# data[].attributes.body
Interesting information on why Ignatian Spirituality appeals to younger people

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Marianne Williamson Talks Spirituality and Politics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Continuing Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Margaret Silf Discuss Ignatian Spirituality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Ignatian Spirituality is Appealing for Young People

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ Tim Muldoon, a professor at Boston College and blogger for dotMagis, offers his thoughts on why Ignatian Spirituality is so appropriate for young people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ignatian Spirituality Finding God in All Things

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are a number of outstanding resources devoted to Ignatian spirituality. Sacred Space is a popular prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits, and Jesuitprayer.org was created by the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus to provide daily online prayers and facilitate prayer requests.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a "long retreat" of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the Spiritual Exercises as a program for laypeople. The most common way of going through the Exercises now is a "retreat in daily life," which involves a monthslong program of daily prayer and meetings with a spiritual director. The Exercises have also been adapted in many other ways to meet the needs of modern people.

About the Spiritual Exercises
Elements of the Spiritual Exercises
Using the Spiritual Exercises

An Ignatian Prayer Adventure
An online adapted version of the Spiritual Exercises. Materials are based on The Ignatian Adventure, and Loyola Press bloggers offer their own reflections throughout the eight-week retreat. Use as much or as little of the material as helps you in your Ignatian adventure.

Spiritual Exercises Online
Developed for spiritual directors and other practitioners of Ignatian spirituality, the Spiritual Exercises online supports those who lead others in the Exercises, whether as a 30-day retreat, a 19th annotation retreat, or other variation. This digitally enhanced experience of the Spiritual Exercises includes the full text, commentaries and annotations by leaders in Ignatian spirituality, and videos, image libraries, PowerPoint presentations, and multimedia prayer experiences.

About the Spiritual Exercises

What Are the Spiritual Exercises?
An introduction: the purpose of the Exercises and their structure.

Orientations for Spiritual Growth
Canadian Jesuit Web site founded by John Veltri, SJ, and now maintained by Jean-Marc Laporte, SJ. Well-rounded coverage of personal prayer, understanding the spiritual journey, understanding the Spiritual Exercises, and the ministry of companioning others on their spiritual journey.

Slí Eile Spiritual Exercises Video
Noelle Fitzpatrick outlines the Spiritual Exercises. Then Edwina Dewart speaks about the core values of the Exercises and the importance of the relationship with the spiritual director. Produced by the Jesuit Centre for Young Adults in Ireland.

Reexamining Our Faith Fundamentals (PDF)
By Patrick E. McGrath, SJ
In this short article from Partners magazine, McGrath names several fundamental faith assumptions behind the Spiritual Exercises.

Video: The Spiritual Exercises
Narrated by John Brown, SJ
The first part of this video describes the structure and purpose of the Spiritual Exercises.

dotMagis Posts About the Spiritual Exercises
From the category archives of the dotMagis blog.

Elements of the Spiritual Exercises

An Outline of the Spiritual Exercises
A simple outline of what is experienced at each stage of the Exercises.

The Text of the Spiritual Exercises
The Spiritual Exercises were not meant to be read by an individual but rather led by a retreat director.

Contemplation on the Love of God
A basic explanation of the concluding meditation of the Spiritual Exercises.

The Contemplation on Divine Love
Kevin O'Brien, SJ, explains the final contemplation of the Spiritual Exercises in this video.

Ignatian Prayer and the Imagination
One of the principal forms of prayer in the Spiritual Exercises is imaginative reflection on scenes from the Gospels.

Using the Spiritual Exercises

The Foundation of Heroism: Magis
By Chris Lowney
Lowney considers motivation and the magis as he discusses how the Spiritual Exercises work as a leadership tool.

In the Footsteps of Ignatius
An article about the ways people are making the Exercises today.

Ignatian Spirituality Project
A remarkable Chicago-based Jesuit ministry which offers retreats to those who are homeless and seeking recovery, to help them find meaning and purpose as they reclaim their lives. The Ignatian Spirituality Project also trains the formerly homeless to assist in giving retreats.

The Composition of Place: Creating Space for an Encounter (PDF)
By Nicolas Standaert, SJ
Standaert reviews Jerome Nadal's Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels and shows how Nadal's use of images helps the reader create a space for prayer and meditation.

Draw Me Into Your Friendship: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading of the Spiritual Exercises (Book)
By David L. Fleming, SJ
This modern paraphrase is widely used by spiritual directors and others who teach and study the Exercises.

Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life (Puget Sound)
Program information about a nine-month experiential retreat of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. The site also includes a daily prayer feature.

Ecology and the Spiritual Exercises (PDF)
By Trileigh Tucker
Tucker explores how the Spiritual Exercises provide us with a structure to examine the relationship between the individual and the environment. Article in The Way, 2004.

Notes on Adapting the Exercises of St. Ignatius
By David T. Asselin, SJ
In a relatively short article from Review for Religious (Vol. 28, 1969), David Asselin, SJ, discusses ways to adapt the Exercises and notes that slides and short films can be useful.

In a Judge's Chambers: Exercises in Daily Life, An Interview (PDF)
Judge Francisco Firmat recounts how he came to lead the Exercises in Daily Life. Fr. Bernard J. Bush interviewed Firmat for this piece in 1999.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: Rediscovery and Renewal Part One
Produced by Georgetown University
Jesuit pioneers in the 20th-century renewal of the Spiritual Exercises relate their personal experiences in their introduction to the guided retreat. Howard Gray, SJ, William Barry, SJ, Walter Farrell, SJ, John O'Malley, SJ, John Padberg, SJ, Joseph Tetlow, SJ, and Dominic Maruca, SJ, narrate the developments in research into the early years of the Jesuits, the rediscovery of the giving of the Spiritual Exercises as a one-on-one experience, and the impact of the Second Vatican Council and the 31st General Congregation on the way the Spiritual Exercises are practiced today. 26 minutes; for those with an advanced understanding of the Exercises.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: Rediscovery and Renewal Part Two
Produced by Georgetown University
George Aschenbrenner, SJ, joins the Jesuit pioneers from the first session as they narrate the history of the training programs that made the one-on-one experience of the Spiritual Exercises accessible to the larger community. 17 minutes; for those with an advanced understanding of the Exercises.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: Emerging Role of the Laity
Produced by Georgetown University
The Jesuit pioneers discuss the evolution of lay leadership in the practice of giving the Spiritual Exercises. The development of lay communities of Ignatian spirituality such as Christian Life Communities is considered. Lay discovery of Ignatian spirituality now has crossed denominational boundaries. The Jesuits discuss the issues of how the work of the laity can continue and grow. 28 minutes; for those with an advanced understanding of the Exercises.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a "long retreat" of about 30 days in solitude and silence.

# data[].attributes.body
http://go.mu.edu/2d48dSV

# data[].attributes.body
The roots of Jesuit/Ignatian Spirituality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ignatian spirituality is one of the most influential and pervasive spiritual outlooks of our age. There's a story behind it. And it has many attributes. This page provides an introduction to it.

1. It begins with a wounded soldier daydreaming on his sickbed.
Ignatian spirituality is rooted in the experiences of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), a Basque aristocrat whose conversion to a fervent Christian faith began while he was recovering from war wounds. Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits, gained many insights into the spiritual life in the course of a decadeslong spiritual journey during which he became expert at helping others deepen their relationship with God. Its basis in personal experience makes Ignatian spirituality an intensely practical spirituality, well suited to laymen and laywomen living active lives in the world.
More about Ignatius Loyola
2. "The world is charged with the grandeur of God."
This line from a poem by the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins captures a central theme of Ignatian spirituality: its insistence that God is at work everywhere-in work, relationships, culture, the arts, the intellectual life, creation itself. As Ignatius put it, all the things in the world are presented to us "so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily." Ignatian spirituality places great emphasis on discerning God's presence in the everyday activities of ordinary life. It sees God as an active God, always at work, inviting us to an ever-deeper walk.

