As I mentioned in the last post, my fraternity used a chapter from the book In the Footsteps of Francis And Clare
I’d like to touch on another theme from the chapter before moving on.
The author, who entered the seminary as a stutterer, starts the chapter by discussing his creatureliness and the hardships that stem from it. He quotes 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 as inspiration for accepting helplessness as a useful poverty in his life:
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Later in the chapter, he quotes from Chapter 83 of The Assisi Compilation to give the context within which the Canticle was created.
“Blessed Francis lay there for more than fifty days, and was unable to bear the light of the sun during day or the light of a fire at night……..In addition, day and night he had great pains in his eyes so that at night he could scarcely rest or sleep……Sometimes he did want to rest and sleep, but there were many mice in the house and in the little cell made of mats where he was lying…..They were running around him, and even over him, and would not let him sleep.”
There’s more, but you get the idea of the hardship that Francis was enduring.
Amazingly, The Canticle is Francis’ response to this hardship and pain.
“The next morning on rising, he said to his companions…..I want to write a new Praise of the Lord for His creatures…….The Praises of the Lord that he composed…..he called The Canticle to Brother Sun.”
I have previously written about the importance of willingly bearing crosses as part of faithful discipleship.
I just note here the example of Francis, and the potential graces that come from accepting crosses with the understanding that they have silver linings if one is willing to seek them.
Sermon to the Birds
Took a day long retreat trip to Fort Wayne last Saturday with my Secular Franciscan fraternity.
We met at 6:30 AM and rode the bus there and back. Got home about 10 PM.
During the ride we had a short formation discussion on a chapter from a book entitled In the Footsteps of Francis And Clare
Francis saw everything in creation as his brother or sister. Not just other human beings, or even other animals, but everything. The sun, the moon, wind, water, fire, earth and even death are named brother or sister within the Canticle. His logic for this is simple. They shared with him a common Father, and thus they all were part of a single extended family.
Frances was known on occasion to preach sermons to animals, birds, and even flowers.
The chapter includes this thought:
“One is tempted to wonder whether Francis thought the flowers heard his sermons. That is not such a silly question as it is often made out to be. Obviously Francis realized the flowers could not hear. However, he believed that it is the nature of all things to praise their creator. Francis may not have had any idea how the flowers or rocks would or could do this, but he acted on the belief they could.”
What strikes me about this is the very radical nature of Francis’ approach to creation. In order to become who he became, he had to unlearn everything he had learned prior to the beginning of his conversion process.
That unlearning was so deep that he even set aside his basic understanding of the very nature of things. He assigned qualities to flowers, stones, fire, etc., etc. that everyone around him, most likely including many of his followers, would never have been willing to give them.
Calling these new found conceptions radical is probably kind. Today, he’d be taken away for tests, and when the diagnosis came back with no known malady, his physician would likely invent one and name it after him.
Somehow, his followers found him not insane, but visionary. Somehow, he ended up a Saint instead of a castaway like the lepers he learned to embrace.
And somehow, he remains an inspiration to this day. For I also do not find him insane. In fact, I find I am subject to an ever increasing urge to embrace the radical approach he models as imperative to the way I see the world. I also want to look at the world around me, and somehow unlearn all the falsehoods I have been taught by the culture that engulfs me.
I yearn to be like Francis.
I yearn to see the world anew, for this seems the only proper response to the Gospel of Jesus.
Here is the link to Matthew Chapter 22, and a portion of verse 37:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
As the father of three boys, I have spent some time coaching my sons and their teammates on the basketball court and the baseball field. This quotation reminds me specifically of the way I like to talk about pitching.
When they are young, we spend lots of time working on the fundamentals of pitching mechanics. The kids learn how to grip the ball, how to drop step, pivot, and reach a high balance point, how to separate their hands and drop and glide with their lead foot, how to achieve the right arm angle and release point, and finally how to finish in a good fielding position.
All these fundamental skills are important in learning how to pitch. But inevitably you get to a point where the kids can execute these skills fairly well, but they still have trouble throwing strikes.
