Section:
prayers
October 4
This week the poor man of Assisi, the passionate follower of the Crucified Christ, Francis, came to sit with us. He sits in our front reception area, greeting each of us with his beautiful smile.
He sits on a wooden bench that envelops wood from a copper beech tree that dug its roots deep into our motherhouse soil, a tree that watched our Franciscan story unfold over the years. Francis and the copper beech wood, blending the richness of charism and heritage to bring us inspiration and joy.
Francis came to sit with us. As the Book of Sirach proclaimed, “Behold him in whose time the house of God was renovated, like a star shining...like the full moon at the holy day season...like the sun shining upon the temple...like the rainbow appearing in the cloudy sky.” Francis, lover and proclaimer of the Gospel became a renovator, an innovator, a collaborator, an instigator in the society and Church of his time. Francis discovered the humble, poor Christ and his example became the great light that directed Francis’ life. Jesus’ example was what set Francis’ feet resolutely on the road of poverty and humility, on the path of relationship where all were brother and sister. He invented a form of communio, of community where there existed no positions of dominance. The power of this quality of relationship flowed from Francis’ wonder-filled discovery of the mystery of the Incarnation. For Francis, God was not the God of the feudal wars or the holy crusades. Francis’ God was and is the Word who walked in our midst, without any sign of power, as the humblest and most loving of all. Francis discovered the humanness of God, the humility of God. For Francis, Celano writes, “the God of majesty himself became his brother (Celano, Vita II, 198).
Francis embraced this call to “communio”, communion with all and identified with the God of the poorest and humblest human condition. He set an example for the society and Church of his time in his radical embrace of poverty and in his creation of a community in which “whoever wishes to become great shall be the servant, and whoever wishes to be first shall be their minister and servant (Rule of 1221). Radical thought for radical times! Francis created a true spiritual revolution with the Gospel at its very core. In his day Francis challenged his brothers, his Church, his society “ to be created anew .” We heard these words today in Paul’s letter to the Galatians! “All that matters is that one is created anew! Peace and mercy on all who follow this rule of life.”
Today, here in this moment of our history where we are staring into the face of war, where we are becoming desensitized to the violence, hatred, and greed that corrupts our cities, our nation, our world, where we are polluting and raping our Mother Earth, we must “be created anew” in the power of our loving relationship with the Crucified Christ who became one with us! Listen to the observation of Franciscan scholar Eloi LeClerc about 13th century Italy and decide whether it sounds familiar today: In his preaching Francis went straight to what he felt was the essential point: humanity’s relationship with one another. It is this way that the Gospel enters into people’s lives!
No evangelical renewal was possible without a change in human relationships. First and foremost, the walls of hatred, disdain, and indifference separating people of the same city, of the same country, had to be broken down and then true brotherhood (relationship) had to begin among them.”
Today, no evangelical renewal is possible without a change in human relationship, without being vigilant about our own call as Franciscan women and men to be bearers of peace and reconcilers wherever we find ourselves. We are challenged to risk that road, to be as Francis was, renovators, innovators, collaborators and even instigators in the society and Church of our time. WE are mandated to be radical instruments of peace in a world that is longing for it.
Francis came to sit with us this week. He drew us into relationship as we dialogued about his presence, creating a positive energy that filled us with genuine joy. Yet he sits there challenging us to go deeper, to be more directly possessed by his God. In Francis’ words, “Up to now we have done hardly anything. My brothers and sisters, let us really begin to serve the Lord, our God.”
Francis came to sit with us this week. And how dangerous a presence he really is!
Peace and all good!
Lynn Patrice Lavin, OSF