3. It's about call and response-like the music of a gospel choir.
An Ignatian spiritual life focuses on God at work now. It fosters an active attentiveness to God joined with a prompt responsiveness to God. God calls; we respond. This call-response rhythm of the inner life makes discernment and decision making especially important. Ignatius's rules for discernment and his astute approach to decision making are well-regarded for their psychological and spiritual wisdom.
More about Call and Response
4. "The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows nothing."
Ignatius Loyola's conversion occurred as he became able to interpret the spiritual meaning of his emotional life. The spirituality he developed places great emphasis on the affective life: the use of imagination in prayer, discernment and interpretation of feelings, cultivation of great desires, and generous service. Ignatian spiritual renewal focuses more on the heart than the intellect. It holds that our choices and decisions are often beyond the merely rational or reasonable. Its goal is an eager, generous, wholehearted offer of oneself to God and to his work.
More about the Spirituality of the Heart
5. Free at last.
Ignatian spirituality emphasizes interior freedom. To choose rightly, we should strive to be free of personal preferences, superfluous attachments, and preformed opinions. Ignatius counseled radical detachment: "We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one." Our one goal is the freedom to make a wholehearted choice to follow God.

6. "Sum up at night what thou hast done by day."
The Ignatian mind-set is strongly inclined to reflection and self-scrutiny. The distinctive Ignatian prayer is the Daily Examen, a review of the day's activities with an eye toward detecting and responding to the presence of God. Three challenging, reflective questions lie at the heart of the Spiritual Exercises, the book Ignatius wrote, to help others deepen their spiritual lives: "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?"
More about the Daily Examen
7. A practical spirituality.
Ignatian spirituality is adaptable. It is an outlook, not a program; a set of attitudes and insights, not rules or a scheme. Ignatius's first advice to spiritual directors was to adapt the Spiritual Exercises to the needs of the person entering the retreat. At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is a profound humanism. It respects people's lived experience and honors the vast diversity of God's work in the world. The Latin phrase cura personalis is often heard in Ignatian circles. It means "care of the person"-attention to people's individual needs and respect for their unique circumstances and concerns.

8. Don't do it alone.
Ignatian spirituality places great value on collaboration and teamwork. Ignatian spirituality sees the link between God and man as a relationship-a bond of friendship that develops over time as a human relationship does. Collaboration is built into the very structure of the Spiritual Exercises; they are almost always guided by a spiritual director who helps the retreatant interpret the spiritual content of the retreat experience. Similarly, mission and service in the Ignatian mode is seen not as an individualistic enterprise, but as work done in collaboration with Christ and others.
More about Collaboration 9. "Contemplatives in action."
Those formed by Ignatian spirituality are often called "contemplatives in action." They are reflective people with a rich inner life who are deeply engaged in God's work in the world. They unite themselves with God by joining God's active labor to save and heal the world. It's an active spiritual attitude-a way for everyone to seek and find God in their workplaces, homes, families, and communities.

The early Jesuits often described their work as simply "helping souls." The great Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe updated this idea in the twentieth century by calling those formed in Ignatian spirituality " men and women for others." Both phrases express a deep commitment to social justice and a radical giving of oneself to others. The heart of this service is the radical generosity that Ignatius asked for in his most famous prayer:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
Images by Kevin Dooley and ArchanaR under Creative Commons license. Related Links
God in All Things Video
"The key insight of Ignatius Loyola is that we can find God in all things."

Reflection and Our Active Lives
By David L. Fleming, SJ
The tools and methods of Ignatian spirituality, particularly the Examen, instill in us habits of prayerful, thoughtful reflection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Elements of Ignatian Spirituality: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality - IgnatianSpirituality.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
10 elements of Ignatian spirituality are introduced. Ignatian spirituality is a practical spirituality for our age.

# data[].attributes.body
also known as Ignatian Spirituality

# data[].attributes.body
modern carmelite spirituality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we take a look at Carmelite spirituality and at a new and growing community of Carmelite monks in Wyoming.

# data[].attributes.body
http://bit.ly/2crbx6m

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SoundCloud channel for the Catholic Church in England and Wales. We mainly post our podcasts here but we'll also upload lectures, talks, homilies and interesting audio snippets.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Happy Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Patron of the Order of Carmelites! The Sacred Scriptures speak of the beauty of Mount Carmel in Palestine where the Prophet Elijah defended the faith

# data[].attributes.body
Carmelite Spirituality in Modern Society

# data[].attributes.body
http://abbeyofthearts.com/books/desert-mothers-and-fathers-early-christian-wisdom-sayings-annotated-explained/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained | Abbey of the Arts

# data[].attributes.body
Carmelite Spirituality explained by Father Greg.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A presentation on Carmelite spirituality for a spirituality class project at Archbishop Hoban High School.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/FRANSPIR.TXT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
FRANCISCAN SPIRITUALITY 
by Valentin Breton, O.F.M. 



INTRODUCTION

When we come to the chapter on Franciscan spirituality in a book like this, 
we are impressed by its lack of originality. This absence of a distinctive 
spirituality seems a sign of inferiority and we ask ourselves whether this 
is a consequence of a devotion to poverty which is said to be the virtue 
which is the true fountain for the Franciscan soul? Furthermore this 
spirituality offers no visible principles which are peculiarly its own, no 
practices which it does not share with other schools.

The devotion, dare we say, the apparently .sentimental devotion that the 
Order professes for the sacred humanity of the Son of God, the Passion, the 
Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Virgin, is part of Christian piety. Its 
distinctively Franciscan character is slight. All devout souls consider it 
a privilege to take part.

No one denies that the Franciscan founder, Francis of Assisi, is a saint 
whose personality is forceful and original. Yet we cannot claim that it is 
his imitation of Christ that makes him unique. The very name that 
Christians bear shows quite clearly their dependence on Christ.

Were Saint Francis' disciples all to profess, in imitation of a few whom 
the Church has canonized, his marked cult of poverty, or his lyric love for 
creatures, or even his literal interpretation of the Gospel--because all 
cannot be required to go as far as the stigmata--their profession would not 
make them different from other Christians.

Followers of Francis seem to use the same books, to practice the same 
devotions, to cultivate the same virtues and (to speak for a moment in a 
lighter vein) they commit the same faults as do devout souls who are known 
to have other spiritual connections!

That some men more frequently make the Way of the Cross, while others are 
fond of reciting the rosary, or conform themselves to a certain method of 
particular examen--preferences like these do not constitute a notable, nor 
even an essential distinction of spiritual ways.

And so it goes. The impression persists: Franciscan spirituality is without 
differentiating characteristics. It is, not to press the point further, 
among the other more distinctively different schools of spirituality, a 
Christian spirituality.

Good. Let no one expect us to attempt to refute, not even to discuss, a 
statement which is so categorically in accord with our convictions: we 
forthrightly affirm our belief without any ambiguity:

The spirituality adopted by the Franciscan family:

I. according to the example and teaching of its head, 
II. according to the principles formulated by its doctors, 
III. is purely Christian.

By that we mean that it conforms to the doctrine of the Gospels without any 
addition of heterogeneous elements or the subtraction of any revealed 
elements.

