Franciscan Witness and Practice: Weekly Summary
Sunday
Francis didn’t want his friars to preach salvation as much as he wanted them to be salvation. He wanted them to model and mirror the life of Jesus in the world, with all of the vulnerability that would entail.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
For Francis, Christ was cosmic while also deeply personal, his cathedral was creation itself, and he preferred the bottom of society to the top.
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
We can neutralize the challenge and promise of Jesus and Francis by elevating them into the realm of sainthood and perfection. Or we can ponder their way of living in the world and attempt to follow them, fools though we would be.
— Marie Dennis, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joseph Nangle, and Stuart Taylor
Wednesday
Francis and Clare were not so much prophets by what they said as in the radical, system-critiquing way that they lived their lives.
—Richard Rohr
Thursday
Through his writings and example, St. Francis taught me about living in kinship with all humanity and all creation.
—Michele Dunne
Friday
Freedom for both Jesus and Francis was purely and simply freedom from the self, which is precisely freedom for the world. In order to be free for a full and authentic life, we must quite simply be free from our smaller selves.
—Richard Rohr
Week Forty Practice
Putting Your Heart in Your Feet
I always want people to feel and realize that Francis isn’t this saint on a pedestal somewhere … who did what no one else can possibly do. There are ways in which he experienced God … and reached out to others that are absolutely replicable.
—Jon Sweeney, Everything Belongs (podcast)
Pausing his historical overview of the life and times of Francis of Assisi, author Jon Sweeney engages students in an imaginative practice to help them embody Francis’ example:
“OK, enough history and background. Let’s try this instead. Look, for a moment, at your hands,” I said….
“Keep your eyes there,” I continued. “In fact, take your time now. Look at your fingertips. Your palms. Picture in your mind what they have recently touched or carried. What did they hold—perhaps this morning before you arrived here? What have they recently given away?… Those hands of yours can be used to hurt, or they can be used to heal and help,” I went on. “What do you use your hands for? Are you gentle with them? Did anyone teach you to be gentle with your hands?…
“Consider your own mouth. What does it most often do? Does it laugh? Kiss? Is it honest? Do you use your mouth to speak in ways that are kind? Maybe not always? I think it is possible to throw words at people the way that we throw things, being careless or causing damage. We should be kind with our mouths.”
Now they were listening carefully, which surprised me.
“Think now about your feet. Think about your feet as you look out the window at people on the street. Do you see someone in need of kindness? It is often easy to find someone who appears lonely. Do your feet move you in their direction? We often move around so quickly that we fail to notice when someone needs our help. Or, let’s be honest, we don’t much care. We see a need and instead we put our feet up.
“Put your heart in your feet. When was the last time you went looking for the person who needs a friend? Be honest—when was it? Whether in a classroom, at work, or on the street, it has never been easy to do the right thing because it takes a special kind of courage. We will always feel more comfortable not helping, avoiding new and uncomfortable situations. But we need to do more than be comfortable.
“God knows that my feet have not moved toward helping others, plenty. I’m trying today to be more courageous than I was when I was your age. I hope you’ll do better than I did.”…
Then I added, “In all of this, I have to tell you, I am channeling the teachings of the medieval saint I was talking about before. He’s been immortalized in birdbaths everywhere, which is unfortunate. You see, this is how Francis of Assisi imagined his role in the world: in very practical ways, using his hands, his mouth, and his feet.”
Reference:
Jon M. Sweeney, Feed the Wolf: Befriending Our Fears in the Way of Saint Francis (Broadleaf, 2021), 10–13.
Image credit and inspiration: Tom Swinnon, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A weathered table, humble in its presence, bears witness to Francis’s kinship with the poor, his simplicity of life, and the quiet prophecy of poverty lived as solidarity.
