Gospel to Life and Life to Gospel
“From gospel to life and life to gospel” is a phrase from the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order that puzzled me when I first read it. I felt called to join the Order (one of three religious orders formed by St. Francis of Assisi during his lifetime—this one for single or married people who would live “in the world” rather than as friars or sisters) in 2013, at a time of failure and crisis in my life. As I studied the Rule, I thought I got “from gospel to life.” I was to read the gospel of Jesus and apply what I found there to how I lived my life. But “life to gospel”? What might that mean?
As I worked on those words from the Rule, those words worked on me over several years. Through his writings and example, St. Francis taught me about living in kinship with all humanity and all creation. My new spiritual path urged me to make time to study more deeply and practice contemplative prayer more consistently than I had in the past.
My new Franciscan path also seemed to break open my heart. Hearing the growing calls for racial and economic justice, care for the earth, and many other issues during 2017–2021, I could no longer ignore them or believe they didn’t concern me. As I stepped out of my comfort zone to show solidarity—sometimes accepting legal or safety risks in doing so—certain scriptural passages glowed for me in a new way, resonating with my real-life experiences of activism and advocacy.
While I had always understood Jesus’s teaching to “take up your cross and follow me,” for example, simply as a call to bear patiently with the suffering inherent in daily life, I came to a totally different understanding after a long, frigid day spent at a climate protest in December 2019. Rereading the story (which appears in Mark 8 as well as in Matthew and Luke) at the urging of my friend and teacher the Rev. John Dear, I suddenly understood that Jesus was not speaking about patience with everyday suffering. As he faced escalating pressure—including from his friends—to stop speaking out against injustice, Jesus made it crystal clear that following him would require self-sacrifice, inconvenience, and possibly danger. How could I have missed that before? Maybe this new way of hearing was what “life to gospel” meant.
The Franciscan path keeps the challenges coming but also supplies companions for the way. In 2021, I left a longtime career to join the Franciscan Action Network, where we are building an intergenerational movement for justice, peace, and creation rooted in the gospel and the examples of St. Francis and St. Clare. Our dozens of Franciscan Justice Circles across the country meet monthly in small groups, where we pray and take action together, discovering over and over again what it means to go from gospel to life and life to gospel. Come and see!
Michele Dunne, OFS is executive director of Franciscan Action Network (FAN), a national organization of Franciscans and Franciscan-hearted people who mobilize to bring a moral voice to U.S. public policies on our planet, people, and peace. A former Middle East specialist, Michele lives in Washington DC with her husband.
The Center for Action and Contemplation’s mission is to introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action. In this issue of the Mendicant, we are honored to share with you articles from five members of CAC’s community about what loving action looks like in their lives. Download a PDF of this issue.