The problem is, they haven’t learned to focus on their target yet.
That target is not the strike zone, or even the catcher’s mitt. I want them to focus on just the webbing in the catcher’s mitt so that the target is as small as possible. (Aim small, miss small, to quote Mel Gibson in The Patriot.)
Then I tell them, “Trust your fundamentals, and take all your momentum, all your energy, your entire being, and use that to hit your target.”
Once they learn this focus, then they start throwing strikes consistently.
The point is, you could read this blog and learn all the fundamentals of prayer that I suggest. You could memorize them and repeat them back to me exactly as I wrote them, and that would be great.
But if you’re not focused on loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, then your prayer experience will still be lacking.
Somehow, the basic idea of love as the environment you live in must become part of your underlying approach to life and prayer.
Because if everything you do doesn’t have love for God at its center, you will never find contentment in prayer, or in your life in general.
I’ve managed to write a Chapters post each of the last two weeks. As I try to re-establish my full routine, the next step is to re-establish my weekly post on the Transformation Wheel thread.
I had been discussing Gazing when I left off, and I will get back to that momentarily, but as I reviewed the past posts on the thread I realized something I had written for another project would fit nicely into the earlier discussion on love.
I am simply adding that here, even though it might read a little funny out of context:
The term “radical love” is, I think, open to a wide range of interpretation. Each of us, after spending some time in meaningful prayer, could come up with our own definition, and many if not all of those definitions would be viable.
Such is the vastness of God.
I think I would be remiss if I did not venture my own definition at this stage in an effort to further define the vision this document means to cast.
“Radical love” for me entails a conscious decision to offer everything I have in a spirit of uncompromising love to my fellow man without regard to my fellow’s worthiness or his response. It requires that I give freely, without reservation or concern, while at the same time expecting nothing in return.
I offer everything out of the realization that God loves every other man and woman on this earth just as much as He loves me. The assertion that we are created equal is based in this belief.
My responsibility boils down to a duty to emulate God’s love to the best of my ability. I must, if I do nothing else in the time I spend here, make the attempt to love every other man and woman on this earth as much as God loves me. Jesus, in John 13:34, specifically gives us this instruction.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
It seems so simple. Yet it also seems so absent.
Again, I say this:
The willing acceptance of the Cross by Jesus is, without question, the greatest example of “radical love” the world has ever experienced. There’s nothing else that comes close.
He accepted the Cross in order to ensure our salvation.
He did it without reference to worthiness, for we are sinners, utterly unworthy of His sacrifice. Not only did He not reference our response, but He knew that our response would be mired in sin and thus inadequate. He ignored that certainty and loved us anyway. He expected nothing in return, for in our sinfulness, we have nothing to offer that He needs.
He gave freely, without reservation or concern.
This is also what I wish to do. I wish to give freely, without regard to worthiness, or response, or expectation of return, in as close an emulation of the “radical love” of the Cross as I can muster.
And I hope and ask that you will join me and do the same, for my impact, by itself, can’t amount to much.
But the impact of many, joined in a community dedicated to this idea of “radical love,” could be immeasurable.
photo by Gisela Giardino
Here is the link to Matthew Chapter 21, and a portion of verse 31.
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth……”
I actually started this contemplation with this fuller portion of the text.
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
But as I went along, my attention became more and more focused on the shorter phrase.
The simple realization that the Gospels are the finest repository of truth that we could ever hope to encounter is profound beyond my ability to express. I have been attempting in The Chapters thread to focus on these Gospels in consistent fashion. Its easy in the midst of that to forget what an exceptional gift they are.
Item seven in my prayer structure involves being aware of my emotional response as I engage in contemplation. I often find that difficult to do, but these straightforward words left me overwhelmed by feelings of thankfulness. I ended up with a profound internal silence because there is no way to verbally express the depth and intensity of the emotion.
If I then go back to the context and the fuller quote, the truth just gains profundity.
These words are spoken to the “chief priests and elders of the people.” Jesus is warning them to embrace repentance.
