×

By continuing to browse our site you agree to our use of cookies and our Privacy Policy.

Franciscan Mysticism: Weekly Summary

Sunday
Francis came to know the God of humble love by meditating on and imitating the poor and humble Christ. 
—Ilia Delio

Monday
Franciscan mysticism is about an intuition of Jesus as the Incarnate and Universal Christ. Francis discovered and so powerfully loved this mystery in Jesus that he eventually became a living image of Christ.
—Richard Rohr

Tuesday
Francis knew then what he was to do with his life: to embrace Jesus in the poor and rejected, in those who previously had repulsed him. 
—Murray Bodo

Wednesday
The only way I know how to love God is to love what God loves; only then do we love with divine love and allow it to flow through us.
—Richard Rohr

Thursday
God is like the water of an overflowing fountain, generously showering all of creation with love. Or, God is like the expansive deep oceans that are like the vast depth of God’s faithful love.
—Dawn Nothwehr

Friday
Neither Francis nor Clare participated in prayer workshops, nor did they have extensive monastic training, and yet both experienced profound union with God. What was their secret?
—Joan Mueller

The Seer and the Seen

In the CAC online course The Franciscan Way, Father Richard encourages students in the Franciscan mystical practice of respectful gazing:

The word “respect” means “to look at a second time”: Re-speculate. Re-spect. I’m afraid our first gaze at anything is always utilitarian, and it almost totally takes over after a while. We tend to think, “What’s in it for me? What can I get out of it? How can I make money from it? Does this make me look good? Will this give me pleasure?” If we don’t recognize the narrowness and the emptiness of that gaze, it will keep us forever at the center of a very small world.

Mystics like Francis see an equivalence between the seer and the seen. They grant respect to all that is outside of themselves. They allow it to speak. At one of our conferences, we sent some of the attendees down to the Rio Grande. We said, “We want you to find one particular object, not the whole landscape, but one leaf, one twig, one lizard, and grant it respect. Talk to it.” And then, even more daringly, in that state of respect, we asked them to let it talk back. I’m sure that was difficult for educated people. They were probably afraid someone would see them or hear them.

This experience brought people to tears as they finally discovered the “univocity of being,” [1] and the power of respect. Yet it has to begin from our side. If we maintain our radical egocentricity, then it’s all about us—what we like, what we want, what we think is important. When we can grant respect to seemingly unimportant things, little things, particular things, when we find ourselves giving thanks for one little violet, when we can say, “I’ll bet no human eye will ever look at you except me. And I want to thank God for you, and I want to thank you for simply being you and for allowing me to delight in your purple color” or whatever it might be. Suddenly, our world rearranges because when we can grant respect to one thing, that respect universalizes to all things.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

References:

[1] In the Franciscan tradition, John Duns Scotus developed the concept of the univocity of being. He believed we could speak “with one voice” (univocity) of the being of waters, plants, animals, humans, angels, and God. God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4), and thus reality is also one (Ephesians 4:3–5). All participate in The Story of Being.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “The Seer and the Seen,” The Franciscan Way (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2012), online course.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

An Ordinary Prayer

Professor Joan Mueller, a Franciscan Sister of Joy, shares how Clare of Assisi taught her version of Franciscan prayer (1194–1253):

Often, when we think of mysticism, we conjure up images of difficult prayer techniques and workshops with meditation gurus. Prayer, we believe, is for professionals. . . . We love God, believe in God, but just don’t feel that we can talk with God like the “professional pray-ers.”

But, Franciscanism is a spirituality of the people. The largest order of Franciscans is made up of lay people, and both Francis and Clare chose a quasi-lay lifestyle over the monasticism of their time. Neither Francis nor Clare participated in prayer workshops, nor did they have extensive monastic training, and yet both experienced profound union with God. What was their secret?

Although we have prayers that were written by St. Francis, it is St. Clare, in her fourth letter to St. Agnes of Prague, who explains what is meant by Franciscan prayer. In this letter, written on her deathbed, Clare teaches Agnes to make a habit of daily prayer. This daily practice of prayer, however, is not a difficult task as Clare explains it. . . .

Clare suggests that we . . . “consider the midst of Jesus’ life, his humility, his blessed poverty, the countless hardships, and the punishments that he endured for our redemption.” [1] Here Clare is asking us simply to reflect on the public life of Christ.

