Minute Meditation – God Appreciates Our Prayers

Whatever struggles you may face with the rosary, never walk away feeling discouraged. If your mind wanders, if you don’t feel the fervor, or if you’re very sleepy while praying, remember that the words you are reciting are biblical and holy. Simply pulling out your beads and saying the sacred words is giving something beautiful to God, even if your heart or mind is not as into it as you’d like.

Moreover, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, the intention to pray is itself the beginning of prayer. In fact, he wrote in his Summa Theologiae, “It is not necessary that prayer should be attentive throughout; because the force of the original intention with which one sets about praying renders the whole prayer meritorious.” If we sincerely desire to give God our best in the rosary, but we lose attention and fervor, that foundational good intention is still a beautiful gift to God. So even if our performance of the rosary is not as great as we’d like it to be, that doesn’t wipe out the foundation of a good intention.

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

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

God Appreciates Our Prayers | Franciscan Media


When God Doesn’t Answer Your Prayers

If it feels like God isn’t answering your prayers, that can be disheartening. But it can also be devastating.

Today, Fr. Mike offers the good word that your God is your loving Father who wants to give you good things. But he also offers the reminder that God is not a genie over which we have control.


Minute Meditation – Accepting God’s Plan

One evening a lady came into the office. She had just come from seeing her husband in the hospital. She asked Solanus’s prayers and requested that he telephone her husband and give him some words of comfort. Solanus called the man’s room and told him that his wife was in the office and had asked for prayers for his recovery. After a few words of encouragement he said to the man, “Now, John, I will be praying for you this evening. I am going to pray for a happy death.” It was not what the man or his wife expected to hear, but Solanus was able to prepare them to accept God’s plan. The following day the man died a happy, peaceful death, and his wife and family found peace also.

—from the book Gratitude and Grit: The Life of Blessed Solanus Casey
by Brother Leo Wollenweber, OFM Cap, 47

//Franciscan Media//


What Should We Talk to God About? Everything.

Should we really talk to God about everything?

There are a lot of different kinds of prayers (liturgical, litanies, the rosary, the chaplet of divine mercy, etc.), but today Father hones in on mental prayer. Mental prayer—including lectio divina and Ignatian prayer—is about having a conversation with God and inviting him into your mind and your heart. But our minds are messy places, and our hearts are wounded. Should we really be talking to God about all of our thoughts, longings, and desires?


Does God Want to Hear Everything?

Should we really talk to God about everything?

There are a lot of different kinds of prayers (liturgical, litanies, the rosary, the chaplet of divine mercy, etc.), but today Father hones in on mental prayer. Mental prayer—including lectio divina and Ignatian prayer—is about having a conversation with God and inviting him into your mind and your heart. But our minds are messy places, and our hearts are wounded. Should we really be talking to God about all of our thoughts, longings, and desires?