What would you do today if you knew you might die tomorrow?  
—Francis of Assisi, Letter to the Faithful  

Drawing on an early account of Francis praying outside, Ilia Delio reflects on Francis’ understanding of God as love:  

Francis was praying alone …, uttering a mantra in the form of a question: “Who are You, O God? And who am I?” [1] The more Francis wandered into the fields of nature, the more he wandered into the fields of his own heart. The outer world invited him to enter his inner world. There he encountered the mystery of God who was at once, Most High, and yet infinitely near; more intimate than his own self. Francis experienced God as his “All”: All good, All love, All present, All merciful. As he exclaimed, “Deus meus et omnia,” meaning “My God and my All!” The more he found God within himself, the more he saw God outside himself where every detail of nature spoke to him of God. As the Franciscan penitent Angela of Foligno exclaimed: “All creation is pregnant with God!” [2] Prayer led Francis into the truth of his own reality and into the truth of the world. Nothing was outside the embrace of God’s love.  

It was love that moved Francis into other worlds: the world of the leper, the world of the poor, the world of earthworms and wolves, into the world of everything, because only in the world is God born through love. However, one must be able to see and listen to the sounds of divine love crying out in the birthpangs of the new creation. Francis set his heart on God’s passionate love, his mind on knowing this love and his eyes on seeing this love.  

Delio describes Franciscan prayer as a desire to grow in God’s life and love:  

Prayer is an invitation to grow in love: as we grow into God’s life, God’s life grows in us. We are reborn in the Spirit through the power of love, entering into the chaos and uncertainty of the world. Love does not retreat from suffering and pain but enters into the darkness of life with energy and hope that the future will be different; love creatively empowers life toward more life. Life in God is a gamble in love that requires faithful commitment, even when darkness persists and suffering prevails. To grow in love through prayer is to throw ourselves into the heart of God…. Only when we can weep at what is not yet loved can we live into a new reality; for love is waiting to be born. This is the heart of Franciscan prayer. 

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Sarah Young

Worship Me only. I am King of kings and Lord of lords, dwelling in unapproachable Light. I am taking care of you! I am not only committed to caring for you, but I am also absolutely capable of doing so. Rest in Me, My weary one, for this is a form of worship.
     Though self-flagellation has gone out of style, many of My children drive themselves like racehorses. They whip themselves into action, ignoring how they exhausted they are. They forget that I am sovereign and that My ways are higher than theirs. Underneath their driven service, they may secretly resent Me as a harsh taskmaster. Their worship of Me is lukewarm, because I am no longer their First Love.
     My invitation never changes: Come to Me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. Worship Me by resting peacefully in My Presence.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

1st Timothy 6:15-16 (NLT)
15 For,
At just the right time Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. 16 He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honor and power to him forever! Amen.

Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT
8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD . “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

Additional insight regarding Isaiah 55:8-9: The people of Israel were foolish to act as if they knew what God was thinking and planning. His knowledge and wisdom are far greater than any human’s knowledge and wisdom. We are foolish to try to fit God into our mold – to make his plans and purposes conform to ours. Instead, we must strive to fit into his plans.

Revelation 2:4 NLT
4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!

Additional insight regarding Revelation 2:4: Paul had once commended the church of Ephesus for its love for God and others (Ephesians 1:15), but many of the church founders had died, and many of the second-generation believers had lost their zeal for God. They were a busy church – the members did much to benefit themselves and the community but they were acting out of the wrong motives. Work for God must be motivated by love for God, or it will not last.

Matthew 11:28 NLT
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Related scripture = Jeremiah 6:16)

Additional insight regarding Matthew 11:28-30: A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A person may be carrying heavy burdens of (1) sin, (2) excessive demands of religious leaders, (3) oppression and persecution, or (4) weariness in the search for God.

Jesus frees people from all these burdens. The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God, not the end of all labor. A relationship with God changes meaningless, wearisome toil into spiritual productivity and purpose.

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Father Richard understands the Franciscan vow of poverty through Francis’ commitment to live the gospel.  