Why are they in need of repentance? What have the done wrong?
The bottom line is they are in the process of rejecting Jesus and His teachings. In other words, they are rejecting the truth of the Gospels.
In their arrogance, they regard their point of view as infallible truth. Beyond that, they are actively blocking the truth of revelation as embodied by John the Baptist and Jesus from the masses in an effort to ensure their version of truth goes unchallenged.
Really, its easy to see why Jesus said what He said. Compared to what these religious leaders are engaged in, the sins of tax collectors and prostitutes are minor.
Sitting here, I have no choice but to ask myself, how often do I seek to place my own personal version of truth ahead of what the Gospels offer? How often am I guilty of the same thing these chief priests and elders are guilty of?
And then, am I truly repentant for the many, many, many times I have done this?
Here is the link to Matthew Chapter 20, and the text from verses 20 to 28:
20Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
21“What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
22“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered.
23Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
24When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Typically, I only give one phrase or verse as the basis of my contemplation. But it has been more than two months since I wrote Empty (two months since I wrote anything in this forum). The angst I expressed in that post is still with me. But this Gospel passage, perhaps, can serve as a starting point for moving on.
I should have known that the Gospel would address the situation directly, and that it would provide me with comfort and potential paths forward.
Here is one potential synopsis of this passage.
“Grant that…….”
- In other words, the sons of Zebedee seek glory for themselves.
“You do not know…….”
- Jesus points out their ignorance, reminding them of their inherent human weaknesses and shortcomings.
“We can.”
- They ignore Him. Despite the reminder, they display arrogance, believing themselves able to do what only Jesus can do.
“When the ten heard about this…….”
- Arrogance and a desire for glory lead to dissension and conflict among men, even men that are friends.
“Jesus called them together…….”
- Jesus, as always, answers by serving as teacher. He works to turn the negative to the positive by seizing the opportunity to lay the truth before those who are blinded to that truth by the conflict they have created for themselves.
What is that truth?
The truth is that we are not supposed to be like the “Gentiles.” We are not supposed to seek earthly political power in an effort to “Lord it over” others.
Instead, we are to reject power in favor of service. It is one of the great mysteries of the life of Jesus. Only in embracing the role of slave is greatness possible.
Our current set of politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are obsessed with the type of power that Jesus asks us to reject. We call them public servants, but they serve no one but themselves. They do not seek to empower us. In their arrogance, they enact laws that negate God given freedom in a myriad of ways. They impose their will upon us (“Lord it over” us), forcing us to follow the rules they establish.
Conflict results, and the possibility of progress is lost within that conflict.
Our overall mindset as a people teaches us to seek power, and to laud those who manage to obtain it. But we are intensely misguided. We behave like the “Gentiles” Jesus is describing, expending great amounts of energy in search of the exact opposite of what He teaches us to seek. We should not be surprised that our religiosity suffers. If we continuously act as “Gentiles,” then that is what we must become.
And when we become that, our ability to follow the servant model of Jesus is lost.
The solutions to the woes of America must, necessarily, lie outside the sphere of government. This Gospel passage is a firm reminder of that.
The question is, how will we as a people re-learn this lesson? How can we begin to embrace the notion that political power, by and large, must be rejected as the source of solutions before progress can be made?
What might be done to set an example that could convince the people to return to the teaching of Christ that calls us to the life of servant?
I posted this today on a Facebook page, under a discussion topic heading that read ‘What Would Jesus Say?”
The discussion started with a post of this quotation:
‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
I would ask, when the young man walked away, did Jesus (remember that He is King above all other Kings, Ruler above all other Rulers) forcefully take away his possessions in order to force him to obey?
Or did He respect the young man’s freedom to decide for himself, even though that decision might cost him his immortal soul?
Freedom is at the heart of the example of Jesus. Not once in the Gospels is anyone compelled to action by the God incarnate. Not a single Pharisee or Scribe is turned from the path of sinfulness by coercion. Not one apostle is called against their will. Not even Judas, despite the foreknowledge of the Lord, is denied the ability to exercise his freedom.
