Tag: silence

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Minute Meditation – God in All Things

We need to see silence, and nothingness itself, as a kind of being in the great chain of being, maybe the first link from which all others emerge. St. Bonaventure, the Italian spiritual genius who picked up the intellectual thread from the non-academic Francis, led us through the great chain of being from material things, to inner soul, to the Divine. John Duns Scotus, an early Franciscan, said you may speak of being with one voice from the being of the earth itself, to the waters upon the earth to the minerals within the earth, the flowers and trees and grasses, the animals, the humans, the angelic choirs, the divine. Both of these mystics would have said that once you stop seeing the divine in any one link of that chain, the whole thing will fall apart. It is either all God’s work or you have a hard time finding God in mere parts. That split and confused world is the postmodern world we live in today, which no longer knows how to surround and ground all things in silence. This is not an oversimplification. Either you see God in all things, or very quickly you cannot see God anywhere, even in your own species.

—from the book Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation by Richard Rohr

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Prayer and Action

There surely is a world of difference between the prayer of action and that of silence or word. Here it is not by listening and responding, not by diving down into silence, but by acting, by doing, that I communicate with God. Whatever I can do lovingly can become prayer of action.  Nor is it necessary that I explicitly think of God while working or playing. Sometimes this would hardly be possible. While proofreading a manuscript, I better keep my mind on the text, not on God. If my mind is torn between the two, the typos will slip through like little fish through a torn net. God will be present precisely in the loving attention I give to the work entrusted to me. By giving myself fully and lovingly to that work, I give myself fully to God. This happens not only in work but also in play, say, in bird-watching or in watching a good movie. God must be enjoying it in me, when I am enjoying it in God. Is not this communion the essence of praying?

— from the book The Way of Silence: Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life by Brother David Steindl-Rast

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Meditation of the Day – Our Ears are Filled with Racket

“When we come into church from the outside our ears are filled with the racket of the city, the words of those who have accompanied us, the laboring and quarreling of our own thoughts, the disquiet of our hearts’ wishes and worries, hurts and joys. How are we possibly to hear what God is saying? That we listen at all is something; not everyone does. It is even better when we pay attention and make a real effort to understand what is being said. But all this is not yet the attentive stillness in which God’s word can take root. This must be established before the service begins, if possible in the silence on the way to church, still better in a brief period of composure the evening before.”— Msgr. Romano Guardini, p. 17

//Catholic Company//

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Meditation of the Day – Pledge Your Heart to the Mother of Sorrows

“The Blessed Virgin endured a long and cruel martyrdom in her heart for our sakes, and for love of us. Frequently, and with feelings of tender love, contemplate her standing at the foot of the Cross, and join her in bewailing and weeping over sin, which, by causing the death of Jesus, rent in twain the heart of Mary. Pledge your heart to this Mother of sorrows, by some habitual act of devotion and mortification, in remembrance and in honor of her bitter sufferings. Also, endure something for love of her, imitating her patience, resignation, and silence.”— Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus, p. 259

//The Catholic Company//