Medievals had a great way of doing this type of meditation. When a cathedral or local church was being frescoed, a painter would come to town and the subjects for the paintings that were being commissioned for the church’s walls and ceilings would be decided. But whom would the painter use for his artistic models? Most often, he wandered the local streets, interacted with the villagers, and decided whose faces he might portray. One day you might go to church and find yourself in a fresco listening to Jesus preach. Maybe your face would represent one of the disciples, or one of the women who cared for Jesus. Perhaps one of your children would be listening to Jesus teach. In any case, you would be placed right in the story of the gospel; your face would actually be central to the story.

This is what Clare is asking us to do. Take the gospel for the day, a gospel from mass or the liturgy of the hours, or a gospel passage from a daily devotional and imagine yourself in the midst of the story. Who would you be most comfortable portraying? What are you hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting? Clare asks us to spend a few minutes really entering into the gospel story of Jesus’ public life and imagining what it would be like to be there. . . .

This perseverance and commitment to engaging deeply in ordinary, Christian prayer is what identifies the friar, Poor Clare nun, the Franciscan lay mystic, or the person inspired by Francis.

References:

[1] Clare to Agnes of Prague, 1253, in Clare of Assisi: The Letters to Agnes, Joan Mueller (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 87.

Joan Mueller, “St. Clare of Assisi’s Gospel Mysticism,” Radical Grace 25, no. 1, Franciscan Mysticism (Winter 2012): 10, 20.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

I live by the ocean and walk there frequently. I took a much slower walk yesterday and my spirit being in a different tempo allowed my eyes to see more that God was creating on that day in that moment. This is one of the creations I saw in the sand on my walk… a fish. The very earth cries out God’s majesty. I am so grateful to have this community that seeks to see differently and is therefore open to the marvels of God physically and spiritually within. I appreciate Merton and Francis of Assisi and living in the Beauty and Light that surrounds us and is God with us. —Sharon S.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

A Web of Infinite Love

God, for Bonaventure, is not an offended monarch on a throne throwing down thunderbolts, but a “fountain fullness” that flows, overflows, and fills all things in one exclusively positive direction. God is a one-directional waterwheel of love, with no backsplash. Reality is always in process, participatory; it is love itself. —Richard Rohr, Eager to Love

Franciscan mystical theologian Bonaventure (1221–1274) used dynamic, creation-centered metaphors to describe God. Theologian and Franciscan sister Dawn Nothwehr summarizes:

God, as Trinity, is like a gushing fountain—that is, the source from which the river of all reality flows and to which it ultimately returns. Again, God is like the water of an overflowing fountain, generously showering all of creation with love. Or, God is like the expansive deep oceans that are like the vast depth of God’s faithful love. Like a song—where all of the notes in a carefully crafted order must be heard for the song to be known—so too, in its wide diversity, the various dynamic cosmic elements make up the interrelated cosmos. God’s self-revelation is like a book: it is first “written” within the consciousness of God . . . and then becomes the book “written without” as the whole creation—all created things are the expression of the divine Artist. . . .

Then there is Bonaventure’s window metaphor. Each element of creation reveals something of the Creator like the array of colored glass in a stained-glass pane, which flashes with dynamic hues as sunlight passes through it. [1]

Drawing insight from Bonaventure’s metaphors for God, Ilia Delio writes that contemplation naturally leads to compassionate care for the earth:

While this Franciscan path of contemplation is desperately needed in our world today as we face massive suffering and vast ecological crises, we still live, in our western culture, with an emphasis on rationality, order and mind. Because our “I” is separated from the world around us, we struggle to be incarnational people and to see our world imbued with divine goodness. We fail to contemplate God’s love poured out into creation. . . .

The Franciscan path to God calls us to gaze on the crucified Christ and to see there the humble love of God so that we may, like Francis, learn to see and love the presence of God’s overflowing goodness hidden, and yet revealed, in the marvelous diversity of creation. The one who contemplates God knows the world to be charged with the grandeur of God. Contemplation leads to a solidarity with all creation whereby all sorrows are shared in a heart of compassionate love, all tears are gathered in a womb of mercy, all pain is healed by the balm of forgiveness. The contemplative sees the threads of God’s overflowing love that binds together the whole of creation in a web of infinite love. We are called to see deeply that we may love greatly. And in that great love, rejoice in the overflowing goodness of God. [2]

References:

[1] Dawn M. Nothwehr, Ecological Footprints: An Essential Franciscan Guide for Faith and Sustainable Living (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 110, 111.

