blessing - Related Content

Are you willing to share (post a comment below) your own Six Word Mission Story?

Next week marks the beginning of travel for many as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches. Millions of people will board planes and trains and drive cars to gather with loved ones. Traffic, in one way or another, will most likely frustrate excited travelers dreaming of warmth and comfort once they arrive at their destinations. All of the stress melts away as joyful greetings and mouth-watering aromas greet each weary, nerves-worn-thin traveler finally crossing the threshold. This is the moment many dream of all year.

Image courtesy freeimages.com

Hours of love and care for guests start long before the time of celebration. Ingredients for favorite dishes along with a mix of new recipes are carefully considered as each cook desires to both satisfy and expand the horizons of guests gathered. The festive table beckons each person to linger amidst glowing candlelight as rich fall colors of gold, orange and brown compliment the trays of colorful foods nestled between gleaming, stark-white plates. Beauty intensifies as each person adds the gift of their presence around the table.  

Months of exile from one another fade as thankfulness for the moment grows. New memories are created and traditions of assembling grow deeper roots. Holiness pervades as the blessing initiates not only the beginning of the meal but also conversation laden with rich moments of the year’s harvest of blessings and challenges since last the group congregated. This is a eucharistic moment; bread is broken and life is shared. As we move beyond the static moment to see the mystery, we glimpse the transcendence of life.

Through the eyes of faith, holidays can become an experience of holy days and Thanksgiving highlights, in extraordinary ways, many of the markers of thoughtful discernment.

Gathering: moving outside of your own daily routine to join trusted friends and family and recognizing in new ways God’s activity in your life.
Contemplation: reflecting on blessings and challenges in your life.
Preparation: recognizing what you need in the moment, and also what the road ahead may require.
Beauty: being present to the moment at hand.
Abundance: recognizing that God provides more than we could ever consume.
Awareness: eyes wide open to the needs of others.

Food for thought this week as you prepare for your own pilgrimage to the banquet table …

How is discernment leading you to see beyond the surface meaning of an experience?

What are you thankful for in life and along your discernment journey?

Who will you invite to the table of your life?

*Do you know someone experiencing discernment of religious life? We invite you to share this link, www.fspa.org/showmeasign, and join the conversation. 

My greeting with the earth each morning is one of gratitude and love for the gift of a new day, and the prayer of Blessing and Goodness in the evening is with the earth’s presence. 

Gazing and listening in the presence of God’s sacred creation — communion and Eucharist beauty, simple and natural and wonderful — create my deepest prayer. 

Franciscan Way is a series featuring prayerful reflection by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

O my God, I offer you this morning cup of coffee.
As the steam rises upward,
So let all my thoughts, words and actions
Rise in praise of you today.
May the warmth of the cup, 
Transferred to my hands, be a reminder
Of the warmth and love I am to extend to all who I
meet today.
As I drink from the cup,
Let it be a sign of my willingness to share in the
“cup of salvation”
And offer my life to the Father as you did.
When I partake of the coffee
And feel it going through my body,
May it remind me of your constant love,
Ever filling me and giving me life.
Please bless me, my God, and make me good today.
Amen.

Franciscan Way is a series featuring original prayer by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

Editor's note: as published in the "Viterbo University Book of Prayers"