Gospel to Life and Life to Gospel
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Michele Dunne is the Executive Director of the Franciscan Action Network, an organization that seeks to embody Franciscan values in their work for justice for the earth and the poor. [1] In a recent issue of CAC’s the Mendicant donor newsletter, Dunne describes her deepening understanding of Franciscan witness:
“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 in 2013, at a time of failure and crisis in my life. [2] As I studied the Rule, I thought I understood “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.
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.
For example, while I had always understood Jesus’s teaching to “take up your cross and follow me” 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 (in Mark 8, Matthew 16, and Luke 9) 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.
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Jesus Calling 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.
