Ruth's Book I

Franciscan Spirituality

    The theme today is Franciscan Spirituality, based on St. Francis’ deep conviction that God is our good Father. He is not a Father we obey because of fear of punishment. He is a generous and benign Father whom we want to obey because we know He loves us and we want Him to know that we love Him.

    Franciscan spirituality is a particular way of striving for perfection. The goal of all spirituality’s, be they Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan, or whatever, are the same, but the means of reaching the goal are different. They are alike, as human beings are alike, but they are different, as each human being is different. The difference lies in the way of life established by their leaders. The Franciscan main emphasis is on the Gospels and God’s love. It is the true and powerful message that St. Francis found. Members of the Secular Franciscan Order should aim, gradually, but persistently and sincerely to develop this spirit of God’s great love in themselves.

    The Franciscan way is a lofty way.  Is it then, superior to other ways? The answer is no. Benedictine, Dominican and all spirituality is lofty. Each person, then, is free to choose and follow the spirituality he prefers. All are equally good and Christ is the focal point of all of them.

    St. Francis’ way was to, “Go to the Gospel.” This is the way Christ taught us. “In the Gospels we find our way, our truth and our life.”

    We have said that Francis thought of God, most of all, as our good Father. Christ in the Gospels, particularly that of St. John, was continually calling upon His Father. Everything He did was for His Father and with the aid of his Father. We have this happy truth to cherish — God is Christ’s Father — God is our Father — so, joyfully we can say, “Christ is our brother!”

    The greatest thing God could give us is life — and through this human life we receive a sharing in His life. God became man so that man might share in His life, having His love — reborn in His love so that we are able to see His love in everything, in all of creation, in all creatures, and in particular, in all men.

    Francis rediscovered the powerful truth in the Gospels that Christ is not only God, but also, He is man! He is a true man with a human body, emotions, feelings  —  “a man,”  the  Gospels  say,  “like  us  in everything but sin.”

    God’s love draws us to Himself, through Christ. As God the Father would lovingly enfold Christ, His Son, in His arms, so too, would He enfold us, His children.The truth of this thrilled Francis with an overpowering joy.

    A sad note we see too often is that man, with his free will, can and does refuse this gift of God — this love and grace beyond our imagining. Man in his arrogant stupidity can revert to what he was to begin with — nothing — or worse than nothing. “It were better for that man,” Jesus said at one point, “if he had not been born.”

    To reject God’s love is the greatest of all the tragedies of life. But, it is a tragedy of choice.

    The God-Man Jesus is our great hope. In God’s eternal plan from the beginning, there was a human nature that would embody the fullness and perfection of God’s own goodness and love. This human nature was Christ. In Christ we have a meeting place of uncreative love with created love. As God, Christ is uncreative Love. As man He offers to His Father a perfect created love. As God He brings the infinite love of His Father down to us, and as man He gives back to the Father a perfect human love.

    God, from the beginning, had billions of images of Christ in His eternal plan. At the top of the list is Mary, to whom Francis had a very deep devotion. And, below her on the list are the billions of images of Christ.  Who are they? It is you and I — children of God by His gift, living a life that shares the life of God.

    God, as the all-seeing God, has deep compassion towards mankind, but when He Himself became man, He backed up this compassion with His own self-experienced day-by-day living. He felt and shared our human existence. He understands our human problems because He is a human Himself. He ate and drank with his friends and felt cold, heat, pain, joy and sorrow. His humanity rubbed elbows with our humanity — our problems, He knows from a first-hand experience.

    God then, having united us human beings with Christ in our shared human nature, also unites us by giving us a share in His own divine nature. How wonderful this is, our unity with Christ and God our Father; His own kind of life, to our human nature, making us supernatural. This also lifts our Love for God far above any human love. Our love for Him becomes supernatural love. This is a pure gift. God does not love us, because we are good and holy. We become good and holy because God loves us.

     By the sin of Adam and Eve we are born dead to the eternal love of God, but as St. Paul says, “God’s plan was to restore all things in Christ.” Christ willingly became a member of the human race, and in that capacity, glorified beyond measure, the fact that He also is the Son of God. He performed the supreme sacrifice and thereby lifted us body and soul, right up to God.

     To be a Franciscan is to strive unceasingly to absorb into our day-by-day living these joyful truths.