[2] Ilia Delio, Franciscan Prayer (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2004), 139–140.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

I live by the ocean and walk there frequently. I took a much slower walk yesterday and my spirit being in a different tempo allowed my eyes to see more that God was creating on that day in that moment. This is one of the creations I saw in the sand on my walk… a fish. The very earth cries out God’s majesty. I am so grateful to have this community that seeks to see differently and is therefore open to the marvels of God physically and spiritually within. I appreciate Merton and Francis of Assisi and living in the Beauty and Light that surrounds us and is God with us. —Sharon S.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

Loving Things in Themselves

Inspired by Franciscan philosopher-theologian John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), Father Richard teaches about loving things in and as themselves:

What does it mean when we’re told we should love God with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with our whole mind, and with our whole strength? The first commandment is that we should love God more than anything else. The only way I know how to love God is to love what God loves; only then do we love with divine love and allow it to flow through us.

Just how does God love? Franciscan philosopher-theologian Duns Scotus said in his doctrine of “thisness” (“haecceity”), that we are to love things in and as themselves, to love things for what they are, not for what they do for us. That’s when we really begin to love our spouses, our children, our neighbors, and others. When we free them from our agendas, then we can truly love them without concern for what they do for us, or how they make us look, or what they can get us. We begin to love them in themselves and for themselves, as living images of God. Now that takes real work!

So why is “thisness” so good and important? Duns Scotus mirrors Jesus as the Good Shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep and going after the one (Luke 15:4–6). The universal incarnation of Christ always shows itself in the specific, the concrete, the particular; it refuses to let life be a mere abstraction. No one says this better than Christian Wiman: “If nature abhors a vacuum, Christ abhors a vagueness. If God is love, Christ is love for this one person, this one place, this one time-bound and time-ravaged self.” [1]

The doctrine of haecceity says that we come to universal meaning deeply and rightly through the concrete, the specific, and the ordinary, and not the other way around. The principle here is “go deep in any one place and we will meet all places.” When we start with big universal ideas, at the level of concepts and -isms, we too often stay there—arguing about theories, forever making more distinctions. At that level, the mind is totally in charge. It’s easier to love humanity then, but not any individual people. We defend principles of justice but can’t muster the courage to live fully just lives ourselves. Only those who live like Francis and Clare do that.

Francis lived such “thisness” simply by looking at things and loving things in themselves and for themselves. I think this is what it means to love God. When we love things in themselves, we are looking out at the world with God’s eyes. When we look out from these eyes, we see that it’s not about us! And I promise, when we begin seeing the world this way, everything starts to give us joy. Simple things start to make us happy, and Reality begins to offer us inherent joy.

References:

[1] Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 121.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014), 181; and

Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2012). Available as CD and MP3 audio download.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

In [the] meditation “Building the Church from the bottom up,” Fr. Richard quotes St. Francis, “the marrow of the Gospel.” The word “marrow” is very personal to me. Forty years ago I underwent a Bone Marrow Transplant for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia; my brother was my donor. The transplant was done as the only means to a cure despite all the risks. Could it be that the Church is in need of a such a high-risk intervention, metaphorically speaking, to be rebuilt? And what intervention(s) is needed to “Go, Rebuild My Church!”? —Therese G.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

A Mystical Way of Life

Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi

Francis of Assisi’s experiences of God led him to solidarity with those who suffer, whether lepers, people in poverty, or the Crucified Christ himself. Franciscan priest and author Murray Bodo writes:

Francis experienced a profound conversion as a young man. . . . When he was on his way to fight in the Papal army [he] was told in a dream to leave his fellow soldiers and return to Assisi where it would be shown him what he was to do. He listened to the dream and returned home confused and despondent. One day, he met a leper on the road. Something impelled him to dismount his horse and not only place coins in the leper’s hand, but to embrace the leper. In so doing, he was filled with indescribable sweetness. . . . In that instant he knew he had embraced Jesus Christ. He knew then what he was to do with his life: to embrace Jesus in the poor and rejected, in those who previously had repulsed him. 

Shortly afterwards, praying before the crucifix in the dilapidated chapel of San Damiano outside Assisi’s walls, he heard a voice from the crucifix saying, “Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” And Francis responded immediately, begging stones and rebuilding this little chapel with his own hands. As he was to learn later, it was the Catholic Church itself that he was to restore. How he was to do this he learned while attending mass one day. He heard in the Gospel that the true disciples of Christ should take no gold, or silver, or copper in their belts, no bag for their journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff (Matthew 10:9–10). He was filled with joy and said, “This is what I want; this is what I desire with all my heart.” He renounced his patrimony, gave away all his possessions, and began the life of an itinerant preacher who dwelled among the lepers. Others followed, and the Franciscan way of life began. 