Therefore we must demonstrate and prove, first, that this spirituality is 
derived from the examples and teaching of Saint Francis;
then, that it puts into practice the principal doctrines developed by the 
Order's theologians;
finally, that the practices, which are inevitably the same as those found 
in other schools, are animated with a spirit that may not make any basic 
changes but, at least to speak with greater exactness, does give them new 
life.

Then it will be possible for us to conclude that its absolute fidelity to 
Revelation, certified in its origins, its systematic elaboration, its 
strict observance constitute an exceptional differentiation which, while 
hidden from human eyes, is thereby no less real and characteristic. 
Because, for a spirituality that wishes and must be Christian, to be 
Christian purely and solely is no disadvantage.



I. EXAMPLES AND TEACHING OF SAINT FRANCIS

Everyone agrees that Saint Francis understood his personal vocation to be a 
call to the exact imitation of Jesus Christ. Then he realized that his 
mission was to spread his own ideal among men. This, too, no one 
challenges. "Imitate me as I have imitated Christ". "Imitatores mei estote 
et sicut ego Christi." These words of the Apostle Saint Paul can serve as 
an epitaph for the life and work of Saint Francis. In the first days of his 
conversion, he may have interpreted in a material way the order given him 
by the Crucified Christ of Saint Damian to repair His ruined house. The 
arrival of many disciples, then the realization of the needs of souls 
quickly clarified his true purpose and showed him the spiritual ruins which 
in God's providence he was meant to restore.

Others were as ignorant of Jesus Christ as had been Francis. In that day 
Christians who were faithful to the Church professed a formal religion 
without a soul. To them Christ was a name that recalled the memory of a 
benefactor of times long past who in distant ages had ascended to a far 
away heaven. Other men, some baptized, some not, repulsed by this cold and 
lifeless doctrine, sought among non-believers the spiritual up-lift and 
satisfaction of soul, that the misunderstood official worship no longer 
afforded.

When Francis returned to Christ he discovered a new meaning in his life. 
This same return also gave a meaning to the life of men and women who were 
wandering like a flock more in need of shepherds than of pastures. He could 
not fail to see that his personal vocation and his providential mission 
were identical, and that the means that brought about one would also bring 
about the other.

"Christ is living. He loves us. Let us believe in Him. Let us attach 
ourselves to Him and from Him receive Life. Let us imitate Him and we will 
find that we are transformed into Him. Therefore let us observe His Gospel 
to the letter and without any additions. This is the Way, the Truth and the 
Life."

Do not think that this is mere conjecture. It is based on many formal 
documents.

As early as 1209, the first Rule presented to Pope Innocent III opens with 
these words: "This is the Brothers' (the word "Minor" was not yet used) 
rule of life: to live in obedience, in chastity, without anything of their 
own and to follow the doctrine and footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ". The 
whole spirit of this first Rule is the imitation of our Savior and is based 
on His words and example. Chapter 23 which is a prayer of praise and 
thanksgiving shows with inspired precision the motive of this "following of 
Jesus Christ". We will return to this text in a moment.

The Rule that Pope Honorius III approved in 1223 was more juridical and 
concise than the earlier edition of 1209, yet it defines the Brothers' rule 
of life in the same way. This time it refers to them as BROTHERS MINOR, 
that is to say, lesser or lessened. Their rule of life "consists in the 
observance of the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, living in 
obedience, without anything of their own, and in chastity". In this 
connection it is interesting to notice that the imitation of our Lord, 
which was a corollary of the practice of the evangelical virtues has become 
the foundation of Franciscan life and that these three virtues have become 
the means towards this imitation.

Let us quote once again from the letter that Francis sent in 1226 to the 
brothers assembled in general chapter when he was too sick to go to them 
himself. It closes with a singularly luminous and explicit prayer which is 
a perfect epitome of his spiritual way and if we dare to use the word, of 
his theology. In it imitation is central. Here is the prayer:

"O God, Thou who art all-powerful, eternal, just and merciful to poor 
miserable creatures, grant that because of Thyself, Thou wilt do what we 
know Thou dost desire and desire what is pleasing to Thee, so that purified 
without and enlightened within, and enkindled with the fire of the Holy 
Spirit, we may FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THY SON, JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, 
and by Thy grace alone we may come to Thee, O most high, who in perfect 
Trinity and most simple Unity livest, and reignest, and glorify Thee, all-
powerful God, forever and ever. Amen."

Now the Rule of the Brothers Minor is the model Francis followed literally 
when he first regulated the manner of life for the Poor Clares and later 
with suitable modifications for the Penitents.

Besides the Rule which he gave to Saint Clare we have a short letter to her 
which he dictated a few days before his blessed death. And if similar 
documents are missing for the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, this is but 
a textual gap for which the Father's authentic letters addressed to "All 
the faithful, the heads of peoples, priests and clerics," legitimately 
supply. For the sake of brevity, we will not multiply quotations but 
everywhere and always Francis proclaims the same doctrine of the need to 
return to the Gospel and to the Master of the Gospel, the Lord Jesus.. .

Nor has he left us in ignorance as to why he has acted in this way. And on 
this point in particular, he who used to call himself "a little unlettered 
man" reveals himself to be a sublime theologian, a descendant of Paul and 
John.

As proof of this assertion we can first offer the Saint's ADMONITIONS which 
are placed at the head of the oldest collections of his writings because of 
their relative length and richness of content.

This work is entitled: "Concerning the Body of Christ" and it is, in fact, 
a study of the holy Eucharist. It is, also, a glowing and luminous 
demonstration of the necessity of the mediation of the Man-God, and it 
shows how communion with His Body makes it possible for us to share in His 
Spirit, and this in turn enables us to draw near to the Triune-God and 
makes us pleasing to Him.

A systematic analysis of the doctrine of this beautiful text may be 
expressed in these propositions.

Because Jesus is all: the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Beginning and 
the End, no one can please or serve God, except through Him. And God 
reveals Himself and gives Himself only in Him and through Him. In fact God 
is Himself invisible unknowable, inaccessible to the creature. Therefore 
the creature in order to know, love and serve God, needs a Mediator, One 
who is equal to God and men, the Man-God, Jesus-Christ.

However, it is not enough to become attached to His humanity; beyond that 
humanity we must through the spirit reach the divinity which belongs to the 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The apostles, too, were bound by this law, they who saw Jesus in His flesh. 
All the more reason for it to bind us. And from this fact may be formulated 
the principles of our spiritual life.

According to Saint Francis, this life consists in our identifying ourselves 
with Jesus Christ, whom the Church presents to us, whom the Holy Ghost 
accredits in us, so that, by faith and obedience, we may live and act to 
the glory of the blessed Trinity.

Now this identification is brought about not only through the efforts of 
the faithful soul that tries to conform itself to its divine model by 
exterior imitation, it is also realized from within in a manner that is 
apparently figurative and obscure but which is true and efficacious: this 
is the fruit of sacramental communion.

Saint Francis concludes this Admonition with these words:

It is the Lord's Spirit who dwells in Christ's faithful ones, who receive 
the Body and Blood that are divine. In this way the Lord remains always 
with them according to His promise: Behold I am with you all days even unto 
the end of time.

Who is not enlightened and convinced by the mere statement of this 
doctrine? Its profundity testifies to its truth. We must remember that it 
is not painstakingly fashioned by a trained theologian, skilled in 
philosophical speculation and exegetical discussions. It comes from the 
heart of a little poor man who attended no school but the school of prayer, 
who knew no master but the Crucifix.

