Tag: Meditate Like the Saints

Categories
Meditation

Saint Stanislaus and Accountability

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning! Today is the feast of Saint Stanislaus. He was a very pious Polish bishop who oftentimes was confronting the king at the time who was a very cruel and tyrannical man. Saint Stanislaus was killed while he was offering Mass. The Tradition says that at the moment that he raised the host to consecrate it, the king struck him from behind, killed him, and then his soldiers chopped up the body and threw it out into a field. Quite the way to go.

So, this morning on our talk, we were working through this new questionnaire, digging a little bit deeper into what’s going on behind our lives, what’s contributing to the success or failure of what we’re trying to do with our lives. And I got to thinking that we are doing this to better prepare ourselves for God, not just to grow or improve in some measurable way, but actually to better prepare ourselves for that individual judgment, and none of us knows when or how that’s going to happen.

Saint Stanislaus died facing our Lord; actually in the middle of the highest act of his life. He was a very pious man, he did great works of charity and service to the poor, and so forth. He’s a saint, and so he was clearly prepared for that moment. He didn’t know how it was going to happen, when it was going to happen, but he was prepared.

These sheets that we work on- this little plan of life that we have that we check in every day or several times a day- Christopher is helping us to prepare ourselves for that individual judgment. So, if we were to go to sleep tonight and not wake up in the morning, how would our sheet look? How would the sheet of our life look when it’s time to be judged?

And so, in some way we’re getting a little insight. It’s like a little cheat sheet, if you will, for that final, end-of-life review of the sheet. How well did we do? What were our goals in life? Were we approaching God as we came to that moment in our life where our life is going to end? Or was our back to God, and maybe we were focused on something else?

So, I’m going to take kind of a different look at my sheet going forward and ask myself, “Does this sheet show today, and this last week, that I’m actually preparing myself to meet God? Have I turned away from the things of the world and turned myself towards God so that I’m ready to meet my Maker?”

That’s what I’m going to think about this week. I look forward to reviewing your videos.

Categories
Meditation

Going to Meet Our Lord

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys. I used to think I was pretty special for getting up at four o’clock in the morning once a week to join the calls with Christopher and the rest of the men in the Padre Pio group. I thought it was a great sign of my dedication.

And then this morning I heard a story about this guy who got up at two o’clock in the morning to do his holy hour and drove for six hours to go to Mass. This guy was so hungry to be with our Lord, he was so hungry to have that intimate connection with Our Lord that he was willing to get up at two o’clock in the morning and drive six hours to go to Mass in another state.

And if you think about that, it’s not just the getting up early and the sacrifice of sleep, but it’s the time in the car, it’s the travel, it’s the expense, it’s the unknowns that will happen along the way- the unknown of getting to a strange parish and maybe they won’t let you in, maybe the parking lot will be full, maybe they’ll run out of Communion. And yet this man took all of these risks on joyfully and without a thought for anything except for being there with our Lord.

Now, do we have that kind of passion? That devout recklessness in our hearts for the Lord to put everything else second and worry about nothing else but just coming into a meeting with the Lord?

I’ve got a lot of work to do. I hope this has been helpful for you. Think about divine, devout recklessness.

Categories
Meditation

If Today Was Your Last Day

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys, good morning. I was privileged to be on a call this morning with Christopher and the other gentleman in my group, and a great takeaway about living each day as if it was going to be our final day. This insight comes from this wonderful book, which many of you are familiar with, My Daily Bread.

There’s the notion that even though we might be young, we might think that we’ve got a long time to live, but we have no idea, and our life could end in an instant. And so, if we conducted ourselves in that way, what would we do with our time today?

If we went to bed tonight and we never woke up, would we be happy with how we spent those final twenty-four hours? What would those twenty-four hours look like if you knew that they were your final ones? How much time would you spend in prayer? How much penance would you do on that final day?

And that’s how we want to live our lives. And if you’re not living your life that way, then look and examine; use your chart, use your tracking to really identify what the gap is between what that ideal twenty-four hours would be and where you are right now. Because remember, our entire life is just made up of a series of days, and the days are made up of a series of snapshots of how we’re living. I hope this has been helpful to you.

Categories
Meditation

The Gift of Forgetfulness

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning, guys. I had a great call, and I wanted to share with you this insight that I got from the call that was really extraordinary.

