{"id":19376,"date":"2020-10-05T10:07:10","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T14:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19376"},"modified":"2020-10-05T10:07:10","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T14:07:10","slug":"an-invitation-to-cosmic-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19376","title":{"rendered":"An Invitation to Cosmic Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>St. Francis:<br>\nA Message for Our Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An\nInvitation to Cosmic Community<\/strong><br>\nMonday, October 5, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6glQdaQUZ1U\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Author\nand editor Robert Ellsberg reflects on Francis\u2019 legacy from a modern\nperspective:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus left no\nformal religious rule for his followers. The closest he came was his\nproclamation of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the\nmerciful, the peacemakers. . . . Francis took to heart [Jesus\u2019] spiritual\nvision [proclaimed in the Beatitudes] and translated it into a way of life. . .\n. For many men and women since the time of Francis, his particular example has\noffered a distinctive key to the Gospel\u2014or, as Pope Francis might say, \u201ca new\nway of seeing and interpreting reality.\u201d [<em>This\nis what the CAC is about as well.<\/em>]&nbsp; Among the central features\nof this key: the vision of a Church that is \u201cpoor and for the poor\u201d [<em>what we call \u201cthe bias from the bottom\u201d<\/em>];\na resolve to take seriously Jesus\u2019s example of self-emptying love; the way of\nmercy and compassion [<em>as\nFrancis lived by solidarity with and service to lepers<\/em>]; above all,\na determination to proclaim the Gospel not only with words but with one\u2019s life.\n. . . [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In a recent\nhomily given in Assisi itself, Father Michael Perry, the Minister General of\nthe Order of Friars Minor (the name Francis gave us), shared his vision of\nFrancis\u2019 message and legacy for our time:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brothers and\nsisters, the call to repentance, conversion, to open our minds, hearts, and\nlives to a new way of living together on this planet is more urgent now than in\nany other moment in human history. [As Pope Francis teaches,] conversion\nrequires that we hear \u201cBoth the cry of the earth and the cry of the Poor.\u201d [2]\nBut is this not also what Francis of Assisi intended when he prayed that all\npeople, and I would add, all of the created universe, might be admitted to\nparadise, might come to an experience of what St. Matthew calls the \u201cBeatific\nway of life,\u201d (Matthew 5:1\u201311) defined by living in just and right relationship\nwith one another and with all of creation? . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <em>Canticle <\/em>[<em>of the Creatures<\/em>] Francis celebrates God\u2019s\nloving presence in all of creation. He looks to nature for guidance on how we\nare to model our relationships with God, one another, and with the natural\nworld. . . . This one [community], this common home, has been created by God\nand given the vocation to love, serve, and honor the Creator by loving, serving\nand honoring one another. Humans and the creaturely world have as their\nvocation the duty to support and complete one another, <em>not to compete against and destroy one another<\/em>. We are co-responsible with\nand for one another, especially for the poor and excluded. We are\nco-responsible for the life of the natural environment, showing gratitude and\nrespecting nature\u2019s proper limits, not pushing the planet to the brink of\necological disaster. [3]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>St. Francis:<br>\nA Message for Our Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An\nUnexpected Francis<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fOctober 4, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>During\nthe election, I was seated next to [Brazilian] Cardinal Claudio Hummes: a good\nfriend, a good friend! . . . When the votes reached two thirds . . . he said:\n\u201cDon\u2019t forget the poor.\u201d. . . Right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of\nFrancis of Assisi. . . . For me, he is the man of poverty, the man of peace,\nthe man who loves and protects creation; . . . He is the man who gives us this\nspirit of peace, the poor man. Oh! How I would like a church which is poor and\nfor the poor!<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Pope Francis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>I\u2019d like to\ndedicate this week of meditations, which begins with the Feast of St. Francis\nof Assisi (1182\u20131226), to my spiritual father\u2019s life and legacy. Although many\npeople are familiar with Francis\u2019 story, I believe his well-grounded,\nrevolutionary values of nonviolence, simplicity, and care for creation become\nmore important with each passing year. Happily, we have a spiritual leader in\nPope Francis who understands the power and the urgency of Francis\u2019 message.\nAuthor and editor Robert Ellsberg describes the ways Pope Francis embodies the\nmessage of his namesake: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nfirst Jesuit elected pope, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, became the first to assume\nthe name of Francis. . . .&nbsp; That no previous pope had ventured to take\nthat name is unsurprising. Among the many associations conjured by the name of\nFrancis, one of the most obvious was his utter rejection of the trappings of\nstatus, power, and importance. He called his followers the Lesser Brothers. He\nesteemed Lady Poverty as his spouse. He called it \u201cperfect joy\u201d when he was\nreviled or treated with contempt. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet,\nas soon became clear, Pope Francis aspired to live up to the challenge posed by\nhis name. This was reflected immediately in his choice to dispense with fancy\ngarments and the custom-made red shoes and, more notably, in his decision to\nforgo the Apostolic Palace in favor of a modest room in the Vatican guesthouse.\nBut beyond these gestures of humility, the remembrance of St. Francis implied\nan agenda and a program for renewal. Francis, after all, was the saint who set\nout to rebuild and reform the Church by evoking the example and spirit of the\nPoor Man, Jesus. He spurned violence and power. He reached out to members of\nother religions. He treated women with dignity and respect. He cherished the\nearth and all its creatures. He pointed to a new form of human and cosmic\ncommunity, marked by love. And he did all this with such a spirit of joy and\nfreedom as to make him a source of wonder and attraction to many of his\ncontemporaries. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly eight\nhundred years later, St. Francis undoubtedly remains the world\u2019s most popular\nsaint\u2014honored in every land, even by the secular-minded and people of other\nfaiths. This reflects, in part, his winsome qualities and the romantic gestures\nthat sometimes encourage sentimentality [<em>what I call \u201cbird bath Franciscanism\u201d\u2014RR<\/em>]. But beneath all that, St.\nFrancis stands as one who made the way of Jesus credible and concrete, both for\nthose called to formal religious life and for men and women living in the\nordinary world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Francis: A Message for Our Times An Invitation to Cosmic Community Monday, October 5, 2020 Author and editor Robert Ellsberg reflects on Francis\u2019 legacy from a modern perspective: Jesus left no formal religious rule for his followers. The closest he came was his proclamation of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19377,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376\/revisions\/19377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}