Francis ascended still higher, tracing the path which the doctors of his 
order were to follow, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and their disciples, 
enlightening their genius with the brilliance of his own, like the eagle 
who tempts her little ones to fly and lifts them with the power of her 
wings.

We will quote one brilliant text. It is to be found in the "Elevations" 
which form chapter 23 of the Rule of 1209-1221. In a few words it expresses 
the saint's whole thought on the unique and necessary role of the Man-God.

This chapter is entitled, as we said before:

PRAYER, PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

It opens with the solemn words: "All powerful, most high, most holy and 
sovereign God, Father holy and just, Lord of heaven and earth, because of 
Thy sake we give Thee thanks..."

Then follows a list of the divine works which merit our praise, blessing, 
and gratitude. Here we must notice the place given to the unique and 
necessary Mediator, Jesus Christ:

"because according to Thy holy will, Thou hast created all things spiritual 
and corporal through Thy only Son and in the Holy Spirit; Thou hast made us 
to Thy image and likeness, Thou hast p aced us in paradise; and through our 
own fault we have failed..."

"... and as Thou created us through Thy Son, because of Thy true and holy 
love for us Thou hast ordained that Thy Son, true God and true man, be born 
of the glorious and ever blessed virgin Mary and that He redeem us from our 
captivity by His cross, His blood and His death..."

The resemblance is evident between these statements and the sublime 
prologue of Saint Paul's epistle to the Ephesians: "In Christo Jesu." For 
it is in and through Christ, the Mediator that predestination, adoption, 
creation, and redemption of the elect attain their perfection in Christ, 
the goal of all God's loving designs and the highest point of the Apostle's 
thought.

In this way Francis goes beyond human wisdom. He reaches the summit of his 
theology with these words:

And because we are all poor sinners, we are not worthy to pronounce Thy 
name, therefore we pray Thee to deign to be pleased that our Lord, Jesus 
Christ, in whom alone Thou art well pleased, render Thee thanks for all 
things, together with the Holy Spirit, the Consoler. May He be pleasing to 
Thee and to them, because THIS SON SUFFICES ALWAYS AND FOR ALL THINGS TO 
THEE, and it is through Him that Thou hast granted us all graces. 
Alleluia!"

His Christ suffices always and in all things to God! He alone is the object 
of the Father's good pleasure. No one pleases the Father except in Him and 
through Him.

This is, for Francis, the supreme reason for His devotion to Christ and his 
efforts to be conformed to Him!



II. THE DOCTRINE FORMULATED BY THE MASTERS OF THE ORDER

The place assigned by the Triune-God to Jesus Christ in His work and 
consequently in the destiny of men, as Francis has conceived it perhaps by 
a pleasing intuition and one that is surely charismatic, has been treated 
more systematically by the thinkers of his Order. They have shown its 
importance and its consequences. They have applied to it all the findings 
of revelation and the traditional scholastic techniques. Their meditations 
are the basis of what we call today Franciscan spirituality.

The spirit of Saint Francis is recognizable in the speculations of the 
theologians of his Order, as well as in the works of its saints. We will 
name only the greatest and the most renowned, because here we are not 
interested in presenting quotations but in studying principles and 
practices in the growth of a living thought. The names of these men are 
well-known, even if their writings are not read as they should be: Saint 
Bonaventure and Blessed John Duns Scotus.

Besides his "Commentaries on Sacred Scripture" and his "Sermons" (those 
vast storehouses of theological knowledge and popular teaching), Saint 
Bonaventure has written works of pure spirituality. These are not merely 
marginal or additional works, but they are in strict dependence and vital 
application because he felt that all knowledge is vain that is not founded 
on Christ and does seek to know God in Him in order to love and serve Him. 
On this point the work (unhappily incomplete) which sums up all his 
doctrine is the "Collationes in Hexaemeron." This is a synthesis of all 
human knowledge and it includes spirituality.

According to our present purpose let us point out a basic and definitive 
work "The Triple Way;" then, "The Itinerary of the Soul to God," a treatise 
that has been much praised, often imitated, less often understood, because 
it must be seen that this WAY is Christ; and finally "The Six Wings of the 
Seraphim," an explanation of the Christian exercise of authority. Among his 
lesser works we must mention "The Tree of Life," "The Soliloquy," "The 
Soul's Guidance," etc.

Saint Bonaventure, the seraphic doctor, is deeply penetrated and imbued 
with the mind of his seraphic Father. Etienne Gilson has said that in 
reading Saint Bonaventure one receives the impression that it is a Saint 
Francis who has been raised up--or who has forgotten himself--and who is 
philosophizing.

The second author who reveals Franciscan thought and therefore its 
spirituality is John Duns Scotus, honored as blessed in his Order and among 
Christians in the dioceses of Cologne and Nola.

On every point except the one we are going to discuss, Duns Scotus differs 
notably from Bonaventure. In early education, in training, in his days at 
Oxford as student, later as master, he deepened the understanding, which 
was in his very blood, of the real and the concrete. This affirmation was 
opposed to the speculative tendencies of continental thinkers. He entered 
the School just in time to profit from the works of Alexander of Hales, 
Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Thomas, Roger Bacon and to free the 
pragmatic teaching of Revelation from secular infiltrations and Islamic 
accretions. Thus he joined his predecessor, Bonaventure, on the one point 
that we mentioned above, namely the interpretation of the function and 
mission of Jesus Christ given by their Father Francis.

Too easily is it forgotten. Too willingly and systematically is it ignored 
that the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, today a defined dogma, is in 
Scotist Christology but a corollary of the absolute primacy and universal 
mediation of Mary's Son, the Man Christ Jesus, "Homo Christus Jesus."

The second of the great Franciscan masters has produced no notable or well-
known treatise on spirituality but he has systematized the absolute primacy 
on which Franciscan spirituality is founded. And he has given so many 
suggestions and produced so many texts that his disciples and his 
commentators can be guided by him.

To Saint Bonaventure and to John Duns Scotus, as to their Father Saint 
Francis, Christ is the highest grace God offers His creatures. Their 
response to this offer controls their attitude to God and this includes 
their religion, their "mystique," their spirituality.

Under these conditions, what place in human thought and act is it 
appropriate to give to Christ Jesus?

The same, these Franciscans answer, that He holds in the thought and the 
work of God.

They claim, therefore, that according to Scripture, in Him, who as man is 
called Jesus Christ, we must acknowledge the first being conceived, the 
first being willed by the Triune-God in their resolve to manifest "ad 
extra," that is outside of the intimacy of their Persons, their Power, 
their Wisdom, their Goodness.

Christ is the first predestined being, the first being allowed to share in 
the life and happiness of God. And this without any other motive than the 
divine free will, through a personal union with the Son.

In the communication of His blessed fullness to a uniquely, privileged 
being, God finds not only an adequate manifestation of Himself, but also in 
the adoration, love and service of this privileged being, an adequate 
return of His gift. Christ's response to these advances of the Triune-God 
satisfy, as a matter of equality, the plan of love that decided God to 
abandon His blessed solitude. God could have stopped there. His work was 
perfect. This assertion is capital in the Franciscan mystique. It must not 
be forgotten.

God went still further. He pushed, as it were to excess, the communication 
of His life, of His activity, of His happiness. With His First-born He 
associated companions, brothers, but this communication is as it were an 
overflow of benevolence which has been previously rewarded, repaid, 
balanced by the absolute value of the homage paid the Triune-God by His 
Christ, the Man-God, in return for His first gift. No ingratitude, were any 
to appear among the beneficiaries of His overflowing gift, could count 
because of the return Christ has already made.

