Franciscan Media

Dear Lord, send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing, so that your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind.

– from The Hope of Lent

My hope is not that things will go as I planned, but that the Lord will make himself known, in the faces of my loved ones, in the unexpected joys of family life that pop up right in the middle of our messy chaos, in the ways he provides for me and shows me his tender care in the most detailed ways.

– from Who Does He Say You Are?

We engage in works of mercy not so that we can present Saint Peter at the pearly gates with our list of accomplishments but because we cannot live honestly before God and with others unless we are attentive to human need.

– from Peace and Good

Mother Mary loves us all with a pure, selfless, and steadfast motherly love. She tirelessly calls to our hearts and souls. Her utmost aim is to bring us to her son.

– from Our Lady of Fatima

Jesus had traveled with his disciples to Jerusalem for the Passover, but he is faced with a veritable marketplace inside the Temple. He reacts in anger, but his actions carry the same message: turn your lives around. Jesus is not condemning commerce here. What he is condemning is mixing up commerce and prayer.

– from Sacred Silence

Pope Francis reminds us that prayer is the best way to overcome blind spots in our attitudes toward others. He doesn’t say it will be easy. But neither does he let us off the hook. If we search our hearts, we know that we’ve all been guilty of that desire to hold someone accountable long after we think we’ve forgiven him or her.

– from The Hope of Lent