So, one of the men on the call told this story of a guy who had a really interesting habit. He would frequently travel, and when he would go to the airport, he would leave his car in the parking lot, as many of us do. But, unlike many of us, he would be so engrossed in what was going on in his head and in his heart and what was on his soul that he would actually leave the car running and then presumably take the bus into the terminal and then make his flight and go about his day.

And it occurred to me that obviously, there could be only one thing that would be on his mind and in his heart that would be so engrossing that he would completely forget his surroundings; that he would leave his keys, that he would leave his car running.

Obviously, this was a man who was deeply in love with our Lord, who was meditating on the mysteries of our Lord and His Passion, and had so detached himself from his worldly surroundings that he didn’t even care about his keys, about leaving his car behind.He didn’t care that it might be a stolen, that it might run out of gas. None of that was on his mind because of the things that were so important to him.

And it occurs to me that all of us need to have this kind of attachment to God, that we literally have what some of the Saints have called ‘the gift of forgetfulness’. Now, I think they often talk about being forgetful when it comes to the injuries we’ve suffered from other people, whether it’s being called names, whether they’ve done things to hurt our reputation, or whatever.

But I think that there’s also something to be learned from this example; that if we go about our lives with the same forgetfulness that that man had, the same passion for following the will of our Lord, for serving others, for loving one another, and we let the things of the world just kind of pass us by, there might be little inconveniences along the way- there might be times where we have to call somebody to bring us a gallon of gas or jump start our car or bring us an extra set of keys whatever the case may be- but those are minor things compared to giving ourselves over completely to the will of God.

I hope this reflection has been helpful for you. Have a great day.

Categories
Meditation

Full Circle With Christ On Good Friday

TRANSCRIPT:

Happy Good Friday afternoon. I’m sure, like all of you, I’ve spent the afternoon involved with our liturgies and spiritual reading, looking at all of the meditations that we’ve got, all the information that we have to allow us to make this day special.

My insight today was really profound for me. You know, you read the same stuff over and over again every year, if you’re a cradle Catholic like I am, probably for forty years now. And so you’ve heard these stories, you see these things, but something really jumped out at me today that I wanted to share with you.

We all know how we got in this mess to begin with. It started in the Garden, and Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil, they violated God’s law, and they did so by taking something down off the tree and consuming it. And this was their path to death and the path to original sin for all of us.

How extraordinary it is, then, that God has deemed to bring about our salvation by taking Himself and putting Himself back up on the tree. Just like Adam and Eve took something off the tree and it was death, our Lord has put himself on the tree for our life. And of course, just like they were partaking of a forbidden fruit and they consumed it, our Lord has inverted that and made it good, and we partake of something- His body, His blood- which would normally be forbidden, right? But He has made it available voluntarily as a sacrifice, and we consume that.

So these are the remarkable parallels, these extraordinary echoes and rhymes that our Lord has given us, and also, it’s a complete circle. It’s a full satisfaction for the wrong that they did in a way that anybody can understand. Even a simpleton who would not get all the high theology could look at this parallel, look how it’s come full circle and made everything right.

It’s really extraordinary for me; I hope it’s beneficial for you to think about it that way, also. Take care.

Categories
Meditation

Stewards of God’s Time

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey gentlemen- great insight from today’s call. Christopher shared with us the very sad story about a man who was fired from his job for using his employer’s time to look for another job; he was sending out resumes and so forth. So the man was fired. And the idea here for a reflection is really that time belongs to God. Our very lives belong to Him. They don’t really belong to us.

So, if we think about this poor man who’s sitting in his home, fired for using his employer’s time to actually look for another job- how are we using our time? Would God fire us for the way in which we use His time?

And I’m afraid that for many of us, certainly for myself, the answer is “Yes”. God probably would not be happy with the way we’ve used the time in our lives so far. So, I’m going to ask myself every day going forward: “Have I used my time- God’s time- in a way that brings honor and glory to Him and serves His mission?”

It’s a very high calling. It’s going to be a big challenge for many of us.

I hope that you find this as edifying as I have.

Categories
Meditation

Emphasize What Is Truly Important

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning gentlemen. Great insight today from our call: Christopher shared with this the notion that things become important when we emphasize them.

So, there are a lot of important things that can fall by the wayside, fall through the cracks if we’re not emphasizing them. So they may, in reality, be important, but they’re not important to us; we’re not doing the actions that would correspond with their importance.