Now it is because of Jesus Christ, at His request, to His credit and 
according to His plan that in Him, for Him and through Him all creatures in 
their turn receive their being. Of all these creatures in heaven and on 
earth, organic, inert, voiceless, intelligent, free, Christ is the 
principle of their creation.

So true is it that Christ depends on no creature, that on the contrary 
without Christ no creature would exist.

He is also and primarily the cause of the predestination of free creatures-
-angels and men. These moral and spiritual creatures are from the beginning 
established in the order of charity, that is to say they are predestined to 
share in the personal life of the Triune-God. In Christ they are called to 
glory. Because of this glory, graces are prepared and offered to them which 
will make them capable and worthy to receive it. These graces were merited 
for them by Christ. For this reason they are created in a nature adapted to 
this grace and to this glory.

Let us study the order, or, if we prefer, the hierarchy of the 
manifestations of divine charity, of the God who is Love.

Eternally, essential Love subsists in a trinity of Persons The going out of 
the Son, willed absolutely for its own sake, is the Incarnation and gave 
God "One who loved Him". Further manifestations are:

1.--the adoption of spirits, the ordering of grace to glory, of nature to 
grace; predestination; the Incarnate Son is the first-born of many 
brethren;

2.--the creation of beings according to their nature, decreed and 
accomplished to realize the gift already decided upon; the Son Incarnate is 
the model (the archetype) and the artisan of creation;

3.--the revelation to free beings of God's plan: the Son Incarnate is the 
image and spokesman of the Father.

From the essential function of the Incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, results the 
necessity and efficacy of His mediation. He is the only mediator between 
God and men. Because all depends on Him, all comes from Him, passes through 
Him from God to other beings, in existence, in action, in knowledge, merit 
and reward, so all returns to God through Him. What has value, has value 
only in Him. God knows, wills, approves only Christ, or in Christ, or 
because of Christ. Reciprocally no one knows God, loves God or serves Him 
efficaciously, no one comes to God, no one pleases Him but in Christ and 
through Him.

Christ, the principle of God's works is the means (medium) of created 
activity, He is the center of the Universe.

Furthermore whoever lives, thinks, loves, acts, serves in Him can be sure 
of God's good pleasure; the infinite pleasure taken by the Father and the 
First-born give value to the works of all His other children. This is the 
second important affirmation of Franciscan "mystique." It must be 
remembered.

The all-loving plans of the Triune-God unfold in this manner.

Created later, the free creature (restrictively man) did not maintain the 
high level of his vocation and fell by sin, both original and actual.

1.--His defection does not destroy all order that is not based on him; it 
does remove him from this order. Sinner, as he is, he is still, despite his 
rebellion, subject to Christ, tributary to Christ in his being, in his 
life, in his end.

2.--And if Christ, in His goodness, is pleased to repair man's fault, He 
does not need to create a new order, nor to impose it by force, but simply 
to restore the primitive order which although violated is permanent and to 
which the repentant guilty creature can return.

3.--Franciscan spirituality represents in this way the mystery of the 
Redemption with its proper object, distinct from that of the Incarnation 
and apart from the role of pain, passion, and compassion.

God is not the implacable redresser of his offense, but a loving Father who 
authorities His eldest Son, His beloved Son to devote Himself to the 
salvation of His rebel brothers and makes it possible for Him to make this 
reparation by giving Him a freely-chosen power of suffering, extraordinary 
and miraculous.

Christ is not the victim of a sanguinary prosecution, which takes delight 
in torturing One who is innocent in place of those who are guilty. He is a 
friend who offers Himself spontaneously, out of love for Father and 
children, to draw His guilty loved ones from the abyss where they have 
hurled themselves and to ransom them at whatever cost to Himself.

Compassion, in souls who have been redeemed at so high a cost, is less a 
debt that has been contracted or a payment, but rather a voluntary 
imitation; and pain that is accepted, even deliberately sought in penance, 
becomes not so much a disciplinary procedure but is rather a return of 
love: Christ loved me and delivered Himself up for me!

From this absolute priority of the predestination of Christ Jesus; from His 
universal primacy over all creatures; from the subordination of all other 
destinies to His own; from the necessity of His mediation flow consequences 
that limit, determine and govern all Franciscan spirituality.

I.--God's work is done in unity. It is not made up of disparate and 
heterogeneous parts. Seemingly this, too, is true of man's total existence.

Because all creatures owe their being to Christ and are ordained to Him as 
to their end, in their activity and their destiny, the order of the world 
is Christian. Nothing in the world, nothing that has ever been in the 
world, nothing that ever will be in the world can be pagan, or apart from 
God or contrary to God, nor bad in itself, nor even dangerous. The revolt 
of sinners, the disorder of original or actual sin made right by grace, 
promised or given, can harm their free and responsible agents since they 
are for all the others an occasion of common effort, or of merit.

Under the various forms of temporal trial and eternal fulfillment, of 
activity by the individual, the family or civil and ecclesiastic society, 
of personal or liturgical piety, of human labor, of scientific or moral 
culture, man's life remains one and the same.

All in Christ and through Christ are unified and tend to charity, that is 
God's love for man and man's love for God, man's love of God and of his 
neighbor man's salvation and God's honor.

II.--Free creatures, angels and men (here we are especially interested in 
the latter), are established from the beginning in the order we call 
supernatural. Their "nature", their end, their actions are 
supernaturalized, whether they know it or not, whether they want it or 
refuse it. To remain in the truth, in the objective and ontological reality 
of their psychology and of their history, we must therefore never forget 
the secret presence of the internal activity of this element which is not 
logical but vital. The ascetic and the apostle ought to count on it. He 
ought always remember that the just man lives "supernaturally", as in his 
normal state, not through his individual effort but through communication 
in the life of Christ. The sinner and formal infidel do not live 
"supernaturally", consequently they are in a state of violence from which 
the whole power of the divine order tends to withdraw them, just as the law 
of gravity tends to draw bodies to their center. In the same manner a stone 
held in an instable position is not withdrawn from the pull of gravity, so 
the sinner is not excluded from the order he is violating, on the contrary 
he is being constantly invited to integrate himself in it once again. There 
is great power in this thought for those who seek to convert souls!

III.--The whole work of the salvation of men is already truly accomplished 
by Christ, not only in His title of Redeemer which is, so to speak, only 
accessory, but in His deeper and essential title of Principle of 
predestination and creation. As a matter of fact each one must do this work 
for himself, surrendering himself to whatever demands are made by Christ 
and by his coheirs in this great act of collaboration because, although 
"salvation is a personal work, it is not individual".

Nevertheless, no one is asked to work for a vague and uncertain result. No: 
the result is secured and success is certain. Because the efforts made by 
the faithful soul who works for his salvation, and the functional or 
ministerial efforts of the apostle who labors for the salvation of his 
brothers are in reality the works of Christ Himself, so they are bound to 
attain this end and please God.

IV.--The formula that sums up Franciscan spirituality is this: "I live now 
not I but Christ lives in me".

The efforts required, the practices proposed, the exercises undertaken, are 
obviously those recommended in other schools of spirituality. But there is 
a difference.

1.--Here, efforts and practices, are no longer those of a human activity--
even supported by grace--which seeks by these means to win Christ, but the 
manifestation of an activity which is already informed and animated by the 
Spirit of Christ, as by an inner movement and control.

