Today's Minute Meditations promotes humility and honesty in our prayer lives. 🙏
April 17, 2024
Hello John,
In my lifetime I have had the privilege of meeting two popes—our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and Mr. Pope, a subsistence farmer near the cane fields of Jamaica. Both radiated God’s love and both challenged me to live a life of prayer.
We all are called to a life of prayer by using words, actions, and simply being. Every encounter you have today is an invitation to prayer—even this newsletter. I am praying for you.
When you are finished reading today’s newsletter, go and share God’s love through prayer.
Saint of the Day for April 17: Benedict Joseph Labre
(March 25, 1748 – April 17, 1783)
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre’s Story
Benedict Joseph Labre was truly eccentric, one of God’s special little ones. Born in France and the eldest of 18 children, he studied under his uncle, a parish priest. Because of poor health and a lack of suitable academic preparation he was unsuccessful in his attempts to enter the religious life. Then, at age 16, a profound change took place. Benedict lost his desire to study and gave up all thoughts of the priesthood, much to the consternation of his relatives.
He became a pilgrim, traveling from one great shrine to another, living off alms. He wore the rags of a beggar and shared his food with the poor. Filled with the love of God and neighbor, Benedict had special devotion to the Blessed Mother and to the Blessed Sacrament. In Rome, where he lived in the Colosseum for a time, he was called “the poor man of the Forty Hours devotion” and “the beggar of Rome.” The people accepted his ragged appearance better than he did. His excuse to himself was that “our comfort is not in this world.”
On April 16, 1783, the last day of his life, Benedict dragged himself to a church in Rome and prayed there for two hours before he collapsed, dying peacefully in a nearby house. Immediately after his death, the people proclaimed him a saint.
Benedict Joseph Labre was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1881. His liturgical feast is celebrated on April 16.
Reflection
In a modern inner city, one local character kneels for hours on the sidewalk and prays. Swathed in his entire wardrobe winter and summer, he greets passersby with a blessing. Where he sleeps no one knows, but he is surely a direct spiritual descendant of Benedict, the ragged man who slept in the ruins of Rome’s Colosseum. These days we ascribe such behavior to mental illness; Benedict’s contemporaries called him holy. Holiness is always a bit mad by earthly standards.
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre is the Patron Saint of:
I have learned that the plan of God is much more exciting than anything I ever could have fashioned for myself. The impulse to become like the people we admire can become a great hindrance to our spiritual life. Our vocation, or state of life, should form our life of prayer and spiritual practices. “Pray as you are” is a straightforward way to remember this. I am not a hermit, a monastic, or even a mendicant friar. I am a secular priest.
So, please, pray as you are and not as you wish or think you should. Always be faithful to your state of life. In the seemingly mundane, ordinary circumstances of your life, the most extraordinary and unexpected thing can happen: You become a saint!
"He told them to go all the way through and pay the price for it. He shared with them his own creative seed, his own decisive word, his own illuminating Spirit. They are comfortable knowing, and they are comfortable not knowing. They can care and not care—without guilt or shame. "
The phrase “Here we go again” has likely played through a lot of our minds, no matter where we find ourselves on the political spectrum. But there’s a word we might benefit from reflecting on as the attack ads and mudslinging ratchet up in the ensuing months: indivisible. It’s in the Pledge of Allegiance, of course, but it also hearkens back to a fundamental Christian notion: that we are all one in the body of Christ.
Pray
God, giver of freedom and understanding, As we prepare to educate ourselves on candidates, policies, and the issues affecting our nation, Gently remind us that we are not entrenched enemies, But rather brothers and sisters in Christ. When the noise in our respective echo chambers Becomes so deafening that we can’t listen to each other respectfully, We ask that you nudge us in the direction of openness and dialogue. Amen.
Act
Search for an image on Google of political candidates you don’t support. If you feel anger or resentment just by seeing their faces, that’s normal. In this day and age, many of us are predisposed to being triggered in this way. However, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and remind yourself that these are all children of God, no matter how much we might disagree with their politics. When you open your eyes again, what do you see?
Today's Pause+Pray was written by Daniel Imwalle. Learn more here!
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