This is a weekly summary of the previous week’s Daily Meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF), and some by Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). You can click on the title of a DM in order to view the original piece in its entirety. Also, please note, we will continue to offer a video teaching by Matthew each Monday.
December 8, 2025: More on Science, Spirituality and Gratitude (MF)
Thom Hartmann, known for his prophetic work in the area of politics, gives us a glimpse of his spiritual side in an article called “The Radical Power of Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain and Life.” He says: I always suspected that this daily practice of gratitude helped keep me sane in these insane times, but now I’ve discovered there’s actual science behind the mental health impacts of it.* When we focus on appreciation, our brain “dials down the production of cortisol, our body’s primary stress hormone.” Also, People who practice gratitude regularly report sleeping better, probably because they’re replacing anxious thoughts with appreciative ones before bedtime. Gratitude is something all the mystics understood and is a huge part of the Via Positiva. A gratitude practice can help us traverse these challenging times.
December 9, 2025: Ingratitude in the Religion Silicon Valley Billionaires Are Pushing (MF)
We have been meditating recently on the billionaire oligarchs who have way too much power in our country. It seems they are decidedly lacking in gratitude, while focusing overly on visions of apocalypse and destruction. In his four lectures on the Antichrist, Peter Thiel makes no mention of joy or gratitude. And Elon Musk seems to think he’d be happier on Mars. These men are determined to end democracy and replace it with a body politic designed by and for the wealthy elite. About men such as this, Thomas Merton said that they are fearful men afraid of the most important voyage of discovery, that which separates us from ourselves. Each of them bring their unattended father wounds to the body politic, and in so doing, risk an apocalypse and end of the world for all.
December 10, 2025: Justice and Love (GG)
Italian poet Franco Arminio recently said something very simple yet profound: “We must fight for justice, otherwise we get sick.” Arminio insists that the call to act for justice is so deep that if one fails to answer it, one’s humanity is lost and, as a consequence, one’s organism gives up. Here is the poem, translated by Gianluigi: For some time now there has been nobody around us/nobody helping with our fight, as they believe only in their own/We get sick every time we renounce the fight for our truths,/and any time we are lenient with the lies of others/Love is defending those whom we love more than asking why we love, or until when/Love is fighting together, and nothing else.
December 11, 2025: Advent and the Seed of Justice (GG)
In the Western Catholic tradition, this time of Advent — roughly coinciding with the darkening month of December — is a time of imploration for justice. The fact that the Savior was born in Bethlehem does not mean that justice has triumphed, and yet it does mean that justice is possible. We might say that the seed of justice has been planted. Advent liturgical texts are derived mostly from the books of Isaiah and Psalms. Two verses in particular encapsulate the true spirit of Advent: Oh heavens, weep down, and may the clouds rain the Just One! and May the earth open up, and the Savior sprout from it! The archetypal image of the seed that is planted in the deep earth in winter, only to germinate in the spring, is worthy of meditation when we become unsure about the amount of energy we can put forth into the work for justice.
December 12, 2025: Today: The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (MF)
Matthew recently had the privilege of attending a rich seminar on the Black Madonna taught by Christena Cleveland, PhD, author of God Is a Black Woman. On Monday night, Alessandra Belloni and Matthew conducted a workshop on the Black Madonna as well. (You can listen to it HERE.) Alessandra is author of the powerful and practical book, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna: Chants, Music, and Sacred Practices of the Great Goddess. During her presentation, Alessandra casually remarked that the Lady of Guadalupe is the Black Madonna. All Feast Days of the Black Madonna and Our Lady of Guadalupe are celebrations of the Divine Feminine, the Great Mother, and the Mother of Africa, who is the Mother of us all. Mary is a wise Mother in that lineage. The values of the Great Mother include caring for the least and most vulnerable among us. This is something desperately needed in these dark times.
December 13, 2025: Ecological Justice (GG)
Last week Gianluigi was in Florence to deliver a lecture on Matthew Fox and Creation Spirituality. His job was to close a series of lectures on “Saving Planet Earth.” The thrust of GG’s presentation was the idea that creation is the first article of the Christian faith and that the overemphasis on redemption, divorced from creation, is the main problem. Sadly, the conference was filled with older people. GG was, in fact, the youngest person present. When GG asked his very gracious host — who teaches theology at the local Catholic seminary — where the seminarians were, he shook his head and said: “You didn’t really expect them to be interested in cutting-edge theology, did you?” Clearly, we have our work cut out for us.
*Thom Hartmann, The Hartmann Report, “The Radical Power of Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain and Life,” November 27, 2025.
Banner image: “Our Lady of Guadalupe heals Juan Bernardino. Mosaic from the facade of the church of the Fifth Apparition built on the site of Juan Bernardino’s house.” Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P. on Flickr. Creative Commons.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
1 thought on “Week of 12/8-14/2025: Gratitude, Justice & Our Lady of Guadalupe”
In order to contribute to dismantling conscious and unconscious toxic patriarchal values, and increase awareness of rising feminine spiritual values, I wanted to recommend a new and profound spiritual book by respected Incarnational Spirituality teacher and professor, Lee Irwin, “Divine Feminine Gnosis: The Lesser & Greater Mysteries of Sophia” (2025):
“… The revelations of Feminine Wisdom are not directed toward the creation of spiritual pathways in the context of older, male-constructed spiritual traditions, but in the formation of new pathways and new attitudes of spiritual celebration. In this celebration, the central metaphor of ‘partnership’ is crucial, not simply the male-female erotic partnership, but partnership in the broadest and most inclusive terms with a multitude of other beings — human, animal, plant, elemental, planetary consciousness, spirit relations, mystical harmony with transpersonal entities, imaginal relations with guides, masters, and Holy Sprituals. There is a vast network of relations between the living and those who have died, with invisible spirits, through the power of dreams, visions, and mystical connections, not only with the living but also with those who have been and passed beyond death or who may yet manifest and communicate.” (from Preface, p. xv)