2.--They are unified among themselves and identified with the very life of 
which they are an expression because they are the action of the Head in the 
members, of the sap in the branches.

3.--Among these different exercises, the liturgy and the sacraments hold a 
more esteemed position than private practices such as examen and meditation 
because they are of divine and ecclesiastical institution and their 
authenticity and efficacy are divinely assured.

V.--Charity gives life to this spirituality when it begins, as it 
progresses, until its end. Motives of fear and hope are neither disdained 
or underestimated, but they are kept in a subordinate position, enlivened 
by faith which provides their objects and by love which widens their 
horizons.

Christ loved me and delivered Himself up for me, this is the motive of 
conversion, perseverance and consummation. The dominant motive of charity, 
truly affecting unity of life, of activity and of fruit between Christ and 
the faithful soul, not by outward imitation but by an inner transformation 
is the formal work of the blessed Eucharist. It is known first by faith, is 
accepted by the will, and realized in every domain, and when the goal is 
reached it can be consciously verified. This awareness can be considered as 
the summit of mystical union, the prelude to eternal union where Christ 
will be all in all in God, according to His promise: "I will manifest 
myself to him".

VI.--According to the Franciscan "mystique" (in the modern and restricted 
meaning of the word, that is: "new" relations of "conscious" intimacy with 
God) the place accorded Christ, the object and means of contemplation 
according to man's whole being, is fixed according to the same principles.

Since Christ is by nature--can we say, and not by a subsequent and 
arbitrary will of God--the sole mediator between God and men, no one comes 
to the Father except through Him and in Him. In return, no one is pleasing 
to the Father and heard by Him except in Christ and through Christ. Nor 
does the Father ever hide from anyone who asks for Him in the name of and 
out of love for His Beloved: whoever the soul may be, the Father welcomes 
him and answers his prayer.

Taught these truths, the Franciscan soul does not pretend to present 
himself alone before God, not to know God except through the visible image 
which He has pleased to give us of Himself. To see the Son is to see the 
Father.

On the one hand the Franciscan soul does not in his unworthiness place any 
obstacles to divine favors because his unworthiness is fundamental; to free 
himself of this unworthiness, would that not be to imply that these favors 
can be merited and reduced to something that man can condignly acquire? The 
Franciscan asks and waits.

On the other hand, the soul will not admit that the holy Humanity can be an 
obstacle to the knowledge of God: but through the wounds of Jesus 
crucified, he will try humbly to attain to the contemplation of the 
Trinity.

This point is also characteristic: the God of the Franciscan soul is indeed 
the Triune-God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the living God and not the 
abstract God of philosophers and savants.

VII.--In Franciscan asceticism, therefore, there is no question of 
introducing the supernatural into one's actions or into one's life, as 
something that comes from above or from outside. Nor is this done, as it 
were, by constraint or by force. Our desire is to be clothed, not 
despoiled, in order that what is mortal in us can be absorbed by life. To 
do this all that is necessary is:

1.--to admit according to the revealed doctrine that our whole life and all 
that we do are truly supernaturalized in truth and in fact by a fundamental 
dependence on Christ and through His life-giving influence;

2.--to realize this doctrine, by making ourselves docile and attentive to 
Christ's will as it is revealed to us, moment by moment, by the common 
precepts and the duties of our state, circumstances, inspirations or 
impulsions of the Spirit of Jesus, under the direction of the Church;

3.--to accomplish this will with joy, confidence, submission, generosity; 
not fearing that this attitude of basic deference to Christ will paralyze 
initiative; only the sallies of self-love will be mortified and these are 
always ready to substitute themselves, under the pretext of zeal, for the 
spirit of Jesus.



III. ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES

Who can fail to see that this spirituality generates joy, optimism, 
generosity and sacrifice, because it is based on charity, confidence and 
humility as is amply attested by the life and number of the saints of the 
Order?

I. How can we explain the attitude of the Franciscan soul?


1. Towards God.

Whatever may be the sum total of the creature's resistances and defections, 
the soul knows that the loving plan of the Trinity is not frustrated. This 
has been perfectly accomplished and can never be undone. Besides, to give 
glory to God and to rejoice with Him, the soul need not have recourse to 
this supposition (a horrible thought if we dwell on it), that hell 
glorifies God as much as does heaven. For such a soul it is enough to know 
that Christ has, in advance, given all due adoration, all due service, and 
that through Christ and in Christ, the soul may worthily adore, love and 
serve God. The soul may love Him above all things and more than self, 
without needing to be pleased with a profit from the unhappiness of any 
creature.


2. Towards creatures.

The Franciscan finds all creation good. All creation is his brother. It 
contains no hidden snares. It lifts him to God. He can trust it, use it, 
enjoy it with thanksgiving and discretion. "Tamquam non utentes." He uses, 
as if not using, all the good things that it offers him according to the 
divine order and plan.

Men, more than all other creatures are dear to us. They are our brothers. 
Redeemed by Christ, they are coheirs with Christ, God's children by the 
same title that we are. Fraternal charity is for us a privilege that we 
ought to enjoy rather than a duty that we must perform with pain. We do not 
look upon ourselves as enemies, but as ignorant men who are to be drawn to 
the truth, as wanderers who are to be led back to the way, as dead men to 
be brought to Life.

This work of life and love is to us more precious and seems more urgent, 
more easily accomplished and more likely to succeed, because it is Christ's 
work not our own. Moreover, collaborating with us in this work are all the 
orders of the world, the activity of spirits, the invitations of grace. And 
whatever seems to resist us, may do so only because of our ignorance and 
may in reality be enveloped by the Savior's charity. So we treat, neither 
Truth nor Life, as if they were our own possessions, nor do we act as if 
God's glory were our own and could be harmed when we harm ourselves.


3. Towards oneself.

The discipline whereby the ascetic controls his faculties and his senses in 
order that they be docile and faithful to the directives of the spirit of 
Jesus, is for the Franciscan not a work of violence, repression or 
destruction but of growth and perfection. According to other schools of 
spirituality the old man is enemy number one, he must be hounded until 
death. To the Franciscan he is a brother in chains who must be freed from 
his fetters. Nature is a daughter of God and therefore good: all she needs 
is discipline. Brother Francis himself admitted that "brother ass" had 
served him well and he reproached himself for treating him so badly on many 
occasions. So it is our duty to be fully and totally ourselves, that is to 
say "each one must in his own way be Christ".

The abnegation required of us, as it is of all Christians, consists in 
substituting for our imperfect thoughts, wills and feelings which are so 
often centered on a visible good, the perfect thoughts wills and feelings 
of Christ which are raised to the unseen good above. We write renouncement, 
we read plenitude. Sorrow is for us not an end in itself but a means of 
giving proofs of our faith and thanksgiving to Christ who was crucified 
through love.

II. Fully conscious that alone we can do nothing and that Christ Jesus our 
head can and wishes to do all in us and with us; conscious, too, that as a 
matter of fact He has already successfully done all, our joy is immense and 
our hope unshakable. When we humble ourselves before Him, when we unite 
ourselves to Him, when we substitute for the imperfection of our ways and 
our works His plenitude and perfection in the adoration of the Blessed 
Trinity, the loving service of God and of neighbor, we can repeat with 
certitude, knowing the full meaning of our words: "I live, now not I, but 
Christ lives in me; for what I now do in the weakness of the body, I do 
through faith in the plenitude of Him who loving me has given Himself to me 
and for me". "With Christ I am nailed to the cross". "Christo confixus sum 
cruci." Crucified with Christ, we are happy on the cross through which with 
Him we reconcile all things to God.

