brother sun, sister moon.

This morning I awoke to a vicious little bout with vertigo. It hit as soon as I opened my eyes and was resolved 20 minutes later. All is well, but the after effects laid me low all day. Long naps, hot tea and reading in bed became the rule of the day. Outside the grapevines in the wetlands are slowly turning red, browns and yellows abound in the trees, too and the "fire bushes" around our house are showing their autumn splendor. It was a good day for me to lay low and give thanks to God in quiet ways.

Seeing that it was the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi - and I do love me that saint - it seemed right to take a bit of time to think about the "five pillars" of Franciscan spirituality. It felt doubly right given the fact that I've been sorting, discarding and saving things from my formal years of pastoral ministry. With 8 garbage bags full of unnecessary paper and a bin full of extraneous debris, I felt the spirit of Francis to be very close. I love this moment in Zeffirelli's film, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" where Francis begins his ministry by stripping naked in the church and letting go of everything his earthly father had given to him.


One article spoke of the spiritual path of Francis like this:

Simon Tugwell defines spirituality as “a way of looking at the world,” and Franciscan spirituality as “a way of radical unprotectedness.” That is about as apt a definition as it is possible to give. Francis was in love with God and threw himself into the love relationship with the dangerous abandon of a lover. He saw the Kingdom of God as present now and expressed this with great passion by embracing the radical poverty of Christ. His Order not only did without possessions — things as basic as shelter from the elements; they were downright happy about it! The worse things got, the more joy it seemed to produce. Before Francis, the spiritual focus of religious orders was to renounce the world as evil and humanistic and to work at negating it. Francis looked at the world, saw his beloved (its Creator) and embraced it with open arms. He called all created things his brothers and sisters: sun, moon, living beings, storms, fire, even death. (http://tssf.org/about-the-third-order/franciscan-spirituality-and-bibliography/)

Another look at the way of St. Francis emphasizes five important lenses through which life is lived, understood and shared. (http://franciscansusa.org/ spirituality-retreats/five-pillars) These five pillars include:

Incarnation: Jesus was a human being just like each of us. He laughed, he wept, he ate and drank. He earned his living as a laborer before the final, public phase of His life. He used the things of this earth to lead us toward His Father in Heaven: water, bread, wine, even spitting into the dirt to rub mud into the eyes of a blind man, who then was able to see. Francis saw the Nativity as the self-emptying of Jesus (kenosis), the very poverty of God. He desired with all his heart to follow Jesus in the way of the Gospel, poor, in the footsteps of the poor Jesus, so as to share more deeply in the grace of God… To do this today is to live in community, sharing meals and work and care for one another. A special charism of the way of Francis is the kitchen where good food shared freely is a sign of God's abundance.

Passion:  Honoring the sacrificial way of Jesus - the Paschal Mystery of the Cross - shaped the way Francis ordered his life. The Cross guides, empowers, corrects and blesses how we prioritize our thoughts, words and actions.

Eucharist:  At the heart of Franciscan spirituality is prayer... and at the heart of our prayer is the Eucharist where Christ becomes physically present to us. In this feast of peace and radical trust, God and humanity embrace. Henri Nouwen put it like this:

When we gather around the table and eat from the same loaf and drink from the same cup, we are most vulnerable to one another. We cannot have a meal together in peace with guns hanging over our shoulders and pistols attached to our belts. When we break bread together we leave our arms - whether they are physical or mental - at the door and enter into a place of mutual vulnerability and trust. The beauty of the Eucharist is precisely that it is the place where a vulnerable God invites vulnerable people to come together in a peaceful meal. When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close

Scripture:  Francis believed that when we meet Christ in the Word, we are commissioned into action. He entrusted himself totally to the concrete directives found in the pages of the Gospel and carried them out with zealous abandon. (Melnick and Wood) The Gospels challenge the status quo. They compel us to move beyond cheap into costly grace. And they show us the strength of God's tenderness with clarity.

Mary:  Awed by the sanctity of the Virgin Mary, Francis aspired to imitate her perfect discipleship. Like the Mother of Christ, Francis said “Yes” to the plans of God and carried Christ within his very being. He strove to give birth to Christ’s compassionate presence in the world and to recognize that presence in others. (Melnick and Wood) Mary doesn’t get in the way of God; she leads us to God. We take to heart her words at the wedding feast: “Do whatever He tells you.” While we may not always live up to her example, it remains the ideal toward which we strive.

As I evaluate my life, ministry and current experience as a secular monk living simply and finding a new/old way to pray and follow Jesus,  these commitments (incarnation, the Cross, Scripture, Eucharist and Mary) ring true. (Love the icons by Robert Lentz and the music of Donovan, too.)