Minute Meditations

man praying with his hands folded while sitting on a tree stump.

Awaken to Prayer

The journey of prayer for Franciscans is the discovery of God at the center of our lives.
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Advent Is Construction Season

The call of Advent is clear. From both the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist, we hear, “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah was writing to the people exiled far from their homeland. John the ...
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Light the First Candle

Advent begins quietly, with the lighting of the first candle on the Advent wreath. As the days grow shorter in the northern hemisphere, we move to a place of increasing light both indoors and in our hearts. Instead of adding ...
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Food for Our Souls

Food freely given exacts from us a promise to go beyond its selfish reception to the unselfish realm of deep gratitude. There we commit ourselves to give to others what we have received. My food mentors— grandmother and mother—cooked not ...
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Contemplate the Mystery of God

We cannot see God with our physical eyes nor can we find God through the logic of reason. The more we try to see God with our physical eyes or find God through logical analysis, the more we will fail. ...
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Where Lion and Lamb Lie Down

Francis looked intently, and he looked with reverence and with love. He is moved. And it is that movement of the heart that leads to action. At the very least, it leads to praise; or if what is seen is ...
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The Way of the Love of God

A preference for light and beauty is one of the reasons St. Francis is attractive to us and why he was so successfully a peacemaker in his own time. It is why today his town of Assisi has been the ...
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Includes Saint of the Day, Minute Meditations, and Pause + Pray.