In all of this it was Jesus whose footsteps he followed. It was Jesus who was his all. He fell in love with Christ in an intimate, almost overwhelming way. . . .

Two years before he died, [Francis] was given one of the most extraordinary of mystical experiences. He was praying on a mountain in Tuscany in preparation for the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel when suddenly he was caught up in ecstasy and saw above him a six-winged flaming Seraph angel. Four wings were outstretched and two covered the body of the Crucified Christ. Francis’s response to this image was so intense that when he awoke, he bore within his own flesh the Sacred Stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Christ in his feet and hands and side. And they remained all the rest of his life as visible signs of the profound mystical life of St. Francis.

Reference:

Murray Bodo, “St. Francis of Assisi: The Practical Mystic,” Radical Grace 25, no. 1, Franciscan Mysticism (Winter 2012): 14.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

In [the] meditation “Building the Church from the bottom up,” Fr. Richard quotes St. Francis, “the marrow of the Gospel.” The word “marrow” is very personal to me. Forty years ago I underwent a Bone Marrow Transplant for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia; my brother was my donor. The transplant was done as the only means to a cure despite all the risks. Could it be that the Church is in need of a such a high-risk intervention, metaphorically speaking, to be rebuilt? And what intervention(s) is needed to “Go, Rebuild My Church!”? —Therese G.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

A Universal Connection

The Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi

Father Richard Rohr writes of the cosmic scope of Franciscan mysticism: 

I use the word mysticism in a very traditional and classic sense. It is not pointing to something esoteric and unavailable, though it does point to something that is only available to those who go beyond the surface and exterior, those who experience the inner grace and connectivity of all things. As Jesus, Paul, and Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (1221–1274) each said in their own way, mysticism is often foolishness to the educated and obvious to the simple.

I emphasize connectivity because that unteachable gift is what I always see in true mystics. Mystics know and enjoy the connected core of reality that is hidden to those who do not desire it or search for it. All mystics know is that they are inside of an immense and wonderful secret, which seems to be hidden from or denied by (but not denied to!) most of the rest of us. Mystics look out from different eyes that see the grace in all things and the deep connection between all things. 

While Franciscan mysticism overlaps with aspects of non-Christian mysticism—such as nature mysticism (panentheism), Jewish mysticism (God as “One” and thus all inclusive), Islamic Sufi mysticism (ecstasy and joy), Hindu mysticism (unitive consciousness and asceticism), and Buddhism (nonviolence and simplicity)—Franciscan mysticism has a unique place in the world through its Christocentric lens. Franciscan mysticism is about an intuition of Jesus as the Incarnate and Universal Christ. Francis discovered and so powerfully loved this mystery in Jesus that he eventually became a living image of Christ.

It was the unique person of Jesus that Francis and Clare fell in love with, precisely in his incarnate and humble state, identifying with the excluded and little ones, whom Jesus calls “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40). The bias toward the edge and the bottom has always been at the heart of Franciscan mysticism, explaining its perennial identification with poverty and suffering.

The cosmic vision, personalized in Jesus, was an intuition that Francis and many of his followers lived and experienced, but most of them did not formulate it in theological words or academic concepts as much as in lifestyles. Usually they picked it up by osmosis, through the gospel and the Franciscan lineage. Followers of Francis and Clare bore “fruit that remained” and they invariably believed in original blessing much more than original sin.

Franciscan mysticism is therefore not really about Francis, but about a universal notion of the Christ and therefore of all reality. Francis pushes all of our seeing to the absolute edge by always including those whom other systems might too easily exclude—lepers, non-Christians, poor people, hated outsiders. When it loses that “edgy” position, it might be mini-mysticism, or even church mysticism, but it is never Franciscan mysticism. Francis knew that only love is big enough to handle and hold truth. Truth which is not loving, joyful, and inclusive is never the Great Truth. 

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Franciscan Mysticism: A Cosmic Vision,” Radical Grace 25, no. 1, Franciscan Mysticism (Winter 2012): 12, 13, 20.

