Tag: Spirit

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Minute Meditation – Power Cannot, in Itself, be Bad

Power cannot, in itself, be bad. It simply needs to be realigned and redefined as something larger than domination or force. Rather than stating that power is bad, the Bible reveals the paradox of power. If the Holy Spirit is power, then power has to be good, not something that is always the result of ambition or greed. In fact, a truly spiritual woman, a truly whole man, is a very powerful person. In people like Moses, Jesus, and Paul, we can assume that it was precisely their powerful egos that God used, built on, and transformed, but did not dismiss. If we do not name the good meaning of power, we will invariably be content with the bad, or we will avoid our powerful vocation.

— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM

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“O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.”
— St. Augustine

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Morning Offering – The Catholic Church is One Body with Many Members

“Just as in one man there is one soul and one body, yet many members; even so the Catholic Church is one body, having many members. The soul that quickens this body is the Holy Spirit; and therefore in the Creed after confessing our belief in the Holy Spirit, we are bid to believe in the Holy Catholic Church.”
— St. Thomas Aquinas

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Minute Meditation – Mary Assumed Into Heaven

Mary is filled with joy as she lies down more tired than usual.  She closes her eyes, and she is inside the new Jerusalem, it seems, that is beyond her home here in Ephesus. She is in a large field that is inside the new Jerusalem, and she is lying down as in a field of golden ripened wheat.  She tries to keep her eyes closed, but the light of the field floods the room where she was trying to sleep, and she is wide awake. She begins to rise.  Or are her eyes still closed and she is but dreaming that His hand is reaching down to her? She is still in the beautiful field but she can still hear John turning in his sleep in the other room, though the sound grows fainter and the light grows brighter around her. The overshadowing cloud is lifting as is she.  She sees John.  He is sitting up in bed, eyes toward heaven, looking at her. He is smiling.  He is lifting his arms as if lifting her, then releasing her like a feather caught on the breath that is the Holy Spirit. Amen. So be it.

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

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Meditation of the Day – Christ is True God and True Man

“Christ is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, true God and true man, eternally united with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Just as there can be no separation within Christ’s human nature, so there can be none within His divine nature. Just as we cannot separate Christ’s body from His blood, or His soul from His body and blood, so we cannot separate Christ from the other persons in the Trinity. Time after time, we hear the priest pray to the Father at the end of the opening prayer of the Mass: We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.”— Vinney Flynn, p. 25

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Minute Meditation – Leaning on God

I lean on God but from time to time I feel that I am leaning on air. That happens when I start putting God out there somewhere too far removed from me. When I remember that God dwells in me and in all my brothers and sisters in Christ, then that leaning becomes substantial again and God takes flesh in those around me whom I can see and hear. We are the body of Christ, and he has no other visible body here and now. God is Spirit who has become enfleshed in Jesus and Jesus takes on flesh and bone in us through the same Holy Spirit. When we lean on one another, we are building up the body of Christ. We are strengthening our own weakness by acknowledging that we are only a part of the whole body and that we need all the other members if we are going to function correctly and appreciate our own worth. 

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

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