The Franciscan soul is never alone whether he presents himself before God 
or whether he goes to serve his brethren. He knows that he is always "in 
Christ Jesus", "in Christo Jesus," guided by the Spirit of Jesus and that 
he acts according to that guidance.

Through Christ and with Christ, the Franciscan adores, praises, prays. This 
"elan" towards God is paralyzed neither by unworthiness nor powerlessness, 
because, although he comes empty-handed and unadorned, he is rich with the 
graces and merits of his Mediator who is always living to intercede for him 
with God. Like Christ and with Christ, the Franciscan adores, exalts, 
pleads and repairs for the Church. Christ is dearer to him than he is to 
himself.

For Christ and with Christ, he serves. Set-backs have no meaning for him. 
His works are not his own. His zeal is all the greater because he is 
personally disinterested. Temporal success is not his goal, either in the 
conquest of souls or the slower, harder conquest of self, because the 
Master looks to the effort and gives no creature the glory of achievement. 
Is it not the Master who acts through and with and in the soul? To Him be 
all honor because from Him comes the power to will and to act!

III. To complete this synthetic exposition of Franciscan spirituality we 
must now show the role and the relative importance of devotions that are 
part of the spiritual life.

1.--The Eucharist, sacrifice and sacrament, is an anticipated realization, 
at once symbolic, figurative, actual and efficacious of our life in Christ, 
of Christ's life in us, of our union with God in Christ. The Franciscan 
knows with the certitude of faith that he already possesses the object of 
his hope and of his love, so he is not overly concerned about some form of 
a higher and more or less unverifiable experience of these realities. In 
spite of this--or perhaps because of this--charismatic prayer has never 
been lacking among Franciscans.

2.--The Imitation of Christ is for us not one means among many other 
equally good means. Nor is it even the best means. It is the only and 
essential means and without it there can be no conformity. This is true 
because conformity is not a series of exterior acts designed to produce 
some outer resemblance. It is a vitalizing effort to reproduce in the 
disciple by interior assimilation the Master's life and ways, just as 
children resemble their parents. It follows that this identification is the 
result rather of eucharistic communion than of any personal striving.

3.--The Holy Ghost, as is now transparently evident, cannot even be, for 
the Franciscan, the object of an excellent devotion. He is in fact the 
devotion. By this we mean that He is the inner principle of Franciscan 
spiritual life, the dynamic of Franciscan activity, the author of a living 
transformation in Christ. As a result the soul, like a child, is freed from 
the letter that kills. Christ's life, through the power of the Spirit of 
Christ and the collaboration of our Lady, becomes the soul's life.

4.--Because our Lady is, with her divine Son, the object of the same divine 
decree, she is His Co-Mediatrix in creation, redemption, distribution of 
grace and entrance into glory. In Franciscan spirituality her place must be 
next to Christ, after Him and with Him. She is the Mother of Christ the 
Head by God's choice and her own consent. She is also the Mother of His 
members

5.--of the Mystical Body, the living center of the Franciscan soul. This 
three-fold Church triumphs in the heaven of angels and saints, suffers in 
purgatory, and struggles on earth where it is visible and invisible, 
hierarchic and spiritual. From this Church the soul receives doctrine and 
sacraments, to this Church the soul returns love and obedience.

6.--The reception of the sacraments and liturgical life are neither 
supplementary nor superfluous, but as we observed when discussing the 
Eucharist, the Franciscan knows that Mass, public prayers, and sacramental 
ceremonies are means of union with Christ--peerless, authentic and divinely 
efficacious because of their institution. They are valued highly but other 
means

7.--for example, such ascetical exercises as examen or meditation are not 
for that reason neglected or despised. The latter is not to be confused 
with prayer because the enlightened Franciscan docile to the Holy Spirit 
and conformed to the acts and thoughts of Christ (that is to His mysteries 
and His states) is by nature contemplative and Christ is the object ant 
means of a tender knowledge of God, of a wisdom which is eternal life.

These examples will suffice. They show that the introduction of these 
devotions does no violence to our theses and adds nothing incongruous. On 
the contrary, they serve to bring out the integrity and true meaning of 
Franciscan spirituality. They do not endanger its unity nor obscure its 
pattern.

IV. We have seen that the practices of virtue of the Franciscan are those 
of every Christian soul. Yet we allowed ourselves to claim at the beginning 
of this chapter that these practices which are to be found in every school 
have here a spirit that if not essentially different, is at least 
fundamentally new.

This is the spirit of the first beatitude:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit
 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Lest this study be incomplete and our readers be deceived, we must now show 
how the virtue of poverty gives a special modality to Franciscan 
spirituality, and we must describe the spiritual reality that is hidden in 
this word.

It is along this path that the Franciscan follows his guide and grasps, 
adopts and fulfills his highest purpose more perfectly and more profoundly.

Francis is not merely poor. He is the poor man, the little poor man, 
"pauperculus, il poverello." How far he carried poverty, renunciation, 
disappropriation, there is no need to repeat--the facts are well known. His 
poverty is legendary. Excesses and unjustifiable exaggerations have been 
imputed to him. There is a proverb "Loans are made only to rich men," and 
it is true that of the plenitude of Franciscan poverty practices are 
alleged that verge on the superstitious.

Saint Ambrose, in accord with all the Fathers and Doctors justifies the 
choice of poverty as the foundation of the spiritual edifice on the grounds 
that the root of all evil springs from its contraries, cupidity and 
avarice.

But Francis was not guided by dialectics. He was not influenced by theories 
of asceticism or social economy. Love was his lodestar. He loved Christ and 
wanted to make himself in all things like Christ. He saw that Christ taught 
poverty by word and example. He willed to make himself poor. He exhorted 
his followers to live in poverty and by poverty.

Rich as Christ was, for our sakes He made Himself poor. "For you He was 
made poor". "Propter vos egenus factus est." Beyond the state of need to 
which Jesus reduced Himself during His mortal life, Francis discovered the 
deep and radical self-stripping of which this external poverty seemed to be 
the sacrament: "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant." 
"Semetipsum exinanvit, formam servi accipiens." Francis united himself to 
the mystery of the annihilations of the Incarnate Word. He considered 
Christ as stripped of human personality in favor of the person of the Son, 
not claiming the condition of God to which He had a right, or the condition 
of a free man which might have been His. He made Himself like the most 
wretched among us, like slaves without civil rights, like criminals 
condemned and punished.

"Nudum nudus sequitur." But who is there who will not admire the deep 
theological insight of this little unlettered man and the likeness to His 
divine Savior to which it brought him?

According to his Father's example the Franciscan finds in evangelical 
poverty, most vitally in Jesus Christ poor, the rule of his life, the form 
of his spirituality.

He lives not only in poverty (to please God, all disciples of His crucified 
Son must do this), he also lives by poverty, so that this poverty which 
according to other schools is only a secondary virtue connected with 
temperance, becomes for him the means of inner union and transformation in 
God.

Every school of spirituality manifests some special aspect of the 
inexhaustible plenitude of Christ's sanctity. It is this that gives it a 
special "cachet," a center of spiritual unity, a way of holiness. As a 
matter of fact, the end of every school is charity and the ultimate means 
is humility through which charity flourishes, because charity is a 
theological virtue and a gratuitous gift which is neither acquired nor 
merited. It is God's overflowing gift to the soul He loves, because of His 
exceeding love. "Propter nimiam charitatem." But in which soul? In the 
humble soul, emptied of self, stripped of self, in other words in the soul 
reduced to its essential poverty. Humility makes room for charity, charity 
fills the soul in the measure of its poverty.

