Tag: Assisi

Saints and mystics train their senses to be open to God’s presence. In my spiritual companionship with Francis, walking on Assisi roads and Cape Cod beaches, I have made a commitment to see God in all things and all things in God. I have exclaimed with Francis and his followers, “My God and all things.” I felt God’s call to pay attention to intuitions, insights,

Francis lived in a God-filled world. For the pilgrim of Assisi, the heavens declare the glory of God—and so do sparrows, wolves, and worms. Our cells and souls reflect divine wisdom and are constantly being energized and replenished, even inspired by God. In a God-saturated world, synchronous events populate our days, if our spirits and senses are open. Around each corner is a burning bush or a ladder of angels for pilgrims of the sprit. But, more than that, God wants us to move from mysticism to activism, midwifing and giving birth to God’s vision in our personal lives and public responsibilities. Synchronicities abound for those who live prayerfully, asking for guidance and then listening to God’s wisdom moving through their lives.

Francis believed in divine synchronicity and saw it as essential in the spiritual adventure. Surely it was synchronous that Francis showed up at the church of San Damiano and then listened to the guidance he received. No doubt it was synchronous for Francis to notice a leper as he traveled the roads of Umbria. Mortified and disgusted by leprosy, Francis may have wished to pass by on the other side of the road. But God’s still, small voice told him to stop, reach out, and embrace the man with leprosy. Both the man with leprosy and Francis were transformed in that moment. But, when Francis looked back as he continued the journey, the man with leprosy had disappeared. Francis wondered if the man was Christ in disguise; as he embraced the leper, was he embracing Jesus?

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly

The first day of my pilgrimage to Assisi was dawning and I wanted to get the lay of the land and reorient my spiritual GPS after three hectic days of sightseeing in Rome. No one stirred, not even a stray cat or dog in search of bounty from a trash can, as I passed the majestic Basilica di San Francesco, the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, the abbey of San Pietro, and the Basilica di Santa Chiara. Too early even for morning mass, I walked the cobblestones and heard sounds of a new day dawning. As I gazed at the verdant Umbrian countryside in the distance, my imagination went back

to a simpler time. I visualized the hilltop village eight centuries ago, without lights or power, phones or internet, insular and isolated, a place where most of its citizens lived and died without traveling more than day’s walk from their Umbrian birthplace. In the still, crisp morning, I experienced the simplicity of a time before climate change, global travel, the novel coronavirus, and the 24/7 news cycle. For a split second, I forgot the machinations of political leaders and the spirit of unrest that has enveloped the globe as I pondered the journey of another pilgrim like myself, trying to make sense of his own inner stirrings and the challenges of his own time and place and looking for a way of life that would nurture his spirit and serve the world. I was looking for a world-affirming way to become a mystic activist for our time.

—from the book Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
by Bruce Epperly