Francis initially needed no rule, no code of behavior, for his brother friars. He was quite satisfied with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and his instructions to the disciples. When Francis read the inaugural discourse of Jesus, he saw that the call to be poor stood right at the beginning: “How blessed are the poor in spirit!” Henceforward, Francis’ reading of the gospel considered poverty to be “the foundation and guardian of all virtues.” [1] The other virtues receive the kingdom only in promise; poverty, however, is invested with it already now and without delay. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). [2]  

Spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr shares some examples of how Francis lived out the beatitudes of Jesus: 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  
—Matthew 5:6 

Francis inspired his followers to desire the liberation of their brothers and sisters as passionately as they themselves longed to be free. He modeled a spiritual path that combined private, contemplative prayer with active service in the world.  

While Francis could easily have become the respected leader of a successful monastic community, removed from the distractions of society, he chose instead to immerse himself in the messy human condition, where he was often reviled as an embarrassment to the high society from which he came. Rather than accept a traditional endowment, Francis and his followers begged in the streets for bread, bricks, and firewood. He tended the sick and cared for orphans. He stood up against oppression wherever he encountered it, but he did so in such a loving way that he posed no obvious threat to the authorities and so managed to convert them to his cause…. 

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” —Matthew 5:10 

Francis began and ended his religious vocation the victim of condemnation and rejection. When he first gave up his life of comfort and ease and took to the streets to live among the poor and beg for his most basic needs, the people of Assisi slammed their doors in his face and called him crazy. Multiple betrayals broke his heart, yet also opened him to receive the ultimate gift from Christ: participation in his passion through the stigmata. The full spectrum of Francis’s life—from joyful exaltation of the Lord to crushing self-doubt—reflected his living commitment to Christ’s teachings of love…. 

The Way of Love can be harrowing. It is not a path of convenience. It requires vigilance and discipline to speak for the voiceless, and courage to accept the consequences of ringing the bells that break the spell of complacency. Yet the fruits of such action are sweet. They are wild fruits, and they yield in abundance—enough to feed a whole kingdom, right here on earth. [3] 

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Never take for granted My intimate nearness. Marvel at the wonder of My continual Presence with you. Even the most ardent human lover cannot be with you always. Nor can another person know the intimacies of your heart, mind, and spirit. I know everything about you–even to the number of hairs on your head. You don’t need to work at revealing yourself to Me.
     Many people spend a lifetime or a small fortune searching for someone who understands them. Yet I am freely available to all who call upon My Name, who open their hearts to receive Me as Savior. This simple act of faith is the beginning of a lifelong love story. I, the Lover of your soul, understand you perfectly and love you eternally.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Luke 12:7 (NLT)
7 And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Additional insight regarding Luke 12:7: Our true value is God’s estimate of our worth, not our peers’ estimate. Other people evaluate and categorize us according to how we perform, what we achieve, and how we look. But God cares for us, as he does for all of his creatures because we belong to him. Thus, we can face life without fear; we are very valuable to God.

John 1:12 (NLT)
12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

Additional insight regarding John 1:12,13: All who welcome Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives are reborn spiritually, receiving new life from God. Through faith in Christ, this new birth changes us from the inside out – rearranging our attitudes, desires, and motives. Being born makes you physically alive and places you in your parent’s family (1:13). Being born of God makes you spiritually alive and puts you in God’s family (1:12). Have you asked Christ to make you a new person? This fresh start in life is available to all who believe in Christ.

Romans 10:13 (NLT)
13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  
—2 Corinthians 12:9 

I am glad for weaknesses, constraints, and distress for Christ’s sake, for it is when I am weak that I am strong.  
—2 Corinthians 12:10  

Father Richard describes how Francis, Clare, and later, Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), found a direct experience of God through humility:    

In his letters to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul, following Jesus, forever reversed the engines of ego and its attainments, and it is this precise reversal of values—and new entrance point—that Francis and Clare of Assisi understood so courageously and clearly. Seven centuries later, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who became the youngest, least educated, and most quickly designated doctor of the Church, also sought this downward path, which she called “a new way” or her “little way.”  

