Franciscan Media

Joy is the gist of the Christian Good News. Yet, only if we open wide our senses will we be able to drink from the source of this joy. Only then will the Good News prove truly good and ever new.

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

I would like to emphasize the beauty of a simple contemplative prayer, accessible to all, great and small, the educated and those with little education. It is the prayer of the Holy Rosary. In the Rosary we turn to the Virgin Mary so that she may guide us to an ever closer union with her Son Jesus, to bring us into conformity with him, to have his sentiments and to behave like him. Indeed, in the Rosary while we repeat the Hail Mary we meditate on the Mysteries, on the events of Christ’s life, so as to know and love him ever better.

An admirer of Mother Teresa once gifted her with her own personal “calling card.” Teresa liked the card so much that she had copies made and regularly handed them out to people for the rest of her life.

Written on the small yellow cards were spiritual lessons Teresa had learned from the Church, her prayer life, and her ministry to the poor. She summed them up in five steps.

The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.

Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.

Every vocation is a vocation to sacrifice and to joy. It is a call to the knowledge of God, to the recognition of God as our Father, to joy in the understanding of His mercy.

Many sheep do not recognize the presence of the Good Shepherd in the Church today and insist on wandering off on their own, expecting to enjoy the false freedom of living independently. They allow themselves to be deaf to the voice of the Shepherd. Soon, without realizing it, they grow weak without the nourishing food in the Shepherd’s pasture and grow thirsty as they drift farther away from the springs of living water in the Spirit.

Pause for a moment and look around you. Simply thank God for all the gifts that you have right now, all the gifts saved from the wreck of life: the lamp that illumines this page, the chair that gives you comfort, the home that provides shelter. That’s a good exercise of stewardship.

Thank God for the sun and stars in the sky, for the support of friends, for the opportunities of a new day, for the ability to laugh and cry. A disciple receives everything with gratitude. It is prayer that helps keep the heart grateful and filled with joy.