Franciscan Quote of the Day

The mission that Jesus gives us to make disciples of all nations involves risk, labor, and maybe even discomfort. But the mission is not good because it’s hard; it’s hard because it’s good, and we are not! We need Jesus to pull us out of our internal reveries, our selfishness, our self-referentiality; and we need to allow ourselves to be drawn, to be transformed by the beauty of his face. And then we are free to meet our fellow men, as they are and where they are. And that encounter, too, may change us.

Br. Gabriel Torretta, O.P., Pope Francis and Egotistic Adoration

We need silence to be alone with God, to speak to him, to listen to him, to ponder his words deep in our hearts. We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. Silence gives us a new outlook on life. In it we are filled with the energy of God himself that makes us do all things with joy.

~Mother Teresa via  The Catholic Apostolate Center

The state of spacious heart openness is known in spiritual traditions as surrender. Not what you usually think about when you hear the word “surrender,” is it? We usually equate the word with capitulation and consider it a sign of weakness. But surrender, spiritually understood, has nothing to do with outer capitulation, with rolling over and playing dead. It has to do with keeping the right alignment inwardly that allows you to stay in the flow of your deeper sustaining wisdom—to “feel the force,” in those legendary words from the first Star Wars movie. In that state of openness you then decide what you’re going to do about the outer situation. whatever you do, whether you acquiesce or vigorously resist, your actions will be clear. 

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus via The Mercy Blog

A Franciscan approach to ministry must always be rooted in a life of lived prayer. Those who adopt a Franciscan approach to ministry are not just people who pray, but people whose whole life serves as a prayer by their words and actions. Lived prayer is the openness to ongoing conversion that allows God to enter one’s life and transform it from the preoccupations of worldly concerns and triviality to an expression of authentic Gospel living – following Christ’s footsteps and working as God’s instrument of peace today.

~Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith by Daniel Horan OFM

Transform me into yourself, so that I may no longer know myself, nor find myself, except in you.

~Thomas of Jesus quoted by Therese on Twitter