Thérèse—lovingly called the Little Flower by most Catholics—was right, on both counts, since her way of life was indeed very new for most people and very “little” instead of the usual upward-bound Christian agenda. Doing “all the smallest things and doing them through love” was the goal for Thérèse. [1] The common path of most Christianity by her time had become based largely on perfectionism and legalism, making the good news anything but good or inviting for generations of believers. [2]  

Thérèse, almost counter to reason, declared: “If you want to bear in peace the trial of not pleasing yourself, you will give me [the Virgin Mary] a sweet home.” [3] If you observe yourself, you will see how hard it is to be displeasing to yourself, and that it is the initial emotional snag that sends most of us into terribly bad moods without even realizing the mood’s origins. To resolve this common problem, both Francis and Thérèse teach us to let go of the very need to “think well of yourself” to begin with! “That is your ego talking, not God,” they would say.  

Only someone who has surrendered their foundational egocentricity can do this, of course. Psychiatrist and popular writer Scott Peck told me personally over lunch that this quote was “sheer religious genius” on her part, because it made the usual posturing of religion well-nigh impossible. It mirrors these teachings from St. Francis:  

Show your love to others by not wishing that they be better Christians. [4]  

We can patiently accept not being good. What we cannot bear is not being considered good, not appearing good. [5]  

Until we discover the “little way,” we almost all try to gain moral high ground by obeying laws and thinking we are thus spiritually advanced. Yet Thérèse wrote, “It is sufficient to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.” [6] People who follow this more humble and honest path are invariably more loving, joyful, and compassionate, and have plenty of time for simple gratitude about everything.

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Psalm 131: Faith on the Other Side of Complexity

Click Here for Audio In the gospels, Jesus rebuked his disciples for their pride and ambition. They had been arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, so Jesus called a child over and said to them, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Later, however, the Apostle Paul rebuked the Christians in Corinth by calling their “worldly” behavior childish. He said they were “mere infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2).I have heard Christians say their lack of interest in learning the Bible or doctrine is because they want to “preserve their childlike faith.” In other words, they’ve made biblical ignorance into a Christian virtue. Is that what Jesus intended when he commanded his followers to become like little children? And what did Paul mean when he said, “I put the ways of childhood behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11)? Is a childlike faith good or bad? Is it a mark of innocence as Jesus implies, or of ignorance as Paul suggests? Psalm 131 can help us solve this puzzle. The short poem contrasts a proud, haughty heart with a weaned child quietly resting in its mother’s embrace. It’s an image of frenzied anxiety juxtaposed with a picture of quiet contentment. What’s important to notice, however, is that David is comparing his previous state of striving and grasping for control, with his current posture of trust and surrender. He has passed through that chaotic season to discover peace in God’s presence on the other side.I believe this is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to “change and become like little children.” He was inviting them to surrender their pride and their lust for control, and instead entrust themselves to God’s good care. But notice that Jesus frames this posture as a choice. This is what separates us from actual children. A child has no choice but to trust. They are small, weak, ignorant, and therefore incapable of independence. But we can choose to entrust ourselves to God or continue in the illusion of our pride and power. What makes Psalm 131 so impactful is that David has gone through his prideful, haughty period. He has tried to grasp control, he has attempted to understand all the mysteries of life and faith, and he has struggled to take hold of great and wonderful things. But he failed. His striving was fruitless. So instead he has chosen trust. He has given up, surrendered, and collapsed into the arms of God and put his hope in YHWH rather than himself.This is the childlike faith Jesus values—the kind that emerges on the other side of pursuing control. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity the other side of complexity.” Paul criticized the Corinthians for being childlike because they lacked maturity and wisdom. Their simple faith was not a choice but a necessity. It was grounded in their lack of experience. But the childlike faith Jesus celebrates emerges from our experience. It is the simple wisdom we discover on the other side of complexity. DAILY SCRIPTURE PSALM 131:1-3 MATTHEW 18:1-5 WEEKLY PRAYER Thomas Wilson (1663 – 1775) Forgive me my sins, O Lord; the sins of my present and the sins of my past, the sins of my soul and the sins of my body, the sins which I have done to please myself and the sins which I have done to please others. Forgive me my casual sins and my deliberate sins, and those which I have labored so to hide that I have hidden them even from myself. Forgive me, O Lord, forgive all my sins, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.