souls reflect divine wisdom and are constantly being energized and replenished, even inspired by God. In a God-saturated world, synchronous events populate our days, if our spirits and senses are open. Around each corner is a burning bush or a ladder of angels for pilgrims of the sprit. But, more than that, God wants us to move from mysticism to activism, midwifing and giving birth to God’s vision in our personal lives and public responsibilities. Synchronicities abound for those who live prayerfully, asking for guidance and then listening to God’s wisdom moving through their lives.

Francis believed in divine synchronicity and saw it as essential in the spiritual adventure. Surely it was synchronous that Francis showed up at the church of San Damiano and then listened to the guidance he received. No doubt it was synchronous for Francis to notice a leper as he traveled the roads of Umbria. Mortified and disgusted by leprosy, Francis may have wished to pass by on the other side of the road. But God’s still, small voice told him to stop, reach out, and embrace the man with leprosy. Both the man with leprosy and Francis were transformed in that moment. But, when Francis looked back as he continued the journey, the man with leprosy had disappeared. Francis wondered if the man was Christ in disguise; as he embraced the leper, was he embracing Jesus?

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

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Meditation of the Day – January 30, 2021: Time

“What is time, with regard to myself? It is my present and actual existence. Past time, or my past existence, is no longer anything, as far as I am concerned; I can neither recall it, nor change anything in it. The time to come, or my future existence, has not yet arrived, and perhaps never will arrive. I does not depend on me; I cannot count on it … No one is ignorant of these two simple truths, but very few draw from them the conclusions they ought to draw … This present moment, or this actual existence—from whom do I hold it? It is He who has preserved my existence from one instant to another, and who is preserving it at this present moment. Will He preserve it for me in the moment that shall immediately follow this one? I do not know; and nothing in the world can give me the assurance of it. Why has time been given to me? So that by it I may merit a happy eternity. I shall live forever: faith teaches me this; my reason even assures me of another life. The desire of immortality is implanted in the depths of my heart, and this desire, which God Himself has planted there, can never be frustrated of its object. I am, then, born for eternity, but this eternity will be happy or wretched … My fate for all eternity depends, then, on the use I make of time, and since neither the past nor the future is in my own power, it is quite true to say that my eternity depends always on the present moment. Now, at this present moment, what is my state? Would I like to die just as I am now?” — Fr. Jean Nicholas Grou, p. 82-83

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Meditation of the Day – January 29th

“Prayer, considered as petition, consists entirely in expressing to God some desire in order that He may hear it favorably; a real desire is, therefore, its primary and essential condition; without this, we are merely moving the lips, going through a form of words which is not the expression of our will; and thus our prayer is only an appearance without reality. The way, then, to excite ourselves to pray, to put life and fervor into our prayer, and to make of it a cry which, breaking forth from the depths of the soul, penetrates even to heaven, is to conceive the real desire mentioned above, to excite it, to cherish it; for the fervor of our prayer will be in proportion to the strength of the desire we have to be heard; just as what we have but little at heart we ask for only in a half-hearted way, if even we ask it at all; so what we desire with our whole soul we ask for with words of fire, and plead for it before God with an eloquence that is very real.”— Rev. Dom Lehody, p. 4-5