Franciscan Spirituality

Every once in a while I get an email forwarded to me about a friend of a friend who says he wants to be a friar. Usually these don't go anywhere.

The once I received yesterday seemed a little more promising than usual. In the forwarded email the man said he had a "burning desire" for the Franciscan life. To say something like that reveals some intuition of the Franciscan vocation. As St. Bonaventure says in the prologue to the Itinerarium:

Via autem non est nisi per ardentissimum amorem Crucifixi

"Indeed there is no other way but through the burning love of the Crucified." In this simple statement we hear two of the central themes of Franciscan spirituality. First, it always has a focus on the affective; it lodges in our heart, our love, our feelings. Second, these are devoted to Christ crucified, the perfect intersection of love and suffering that is the Cross.

All (Franciscan) Saints

Yes, we Franciscans even have our own feast of all saints, a time to remember and celebrate the little Franciscan cohort of the church at rest in heaven.

It's been almost 800 years since Francis received his first companions, which Francis described in his Testament as the time "when the Lord gave me brothers."

Since then God only knows how many friars and sisters and seculars have lived their lives through the inspiration of Francis and Clare. Surely many of them are among the saints with God. Today we celebrate them, and look forward to sharing in their joy, rest, and destiny.

Turkey

The Holy Father's visit to Turkey this week is truly a big deal. Cardinal Sean has a prayer posted for him and his trip.

Feelings

Feelings are a funny thing in the spiritual life. On the one hand you have to pay close attention to them: the little angers and annoyances that arise in our heart remind us of our unreasonable expectations of the world and other people. Our little attractions to others remind us of our vocation to communion with one another, and ultimately, to God. When we're sad for no reason, it can teach us that our home is not here, but in heaven. When we're happy for no reason, it can be a foretaste of our eternal joy and beatitude with God.

On the other hand, sometimes proper ascesis and right effort is to ignore and disregard our feelings. On Sunday I was preaching, and I felt terrible. I was tired, and kept thinking that I was going either too fast or too slow. I didn't feel connected to the assembly, and found my text stale and repetitive. But my pastor said it was the best he had heard from me thus far.

I guess knowing when to listen to our feelings and when to ignore them is a work of discernment.

Christ the King

Well, we've reached the last week of the year of grace 2006, and here's my homily for this weekend. (P.s. I made this homily before I was aware of the recent difficulties in Tonga. So let's remember to pray for their intentions and their peace.)

A few years ago I took a political science course, and in the class I met a guy from the island of Tonga. Now maybe you’ve never heard of Tonga – I know I hadn’t. Tonga is a little island in the south Pacific, and our political science teacher, interested as he was in different systems of government, was very interested in meeting someone from Tonga. You see, Tonga is one of the last places in the world with a real monarchy. They have a real king who actually rules the country.

Now this is pretty foreign to our experience. We’re not used to being ruled by royalty. For us, we are familiar with more modern forms of earthly government: presidents and prime ministers, parliaments and congresses. For us, kings are a thing of the past.

Does this make it hard for us to get into this feast of Christ the King? I don’t think so. Fact is, the kingship of Jesus Christ and the nature of his kingdom are so different from any earthly idea of power and government that perhaps we who don’t have any experience of earthly kings will understand today’s feast more easily.

Think about it. Take a look at Christ the King there on the Cross. What kind of power is that? Instead of earthly power he is nailed to the Cross and can’t even move his hands and feet. Instead of royal robes he is naked and shamed. For a crown he has only the crown of thorns made by his torturers.

What kind of king is this? Pontius Pilate was pretty curious about it. Seeing the beaten and bound Jesus before him, he wondered what kind of king he could possibly be dealing with. And so Jesus described his kingship to Pilate:

For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth hears my voice.

The kingdom of Christ is about truth, not earthly power. Reigning from the throne of his Cross, Jesus Christ reveals the truth. And the truth is that real power in this world is humility and the giving of oneself for others. It’s not about having it your way, and not the power to influence and control anybody. Real power is humility and the willingness to give of oneself for others. And this is the kind of king we are dealing with in Jesus Christ.

Reigning from the throne of the Cross, Christ the King reveals to us the truth about our world. The true story of the world is not in the halls of power or in the overwhelming suffering of war. It’s not even in the world’s false hope for an earthly peace which is only about everyone being able to pursue their own desires without interference. The real history of the world is not found in the careers of presidents and prime ministers.

Christ the King reveals to us from the Cross that the true kings and queens of this world are those who quietly struggle to love each other, to bear with each other’s burdens, to give of themselves without counting the cost or expecting anything in return. The true story of this world is the story of those who in so many small and forgotten ways, give of themselves for each other, give of themselves for the life of another. And this is the Kingdom of God. It’s the real history of the world, and you won’t see it on CNN.

Jesus explains to Pontius Pilate that his kingdom “does not belong to this world.” The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world, but it is in this world. And the kingdom of Christ is in the world because of you and me. In the book of Revelation we hear today how Jesus Christ

has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father.

It is us who are made into the kingdom of God in this world.

We are fortunate here at this parish in so many ways, not the least of which is that we baptize our children here in the midst of the Sunday assembly. In this we have the tremendous privilege of witnessing the very thing we proclaim today in the book of Revelation. In the baptisms we celebrate we see with our own eyes how Jesus Christ makes “us into a kingdom and priests for his God and Father.”

In baptism we witness the royal anointing with oil we have all received. Just as David was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the greatest of the kings of Israel, and just as Jesus was anointed on his feet by Mary in preparation for his enthronement and glorification on the Cross, we too are anointed in our baptism to share in the kingship of Christ.

You and me, we are the anointed royalty of the kingdom of God. As baptized Christians we are the kings of the world. But our royalty doesn’t get us anything as this world counts power and value. Our royalty is the kingship of Christ the King who rules from the Cross, naked, unable to move, and crowned with thorns.

Our kingdom is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of those who try to follow and imitate Christ by giving of themselves for each other, who offer their efforts and love and lives for the life of the other, indeed for the very life of the world.

Franciscan Blogroll

For those who read German, go ahead and check out Pax et Bonum.

Vinculi

Anyone who reads my posts once in a while knows that Wikipedia is one my favorite sites. Not only do I love the knowledge it provides, but the very idea of the project appeals to me too. Of course it's a project that's going on in many different languages. The other day I noticed that a "Vicipaedia" is being built up in Latin! You can check out the homepage here, and here's their page on Benedict XVI. And while you're at it, why not check out the news at Nuntii Latini.

Too much fun it all is.