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DAILY
MEDITATIONS
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02-12-06
The Great Gift of Parenthood |
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Children are their parents' guests. They come into
the space that has been created for them, stay for a
while - fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years - and
leave again to create their own space. Although
parents speak about "our son" and "our daughter,"
their children are not their property. In many ways
children are strangers. Parents have to come to know
them, discover their strengths and their weaknesses,
and guide them to maturity, allowing them to make
their own decisions.
The greatest gift parents can give their children is
their love for each other. Through that love they
create an anxiety-free place for their children to
grow, encouraging them to develop confidence in
themselves and find the freedom to choose their own
ways in life. |
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02-05-06 Becoming Kind |
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When we say, "She is a kind person" or
"He surely was kind to me," we express a very warm
feeling. In our competitive and often violent world,
kindness is not the most frequent response. But when
we encounter it we know that we are blessed. Is it
possible to grow in kindness, to become a kind
person? Yes, but it requires discipline. To be kind
means to treat another person as your "kin," your
intimate relative. We say, "We are kin" or "He is
next of kin." To be kind is to reach out to someone
as being of "kindred" spirit.
Here is the great challenge: All people, whatever
their color, religion, or sex, belong to humankind
and are called to be kind to one another, treating
one another as brothers and sisters. There is hardly
a day in our lives in which we are not called to
this. |
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01-17-06
Be Yourself |
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Often we want to be somewhere other than
where we are, or even to be someone other
than who we are. We tend to compare
ourselves constantly with others and wonder
why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as
simple, as generous, or as saintly as they
are. Such comparisons make us feel guilty,
ashamed, or jealous. It is very important to
realize that our vocation is hidden in where
we are and who we are. We are unique human
beings, each with a call to realize in life
what nobody else can, and to realize it in
the concrete context of the here and now.
We will never find our vocations by trying
to figure out whether we are better or worse
than others. We are good enough to do what
we are called to do. Be yourself!
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01-16-06
Living with Hope |
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Optimism and hope are radically different
attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that
things-the weather, human relationships, the
economy, the political situation, and so
on-will get better. Hope is the trust that
God will fulfill God's promises to us in a
way that leads us to true freedom. The
optimist speaks about concrete changes in
the future. The person of hope lives in the
moment with the knowledge and trust that all
of life is in good hands.
All the great spiritual leaders in history
were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth,
Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day
all lived with a promise in their hearts
that guided them toward the future without
the need to know exactly what it would look
like. Let's live with hope.
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01-13-06 The
Still, Small Voice of Love |
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Many voices ask for our attention. There is
a voice that says, "Prove that you are a
good person." Another voice says, "You'd
better be ashamed of yourself." There also
is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares
about you," and one that says, "Be sure to
become successful, popular, and powerful."
But underneath all these often very noisy
voices is a still, small voice that says,
"You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you."
That's the voice we need most of all to
hear. To hear that voice, however, requires
special effort; it requires solitude,
silence, and a strong determination to
listen.
That's what prayer is. It is listening to
the voice that calls us "my Beloved."
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01-12-06
The Spiritual Work of
Gratitude |
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To be grateful for the
good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to
be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as
the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments
of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures,
the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires
hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly
grateful people when we can say thank you to all
that has brought us to the present moment. As long
as we keep dividing our lives between events and
people we would like to remember and those we would
rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our
beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.
Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has
brought us to where we are now and trust that we
will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving
God. |
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