Category: Franciscan Friars

Posted on

The Call to Christian Discipleship

The Call to Christian Discipleship

Our love and suffering as Christian disciples, like the Lord’s on the cross, does not happen in vain. As the Franciscan scholar Zachary Hayes stated so clearly, “We become like what we love,” and that transformation recasts the categories of our ordinary experience into something else, something greater, something more than what we had originally expected. This is not to deny the real pain, loss, and trauma that can accompany suffering, but it does suggest that the meaning of human experience is deeper and more significant than we think.

Like Francis of Assisi, we too can be transformed by the power of love and embrace the call to Christian discipleship with passion. The task at hand is to see that the Word continues to call us to move beyond ourselves, to enter into an evermore intimate relationship with God, to make God’s story our story, to work for justice and peace in our world, and to embrace the love and suffering that comes with following Christ.

—from the book The Last Words of Jesus: A Meditation on Love and Suffering
by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Wield Your Words Well

Wield Your Words Well

When it comes to how we communicate with others—especially in this an election year—let’s turn to the Gospel of Matthew who gives us a strong warning: “On the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (12:36-37). Especially in today’s fractious times, using the Bible’s rich advice can improve our interactions and soothe our wearied souls. God’s words should heal us.

When our words are kind and gentle, our spirits will be too. We will have fewer regrets and be more charitable and peaceful. Today, let’s wield our words well, confident in the guidance of God’s word.

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Five Steps toward Better Communication“
by Colleen Arnold, MD

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Lovely Lady Poverty

Lovely Lady Poverty

The true religion of Francis’s heart means gospel poverty, the poverty of the poor Christ, and the concrete image of that true religion is Lady Poverty, whom he takes as his bride. Lady Poverty is the Bride of Christ, the only one to ascend the cross with Christ on Calvary. And Francis’s marriage to Lady Poverty assures him the great treasure, which is the kingdom of heaven, but at the cost of the cross, which Francis embraces as eagerly as he embraced his spouse. In this rendering, Francis becomes the epic hero of the gospel who has the courage to find and hold on to the hidden treasure, Holy Poverty, which in a grand paradox means having nothing, which will bring him everything, and at times feeling abandoned by God, only to discover that God is closest when God feels farthest away.

This mystery of gospel poverty is the great desire of Francis’s heart and soul because it is the mystery of Christ, who is being born within Francis as Francis dies to himself to become like Christ.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

You are Remarkable

You are Remarkable

Have you ever stopped to marvel at how amazingly unique you are? I don’t mean in an inflated sense, as in our delusions of grandeur, but in the mere odds of it all. Of all the billions and billions of people in the world, and none of them is quite like you. From the color of your eyes to the shape your nose, from the way you walk to what you dream about, you are a complex combination of features that exists nowhere else in time and space than where you are. No one ever has been or ever will be the you that you are.

That is remarkable. You are remarkable.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

God Wants Our Truest Selves

God Wants Our Truest Selves

Jesus does not want masks. He does not want projections of our superficial selves that bear no resemblance to who we really are. When he calls us to follow after him, he does not want the person we wish we were or the person we pretend to be. No, when he calls us, he wants the person he created, the person we are becoming in his love, our truest selves.

If we want to follow after him, we must strip ourselves of everything that is superficial, inauthentic, forced, or pretend. We need to let go of all those partial and superficial selves. They just get in the way.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Longing for God

Longing for God

It is our Christian belief that when Christ, the Incarnate Word, came to dwell among us, we entered a whole new era of God’s saving presence in our world. It’s a presence that no longer relies on a visible Temple. Referring to Christ’s birth and quoting from Isaiah, Matthew refers to Jesus’ name as “‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23). At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, moreover, the risen Jesus tells his disciples: “And behold, I am with you always until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

We also believe that through the Eucharist and other sacraments God’s presence among us is celebrated and nurtured. And our great longing is satisfied. We think of Jesus’ words: “Remain in me as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me” (John 15:4).

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Psalm 42: Longing for You, O God“
by Jack Wintz, OFM

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Remember to Remember God

Remember to Remember God

I have tried to learn from St. Francis. In my home, pinned to the curtain of my front door, is a reminder—”Remember to remember God.” In the Hebrew tradition, it is the mezuzah to be touched, to remind one of the sacred words on the scroll. To remind me of the sacred. Such a concept! To use each doorway as a portal. To pass through each doorway and remind oneself to do better, to live life just a little more virtuously—such a concept.

It wasn’t just the San Damiano crucifix for Francis—the cave, the lepers, and the poor began to speak to him of God, until eventually Francis could look at nothing without seeing God.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Honest Humble Prayer

Honest Humble Prayer

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!

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Let Us Pray: Pray As You Are“
by Fr. Gary Caster

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/minute-meditations/honest-humble-prayer/

Posted on

Wait in Silence

Wait in Silence

I have found that if someone is going to work hard at being immersed in God, the effort should not be just in the praying itself but in becoming yourself a place of prayer. This place of prayer, so carefully prepared, sometimes by extensive work, is where we can just be. Be silent. Be alone. Be at peace with our solitude. So, to learn to pray, we, like St. Francis, need to find our own sacred place of solitude and silence. Then, once we’ve come to that oasis, we need only enter and wait in silence.

We often don’t really know what we’re waiting for, but we trust that something will come; and when it does, it will be a surprise, both in when it comes and what it is.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

Posted on

Walk Without Fear

Walk Without Fear

Fear is crippling. It has prevented me from doing so many things. I once heard a friend adamantly say, “I refuse to walk in fear!” Wow, how I admired that statement! What if I could do that? Not just say it? Walk without fear. I have a sense that Francis learned how to do that, to become that person. It is a grace I have yet to be given—or to receive. I fear at times that

I have populated my world with thinly clothed memories of life. Absent of real people. My saints’ pictures and Sacred Hearts decorate my room. Would that they would spring to life and speak as the San Damiano cross did.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/