St. Francis and His Love for Christ

It seems forever since I last penned a blog but for a while I have not felt I had anything especially interesting to say.  A little bit of fasting from blogging and all computerish activity is enlightening.  It has given me time to reflect upon my Franciscan journey and to look at what is most important in my life. It would be very easy and perhaps glib to say that God is the most important, and Jesus.  They are, but just how are they most important?  How do they really impact on my life?  How do I allow them to impact on my life?  How much of it is what I think and how much of it is the reality?  I am not certain I will or can answer these questions but I will explore a little of it through my growing love for St. Francis and St. Clare.  Having just spent a few days a Freeland in Oxfordshire on a Franciscan retreat with the Order of St. Clare has brought these gentle and loving saints to the centre of my heart again.

The icon of Francis above, was a delightful commission for a special lady whom I have the utmost respect and love for.  She is a treasure and I look forward to our weekly chats in St. Mary’s.  She has an honest take on everything she experiences and feels about religion, life and the world in general.  It is refreshing to meet someone who says it like it is for them and who does not say what they think you would like to hear or some kind of popular notion.  Francis and Christ were also two such beings – they said it like it was.  An artist has to do this, too.  To see the reality and discern it from the imagined or from some construct of mind that can colour the vision.  How often do we find ourselves at odds with others because they have a view of us that is so far removed from the reality we are living.  It is like they see us through a cracked mirror.  It is not anyone’s fault.  It is a matter of perception.

Perception gets clouded by prejudice, negativity, stereotyping, dumping our own imagined ideas about others on them without checking in with them if this is the truth; speculation, gossip etc. etc. the list is endless and tiresome.  We have so much going against being able to see with clarity that it is no wonder the world is at odds and war and conflict reign supreme.

When, Lord, are you going to root out your Almighty spray can of polish and dust us all off?  Isn’t it time the world had a good spring clean?  That sounds painful!  Ouch!  It is.  It is the process of transfiguration and occurs little by little – very slow for me as I am stubborn and stroppy and my mind is mighty strong at times.  But I am getting a new sense of being cleaned out big time through this Franciscan journey.

More recently I have been pondering Francis’s love for Christ.  It was sublime and total.  He would be so fixed on his contemplation of Christ that he would be travelling along and all kinds of everyone would be snipping bits off his habit for relics and touching him.  All the while he would be oblivious.  He frequently counselled his friars not to wait around for any glory in their work but to remove themselves to far flung places where they were unknown and to start their work again to avoid the trap of ego.  He was not interested in book learning – not because he was anti-intellectual but because it is a source of puffing up of the ego.  The same way we use status to puff oursleves up, or clothes, or technology or what food we eat even.  It would seem any opportunity we can find for lording it over another we find it and use it.  This is the root of all prejudice and hence all the ills that spring from that.

St. Clare was rather good at including novices into discussions as she was well aware that God uses those who are often overlooked by those others who feel they are more significant or experienced.  We would do very well to look in unusual places for all kinds of interesting things.  We miss Christ every time we pas someone by and dismiss them in some way.

But what of this love for Christ, Francis had? It was all encompassing and filled with light and joy.  He would turn to him for everything and anything.  His thoughts were continuously focussed on Christ not on self.  His critics would not understand and pull his experience down to their own level of understanding.  What we understand of him is limited by our limitations not his.  I would like to experience some of this complete focus on Christ.

My journey is split into three monthly intervals and this present quarter is for the purpose of contemplation of our man Francis in love with Christ.  I have explained to my novice guardian that I do not want to write notes or study but to live the experience of Francis as much as I am capable.  So it may be that I will be completely misunderstood but as I am endeavouring to keep my eyes on my Beloved Christ, I will not care a whit!  There are so many situations to offer up to him and to ask him how to respond and he never fails to give the answers.  All I have to do is ask him, to make that decision to ask him how do I respond to this or deal with that? Even the most trivial of things can sometimes lead to stupendous awareness. I guess this is like the Christian version of paying attention to all and everything around us.

Being in love makes us oblivious to many things, being in love with Christ makes us oblivious to the things that do not matter but aware of the things that do.  What an exciting journey – there is no need to worry about anything when you can ask the divine for everything.