Tag Archives: Charity

Generosity in Lent

Lent is a time when we follow Christ more closely, accompanying him along the way of the Cross over Mount Calvary to the Resurrection. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Christ spent forty days praying and fasting in the desert to prepare for his public life. We accompany him in Lent by intensifying our own life of prayer and self-denial for forty days.
  • Christ loved us “to the end” by dying on the Cross for us and so we should grow in our love for others.
  • It is important to live Lent well since we don’t know when God is going to call us to eternal life with him. “Now is the acceptable time”, St Paul writes to the Corinthians.
  • St Peter Chrysologus teaches us that we should never separate the three aspects of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
  • We identify specific, practical ways in which we can improve our life of prayer, self-denial and charity.

The spirit of Advent

In Advent, we prepare for the coming of Christ in history, which we celebrate at Christmas, and for his coming in glory at the end of time. We can also prepare for his coming daily into our hearts and for his coming at the end of our life to call us to our eternal home. To live Advent well, It is good to consider it like a “little Lent”. In this meditation we use texts of Scripture, St Cyril of Jerusalem and St Bernard of Clairvaux to consider how we can do this:

  • Learning from Mary and Joseph on their journey to Bethlehem
  • Improving our life of prayer
  • Living a generous spirit of penance
  • Showing more love to those around us

Living Lent with generosity

 

The word Lent comes from the ancient word Lencten, meaning springtime. If we live Lent well we have a true springtime, with new growth in our spiritual life. In this meditation we consider how:

  • In Lent we accompany Jesus in his forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert.
  • We respond to his invitation, if we want to be his disciples, to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him.
  • We can choose something from each of the three traditional areas of prayer, fasting and charity.
  • If we live Lent with generosity, we will be much closer to God on Easter Sunday than we were on Ash Wednesday.

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This entry was posted in Meditations and tagged Charity, Fasting, John Flader, Lent, Meditation, podcast, Pope Francis, Prayer, St Peter Chrysologus on . Edit

 

Journey to Bethlehem

 

 

 

 

 

In this season of Advent we accompany Our Lady and St Joseph as they make their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. In this meditation we learn from the many aspects of their journey and from their preparations for Jesus’ birth in the stable in Bethlehem how we can live Advent better. It can become a “little Lent” where we find practical ways of improving our:

  • Life of prayer
  • Spirit of penance
  • Details of charity with those around us

 

The Good Samaritan

 

We all love the parable of the Good Samaritan, but how well do we live out its message? In this meditation we use Pope Francis’ commentary on the parable in his encyclical Fratelli tutti to see the many lessons it contains and to suggest practical ways of putting these lessons into practice.

Calming the storm

St Matthew relates in his gospel how Christ, after multiplying the loaves and fish to feed the multitude, went up onto the hillside to pray. Before dawn the following day he walked on the water to the apostles who were in the boat and calmed the storm. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Prayer is very important in our life, especially when we are going through storms
  • Sometimes works of charity take precedence over our prayer
  • As a result of original sin, there will always be suffering in various forms
  • Christ does not abandon us; he always comes to our aid
  • We should continue praying with faith, confident that Christ always hears us

Love for our neighbour

 

 

St Paul tells us that the greatest of the virtues is charity. If we are to live this virtue well, we must first grow in love for God so that his love fills us and overflows into those around us. In this meditation we consider how:

  • The more we love God, the easier it will be to love our neighbour
  • We can learn charity from saints like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St Josemaria, who loved God with their whole heart and their neighbour as themselves
  • We can grow in four aspects of charity: patience, love for people of all backgrounds, forgiveness and kindness

Learning to love

Our Lord, Jesus Christ washing the feet of his apostles.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ washing the feet of his apostles. An act of love.

 

Our Lord loved us “to the end” and he gives us the New Commandment to love one another as he has loved us. In this meditation we consider how:

  • The saints, including St Josemaria, truly poured out love because they themselves were in love with God
  • If we are going to love our neighbour truly we must first fall more in love with God through prayer, the sacraments, etc.
  • We can improve in patience by considering how patient God is with us
  • We can strive to improve in such other aspects of love as spirit of service,  forgiveness and kindness by considering Christ’s example

Love to the end – the virtue of generosity

St John begins his account of  Christ’s Passion saying that “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Our Lord goes on to give his disciples the “new commandment” to love one another as he has loved us. We too are called to love “to the end”, beyond what comes easy, generously. In this meditation we consider:

  • Our Lady’s generosity in her visitation to Elizabeth and at Calvary
  • There is a big difference among people, some of whom are very generous and others selfish
  • After we die, people will remember us for our generosity, if we truly lived this virtue
  • Scriptural passages in which Christ and St Paul praise generosity
  • Stories of generosity
  • Ways of being generous first at home, in the family
  • Ways of living this virtue with those around us

Seeing Christ in others

Charity, as St Paul writes, is the greatest of the virtues (cf. 1 Cor 13: 13) but it is also one of the hardest to live. A big help in being more kind and generous is to see Christ in everyone around us. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Christ taught us that whatever we do to the least of our brethren we do to him (cf. Mt 25:40).
  • Our Lord showed us by his example how to love others and he gave us the New Commandment to love others as he has loved us (John 13:34).
  • We love others because God first loved us (cf. 1 John 4:19).
  • St Mother Teresa of Calcutta was truly exemplary in seeing Christ in the poorest of the poor.
  • Those closest to us have the first claim on our love.