It’s a simple but profound concept. And so in this time of crisis and worry and panic, do that examination- not just of our conscience, but our strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities in our lives, the threats- to determine what’s important today not yesterday; what’s important today, what we need to do and emphasize that thing today. Don’t worry about tomorrow because it’ll take care of itself, but emphasizing, in today, what’s important, will make that important in our lives and those of the people that are around us. 

Thanks for taking the time to listen, and thank you Christopher, as always, for your guidance.

Categories
Meditation

Accountability

TRANSCRIPT:

This is Jeff with my insight video for this week.  I was thinking on our last phone call about accountability, and Christopher’s done a great job for us with establishing all of these norms of accountability and holding us to them.

And I realized on the call, while listening, that I have no problem getting up at this ridiculous hour in the morning to join the group of guys that Christopher has assembled; I set my timer, I’ve got a back-up alarm, it’s several hours early for me, and yet I’m there, right? 

And I think the reason that I’m there and the reason I don’t always get up at the same ridiculous early hour for my own prayers is that I’m worried that Christopher’s going to be on the call with all the guys, and he’s going to pick up the phone and call me and say, “Jeff, where are you? Are you going to join us?” And maybe it’s out of pride or something else, but I don’t want that to happen. 

And it occurred to me that in this respect, I actually fear Christopher more than I do God, and that’s because my judgment from God is delayed. I don’t have to face that judgment, right? But we’re all going to, one day, face that final judgment, and everybody’s going to know everything and see us.

And so I resolved myself to realize that I’m the one that benefits here. God doesn’t benefit from my early morning prayers- I benefit. And by making present a little bit more that eventual reality, the one we all believe in, I’m actually serving myself, even while I serve God better. So, I hope this has been valuable to you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Categories
Meditation

Gratuitous Gifts From God

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning gentlemen. One of my meditations this week touched on the gift of Baptism. And as I was reflecting upon it, it occurred to me- our relationship with our Creator. He has given us so much; t’s so gratuitous. He gave us our soul- which we didn’t deserve- our very life, our very being, the very potential of spending eternity with Him.

He gave us redemption when our race fell. He gave us individually our baptisms, so that we have the hope and potential to participate in that supernatural life with Him again. And He has given us the Sacrament of Confession so that when we die, when we empty our soul of that divine life of that grace, we have the ability to gain it all over again.

And I thought to myself how many times in my life I have had recourse to that sacrament and was born yet again over and over and over again. And there our Lord stands waiting and forgiving and merciful to receive us, yet once again.

So, I think about our relationship with God reflecting on these gratuitous gifts and how I have returned for those gifts really nothing but ingratitude and disappointment, and yet there He is, ready to forgive over and over again.

So, as we try to grow it in gratitude during this Lent, I hope that sharing this reflection, this insight video with you has been helpful. God bless.

Categories
Meditation

Precision In Our Spiritual Life

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning, gentlemen. In my insight video for this week, I want to share with you the takeaway from this morning’s meeting that I had with the guys in the Padre Pio group. The degree to which we are specific about, obsessive about, particular about our goals and our processes and our achievements as it regards our spiritual life is probably proportionate to the odds that we have of reaching heaven.

When we track these things every day, when we’re following just how well we’re doing (or how not well we’re doing), it’s a little bit like the way we track things in sports. If you’re learning to play a sport, there’s a very particular way to play every position, a right way and a wrong way, and you practice it over and over again.If you practice poorly, you’re going to play poor and poorly, and if you practice well, you’ll play well. 

We take the same kind of precision and obsessiveness if we’re cooking, right? You don’t want to put any more hot pepper or salt or any other ingredient in that dish than really needs to be there, or else it’s just not going to come out right. Of course, we do the same thing, those of us that are in business. We have metrics and all the rest of it that we follow very specifically.

If we take the same kind of approach to our spiritual life, our odds of making it to heaven and our chances of having a lasting peace here on earth go up dramatically. And if you’re anything like me, Christopher can be kind of annoying with all of his requirements- and sometimes demands- that you do it, you fill in the blanks, you record it, you’re precise, you’re meaningful about all of your feedback. The truth is, of course, that he’s really doing us an act of charity by helping us to elevate our sights, perfect our intention, and take that next step in our spiritual life. 

I hope this moment has been valuable to you, and I look forward to seeing your insight videos.