Tag: Saint Francis

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Minute Meditation – They Only Self We Bring to Christ 

Despite being a finite creature in the midst of an all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present Being—an absolute nothing next to God, in every way dependent and with no reason to boast—I never feel insignificant or unwanted. I am God’s child, chosen and adopted out of love, called to love and serve in his kingdom. What could ever matter more than knowing this? Truly, everything else is straw. Everything else is the working of a false self, an ego that knows nothing of reality. It is why in his admonitions St. Francis writes, “As much as [one] is before God, that much he is and nothing more.” Nothing in all of existence matters at all except what God thinks of us. What we say about ourselves, what others think of us, who we wish were are—these are all useless questions, false selves that keep us from who we truly are before God, and prevent us from following after Christ with our whole hearts. If we want to be his disciples, the only self we can bring is the one that he created and redeemed. Everything else, we must let go.

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Minute Meditation – Herald of Christ’s Dream

Some faces seemed to fix upon him the searching, expectant look of those whose journey had no end, of those who wandered aimlessly through life because they did not know what else to do, or because they were fleeing from something rather than toward something. For these Francis had the most compassion because they had no dream and because the dream would have to come from within themselves where all was barren desert. Or could someone else find the dream for them? He began to wonder if everyone heard an inner Voice as he had, or whether some heard only human voices.

If his Dream were something very special, then perhaps he would have to become a voice from Christ for others to hear. He would have to become the Herald of Christ, singing aloud the glory of the Dream that God had made for everyone. As he walked about the countrysides and through the streets of all the world, he would imagine that he was taking each face from the anonymous crowds and breathing hope and love into it. He would share the Dream.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, pages 26-27

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Minute Meditation – Who Are You, God, and Who am I?

For St. Francis, this search for himself began and ended by asking the only one whose opinion mattered: Jesus. Rather than filling his head with the opinions of the world, getting bogged down by his own self-doubt, letting his successes fill up his ego, he went to God in prayer and asked the two most essential questions anyone could ask: “Who are you Lord, and who am I?” So simple and pure, and yet so powerful. In these words and the response that follows is everything that could ever matter. How we come to answer them will define everything.

In my case, these questions inevitably draw me to littleness. When I ask God, “Who are you Lord, and who am I?” the image that always returns to me is that of a child of God. My place is not off alone ruling my own kingdom, but as the beloved in the kingdom of my Father. Despite being a finite creature in the midst of an all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present Being—an absolute nothing next to God, in every way dependent and with no reason to boast—I never feel insignificant or unwanted. I am God’s child, chosen and adopted out of love, called to love and serve in his kingdom.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM, page 16

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Minute Meditation – Clear, Precious, and Beautiful

Francis wrote his immortal Canticle of the Creatures while in Clare’s care at San Damiano. The incredible power and poetry of this song has long fascinated all who read, study, or sing it. One word in that poem, written in Umbrian dialect, and written during a time of daily nursing by Clare, catches the eye. It is the word clarite. “Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful” (Canticle, 5). This is the adjective for the stars. They are “clarite et pretiose et belle,”—clear, precious, beautiful. In the long dark time of his illness, was it Clare who was this “pretiose, belle, clarite” companion whose light helped him endure encroaching blindness and searing pain? She had been—and would remain—the North Star for all who wanted to follow his way.

— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Francis and Clare

Many metaphors have been employed to paint the picture of the relationship between Francis and Clare of Assisi. Clare, having once used the phrase “a little plant” to describe her rapport with Francis, unwittingly contributed to maintaining the image of a passive woman totally dependent on the male leader and teacher for her identity.

Years of study influenced by feminist scholarship and diligent work on sources from that period have allowed Clare’s person to emerge with clearer lines, with far more depth than previously imagined. Still, the desire to find the precise category for the friendship of these two saints continues to haunt us. Father-daughter, brother-sister, master-disciple, soul friend, spiritual lover, actual lover—these descriptions have currency in many narratives and dramatic portraits. What they shared was the mysterious and generous outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit granting each a profound desire to live the teachings of Jesus without compromise. 

— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF

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Minute Meditation – Blessed Are All the Saints

Jesus left no formal religious rule for his followers. The closest he came was his proclamation of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers….

Francis took to heart this spiritual vision and translated it into a way of life. In various ways, other saints before and since have done the same. But for many men and women since the time of Francis, his particular example has offered a distinctive key to the Gospel—or, as Pope Francis might say, “a new way of seeing and interpreting reality.” Among the central features of this key: the vision of a Church that is “poor and for the poor”; a resolve to take seriously Jesus’s example of self-emptying love; the way of mercy and compassion; above all, a determination to proclaim the Gospel not only with words but with one’s life.

—from the book The Franciscan Saints by Robert Ellsberg

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Minute Meditation – Go and Repair My House

Absence was beginning to be replaced by presence, silence with voices. Or were the voices only in his head? Whatever. They moved him to act, to do positive things with his life, a pattern Francis would follow from then on. Once he knew God’s will, whether from some mystical voice or from listening to the scriptures, he would immediately try to live it out. He was filled with what theologians called, “devotion,” an alacrity in doing God’s will. And that is how Francis began to change. He knew now that Christ is to be found in unexpected places and people. He had experienced the abstract God in the person of Jesus Christ who was the incarnation of the God he thought had abandoned him. And he had experienced this Jesus in the most excluded and feared people of his time, the lepers who, instead of bad things, brought him the greatest good, Jesus Christ. And now he had heard the voice of this Christ. It came from his crucified image in an abandoned church. It was a voice that gave him his life’s task: “Go and repair my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruins.”

— from Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis by Murray Bodo, OFM

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