Note: The Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi commemorates the death of Francis and his “passing over” to eternal life.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

The meditations on St. Francis have been so meaningful to me. I feel animals are my brothers and sisters. Fourteen years ago I switched to a plant-based diet for health reasons. I could not have predicted then that letting go of my old diet would put me on a spiritual journey and make space for so much love and abundance. My reverence for all animals has deepened. Is my dog more deserving of love than a cow, chicken, or pig? All creation is sacred and I feel connected to it. My diet is abundant with beautiful plants. My life is abundant. My heart is full of love. —Sally P.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

A Humble Mystery

This week’s meditations explore Franciscan mysticism. Sister Ilia Delio identifies the spirituality of Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) as rooted in God’s love and humility:

Did you ever have one of those days where the whole idea of God was just too much to think about? As if trying to “get a handle” on God was like trying to kiss the moon? If the mystics are right (and usually they are because they see things much differently than we do) then you were probably closer that day to God than any other day in your life. How is this possible, you ask? How can God be close to you (or you to God) when God seems so far away or not at all? . . . This is my answer to you: God is a mystery of humble love. It is a mystery that you cannot reason or try to figure out. You must simply live in the mystery. . . .

I think Francis of Assisi grasped something of the mystery of God and, in a particular way, the mystery of God’s humility. Although he was simple and not well educated, he had an insight into God that I can only say was profound. Francis did not study theology. . . . He simply spent long hours in prayer, often in caves, mountains or places of solitude, places where he could distance himself from the busy everyday world. Thomas of Celano [c. 1185–1260], the first biographer of Francis, wrote: “Where the knowledge of teachers is outside, the passion of the lover entered.” [1] What Thomas perceived is that love, not knowledge, allowed Francis to enter into the great mystery we call “God.” As he entered into this mystery he discovered two principle features of God—the overflowing goodness of God and the humility of God. . . . How did a man as simple as Francis arrive at this mystery of God? The answer is Jesus Christ. Francis came to know the God of humble love by meditating on and imitating the poor and humble Christ. 

Recognizing God’s loving humility, Francis mirrored the same:

As his life deepened in God, [Francis] made a constant effort to spend himself in love by giving himself to the other. He became bent over in love for every person, every creature, including tiny earthworms which he would pick up so that they would not be crushed underfoot. By following the poor and humble Christ, Francis was formed into a “brother minor.” His followers said that he became “another Christ” because, like Christ, he was humble in love. Following the footprints of Jesus, Francis found the God of humble love not among the popular and the proud, the arrogant and the rich or those who “stand out” in society but among the ordinary, the forgotten, the poor and sick and the marginalized. The God of Francis, Celano wrote, was a God “who delights to be / with the simple and those rejected by the world.” [2]


References:

[1] Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, 2nd book, chap. 68, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2, The Founder (New York: New City Press, 2000), 314.

[2] Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis, 1st book, chap. 12, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, The Saint (New York: New City Press, 1999), 210.

Ilia Delio, The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005), 15, 17, 19–20.

Explore Further. . .

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Water Drops on Grass (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Nevada, Lake Tahoe California (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Belinda Rain, Forest (detail), 1972, photograph, California, public domain. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: We look for Spirit in every stone and blade of grass, in everything. We are part of something so much larger, so much grander. God’s grace abounds.

Story from Our Community:

The meditations on St. Francis have been so meaningful to me. I feel animals are my brothers and sisters. Fourteen years ago I switched to a plant-based diet for health reasons. I could not have predicted then that letting go of my old diet would put me on a spiritual journey and make space for so much love and abundance. My reverence for all animals has deepened. Is my dog more deserving of love than a cow, chicken, or pig? All creation is sacred and I feel connected to it. My diet is abundant with beautiful plants. My life is abundant. My heart is full of love. —Sally P.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough,  because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

 

Join our email community

Sign-up to receive the Daily Meditations, featuring reflections on the wisdom and practices of the Christian contemplative tradition.


Hidden Fields

Find out about upcoming courses, registration dates, and new online courses.
Our theme this year is Nothing Stands Alone. What could happen if we embraced the idea of God as relationship—with ourselves, each other, and the world? Meditations are emailed every day of the week, including the Weekly Summary on Saturday. Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time.
In a world of fault lines and fractures, how do we expand our sense of self to include love, healing, and forgiveness—not just for ourselves or those like us, but for all? This monthly email features wisdom and stories from the emerging Christian contemplative movement. Join spiritual seekers from around the world and discover your place in the Great Story Line connecting us all in the One Great Life. Conspirare. Breathe with us.