Jesus teaches. He attempts to persuade. He prays. And He hopes.
Then, in the end, He demonstrates the perfect use of freedom. He endures the Cross, giving everything He possesses, including His very life, in service of His fellow man, despite the fact that His fellow man is responsible for His doom.
It is the greatest act of freedom in the history of the world.
It is His definition of love, which we must find a way to cope with.
It is how He defines a man’s responsibility to his fellows.
And it is only possible in the context of free will.
After Jesus completes His task, our free will remains as the only viable tool we have for communicating our devotion to Him. Only when we freely decide to follow the example of the Cross can we truly be seen to have implemented His will.
Everything depends on freedom.
There is no love without freedom.
Charity can not be extracted via the tax code or any amount of legislation.
For those who care, suffering is hard to witness. We long to intervene. We know in our core that we have the means to provide every American with access to health care. We are so desperate to do what we think is right that our emotions run away with us. We give in to caring at any cost, heedless of the damage a reckless course of action can cause.
We become willing to substitute one set of suffering for another.
And make no mistake. Millions and millions of Americans are suffering today.
Not at the hands of illness.
But at the hands of a government that does not understand that Jesus is the embodiment of a natural law that requires, no matter what, that our Creator endowed right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be protected as a precondition to any action we take.
We are suffering because our government, regardless of its intentions, has ripped a piece of our liberty from us as if it were an arm or a leg.
And we know we will never be whole again.
Worse yet, we know that it is preparing to do so again, and again, and again, because it has lost sight of its most fundamental responsibilities.
In 1776 and the era that followed, American leaders understood the example of Jesus. They attempted to encode that example in a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that was meant to preserve individual liberty as the core prerequisite of a just society.
They understood that the best hope for mankind was the hope that men would use their freedom for the betterment of the whole.
They understood that this hope, because of the fallibility of men, would not result in a perfect union, just a more perfect one.
They knew that the imperfection they were erecting was just because it would lead to a better way of life than the imperfections embodied in all the methods of governance that went before.
The first rule of a just society is that its government must respect and protect Creator endowed liberty.
If the government chooses not to do this, Revolution and Independence are not only justified but required in order that the natural law be established (or re-established in this case) for the benefit of all men.
Revolution is coming.
I can’t say when.
Hopefully it will be peacefully, at the ballot box this fall.
If not, then it will come in another form, at another time.
But revolution is inevitable.
For man has not the ability to deny this Natural Law forever.
Especially now that he has experienced a long and significant exposure to it.
My ability to write, to concentrate, and to pray has disappeared over the past week.
Its a direct result of what’s happening in the country.
I believe that liberty is a gift from God. I find the words of Thomas Jefferson to be exactly true.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As it became apparent that health reform would pass, my ability to embrace quiet left me.
No matter what I was doing, I was distracted. The arrogance of my government, and the potential ramifications of what they have chosen to do, are too complicated to explain, or even to grasp.
On one hand, I hope that soon my ability to find peace will return.
On the other, I know that I can’t ignore this, and simply resume my usual routine.
What shall I do to ensure the future of my family?
I don’t know when I will be back to this forum.
I just know it can’t be forced.
La Maddalena
As part of the study group materials, Sister included a selection from a book entitled In the Footsteps of Francis And Clare.
The chapter was entitled Meeting and Embracing a Leper (La Maddalena). It discusses Francis’ encounter with the leper, giving a detailed background on the area around Assisi where the encounter likely happened. La Maddalena is a chapel that was present at a leper hospital in the time of Francis. It still stands today.
At the end of this short chapter, the author writes,
“……There’s not one of us who doesn’t need healing. So it is to all of us that Jesus and Francis speak by their actions. In stretching out his hand (Mark 1:40-42), touching that leper and healing him, in getting off one’s high horse and allowing compassion to surge within one’s heart, we learn that God does love us no matter how damaged or broken we are and offers us healing.
But in addition to what God wants to do for us, there’s the matter of what God wants us to do for one another. We too are to be healers, to reach out and touch the marginal, the outcast, to bring respect and dignity into others’ lives.”
When I asked the question “Is Poverty Evil?”, I think I was attempting to change the focus from the situation, to the people.
I am not arguing that we should stop providing basic necessities to people in need.
But I think we need to understand that food and water may not be the most crucial resources we can offer.
As this quote says, the most fundamental needs are not material. They are described by words like “respect” and “dignity.”
How do we convey such nebulous gifts?
The only way is to demonstrate genuine love.
If you take someone in need a loaf of bread and a jug of water, but you treat them poorly, and you don’t demonstrate sincere love for them as an equal in the eyes of your mutual Creator, have you really helped them at all?
Maybe, on the margins.
But the example of Francis goes much deeper than that. When he showed up at the Leper colony, alms were not the primary gift he bore.
The primary gift was love, love as he understood it to be embodied by Jesus in the Gospels.
The transparency of his love is what brought him the stature he gained.
That is the example we most need to learn to follow.
The Narrow Road
This post continues the discussion from Is Poverty Evil? Please reference both that post and its comments to place this post in context.
As a Franciscan, I believe my spiritual father Francis has much to offer in this troubled modern time. If our world were to engage and embrace his charism, I think it would be transformed, much for the better.
One of the main tenets of that charism is renewal. Francis was specifically called by God to rebuild the Church. At first, he took that instruction literally, and began to go around Assisi begging construction materials to rebuild dilapidated churches in the area. Later, he understood the greater implications of God’s request, and he went on to the work of rebuilding the spirit of the Church.
I see today’s world as desperately in need of a similar renewal. But I also understand just how deeply counter cultural my way of thinking is. Ideas like the “privilege of poverty” are hard to translate for someone holding a modern mindset.
This leaves me the task of discerning how best to communicate with those who, due to a lifetime of conditioning, are typically adverse to the system of thought I find so compelling.
If I am unwilling to be precise in the words I use, then I should expect it to be that much harder to convey my message.
If the authors of St. Francis and the Foolishness of God
But by using the word poverty instead of greed, they merged the two ideas.
God routinely takes the evil acts of this human world and translates them into a greater good.
When greed and poverty are equated in this discussion, the space for God to intervene is jeopardized.
The authors of the book, on a subconscious level, seem to understand this. Here is the full context of the previous quote.
“Here we do have a paradox. Poverty is ugly and dehumanizing; it is an evil that must be eliminated. Yet, in encountering the poor, we often discover beauty and graced humanity. Indeed, in encountering the poor ones of the world, we find God.”
The truth is, there is no paradox. Where I see victims, God finds an opportunity to bless people in ways that I, because of my prejudices, am reluctant to understand. This is an example of the majesty and perfection of God’s creation, yet I label it as paradox because I lack the depth or the fortitude to make the examination that reveals there may be no such thing as paradox where God is concerned.
I need the poor to be victims because I want the ability to minister to them. I so desperately want to do the work of God that I unconsciously view the world through that lens. I see opportunities to serve Him, even if that perhaps is not what I was supposed to see.
And Francis proves this. When he got off his horse, he gave alms to the leper. But in the end, he placed himself in a position where he was no longer able to give alms. He embraced the poor so thoroughly that his mission shifted from serving them to being them.
He understood that he did not need to rescue them. They already had the better lot. He was the one that needed rescuing. He needed to allow them to transform him so that he might gain the blessings they already enjoyed.
The Beatitudes are also referenced in this chapter. They begin “Blessed are the poor…..”
The poor are not blessed because of future rewards to be received for hardship endured. They are blessed immediately, in the current context, simply because God finds it good to bless them based on their poverty.
I am fine with the notion that I should help them obtain the basic necessities of life. But I am not so sure that I have much to offer beyond that. In fact, to believe that I do makes it possible that I will do them considerable harm by trying to make them more like me.
It seems to me that Francis approached the poor more as people to be emulated than people to be transformed.
He did not wish to rescue them from victimhood.
He wished to join them in their state of blessing.