In humility, in the emptying of the old man, as Saint Augustine calls it, 
Francis saw an aspect--but only one aspect of poverty. Rightly so. Poverty, 
Saint Ambrose affirms, is more vast than humility. It is also more loving. 
If it empties man of self, it is for the sake of a more perfect plenitude. 
Christ, being rich, made Himself poor, to enrich us.

Notice how every virtue can lead to poverty because all virtues suppose or 
impose some kind of renunciation or disappropriation. Faith surrenders 
reason's certitudes. Hope gives up earthly cravings. Temperance (and this 
includes chastity) deprives the body of its pleasures. Let it not be said 
that these renunciations are made for the sake of a better good, for that 
is their meaning. Charity, in its turn, strips man of what he has most at 
heart: his longing, his need to be a center, to make himself the equal of 
God.

For Francis this is the efficacious value of poverty. It is not to be 
understood in the use of things, pushed even to the most extreme needs. It 
requires man's sincere correspondence to his condition as creature.

In Franciscan asceticism, poverty is seen to be a fount, a source of virtue 
whence all other virtues flow, whether they are exercised towards God and 
His Christ, towards neighbor or towards self. This is its exacting ideal of 
a never satisfied love, a Christocentric virtue, the epitome of all theory 
and all practice. We end where we began. Poverty has gone full circle. 
Daily practice proves that all can and all must come from Christ, the first 
Predestined, the universal Mediator, the Cause, the Exemplar, and the End 
of God's work.

V. Before concluding, let us confirm the efficacy of this doctrine by 
citing the number of those who, inspired by its lessons, have been 
acclaimed by the Church for their holiness. These figures speak with an 
eloquence all their own.

The litany of saints approved for Franciscan use contains the names of 30 
martyrs in six different categories, besides Saint Fidelis, as well as 33 
confessors and 14 virgins or widows.

It would be beyond the scope of this work to list these servants of God and 
to add the names of the blessed. Such an enumeration, however, would excite 
wonder, because it would include men and women of great renown and of 
widely different social classes. More useful is the observation that a 
saint recognized by the Church never leads his or her heroic life in 
isolation. On the contrary such an ardent soul is a center of faith and 
fervor.

Before the days of the pontificate of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, the 
Franciscan family gave the Church 121 saints (61 in the First Order, 6 in 
the Second and 54 in the Third) and 352 blessed (118 in the First Order, 22 
in the Second, 92 in the Third). These Tertiaries were monarchs or 
merchants, working men or women who won their holiness in the world and 
helped to make the world holy. In the twentieth century, 91 Franciscans 
have been canonized or beatified. Of these Pius XI canonized five and Pius 
XII has added new names to the list, let us mention only Saint Jeanne of 
Valois and two French Franciscans among the 29 martyred by the Boxers in 
1900 and who are now blessed.

More than 550 causes have been introduced in Rome. Almost one-third, that 
is about 180 of these causes are Franciscan. Four of these servants of God 
are our contemporaries.

By its fruits, our Lord has told us, the tree is to be judged. 



CONCLUSION

May we not claim (unless we are completely and blindly deceived) that we 
have achieved our purpose and have shown that the spirituality adopted by 
the Franciscan family is:

1.--conformed to the examples and teaching of its founder,

2.--signally faithful to the doctrines laid down by its teachers and based 
on revelation,

3.--and that its devotional practices are inevitably the same as those 
found in other schools, yet their spirit is, if not entirely its own, at 
least and more correctly basically made new.

To this spirituality no extraneous elements have been added From it no 
revealed doctrines have been subtracted. It is purely and solely 
evangelical. In it Christ is all: foundation and crown, door and key, way 
and goal, truth and life.

So absolute a fidelity to revelation, attested to at its inception in its 
consistent development in its strict observance, leads to a result that is 
distinctively and really its own even though hidden from human eyes.

"God forbid", the Franciscan can repeat in the words of the Apostle Paul, 
in the words of his own father Francis, in the words of his masters,

"God forbid, that I ever glory in aught else than in Jesus, my crucified 
Lord. To Him be honor, glory, love eternally. Amen."

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.ofmqc.ca/eng/spirituality/spirituality01.htm

# data[].attributes.body
https://franciscanaction.org/earthcorps/spirituality

# data[].attributes.body
http://site.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-How-to-be-a-Monastic-1-20.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/BENESPIR.TXT

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.explorefaith.org/livingspiritually/benedictine_spirituality/index.php

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What can we learn about balance from a sixth century monk? This gathering of excerpts, quotes and essays on Benedictine spirituality points to ways practicing Benedict’s Rule can lead to an authentic, faith-filled life.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-64/antony-and-desert-fathers-christian-history-interview.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Christian History | Learn the History of Christianity & the Church

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I t is difficult to fathom today why the desert fathers did what they did, or why the church, East and West, was so taken by their example for the next millennium. It requires a great deal research and historical imagination to see what the desert monks were getting out of their ascetic discipline.

Belden Lane, a Presbyterian professor of theology at St. Louis University, is one who has done the research and has the historical imagination. His The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Mountain and Desert Spirituality (Oxford, 1998) is a brilliant analysis of how geography has played a vital role in the history of Western spirituality. Christian History asked Professor Lane to help us grasp the attraction of desert asceticism throughout Christian History.

Why did the desert fathers choose to work out their spirituality in the desert?

They sought God, first of all, and they knew that God was most easily found in a place without distractions. Second, the desert was also a marvelous laboratory for dealing with the self, which was their other major spiritual project.

How do you handle the ego and its anxiousness, its constant need for support? You walk into the desert, which doesn't care one bit about who you are or what you bring to it. That kind of terrain offers a marvelous antidote to the problem of the ego, the false self.

In the Bible and Greco-Roman culture, the desert is not so much a place of spiritual growth but a place of evil and temptation. Didn't the monks believe that?

They did, and that is another reason they went into the wilderness. They found precedents in the life of John the Baptist (you won't find a desert monastery without an icon of John the Baptist) and especially in Jesus. Throughout his life, Jesus withdrew into the desert to pray. He began his ministry in the wilderness, being tempted for 40 days. Likewise, Antony started his ministry by going into the desert to empty himself and face temptation there.

The desert is a place where you expect the temptations of hunger, of power, of beauty-the things the desert lacks are the things you find yourself wanting desperately. The monks looked on demons and temptation as aides to their spiritual lives. But they were not overwhelmed by trials and temptations. Instead, they found God in the midst of temptation and struggle.

Today, many go into the wilderness to "get back to nature." Was that part of the monks' motivation?

No. It's so easy for us to romanticize their motivation today. Abba Macarius in Egypt was said to be a lover of the desert, but this was only after spending years there. For the monks, the desert was primarily a training ground.

How did the desert as such shape these monks' spiritual lives?

The desert asks two questions: What do you learn to ignore? And what do you learn to love? In other words, how do you let go, and what do you hold onto? Those are the basic dimensions of the spiritual journey that the desert monks went through as they embraced the desert.

Let me paraphrase one of the best illustrations of this, found in Sayings of the Desert Fathers: A young man, a spiritual groupie of sorts, comes to Scetis, west of the Nile, to seek out the great monk Abba Macarius. He asks Abba Macarius, "How do I get to be a holy man? I want to be a holy man. And I want to be one tomorrow."

Macarius smiles and says, "Spend the day tomorrow over at the cemetery. I want you to abuse the dead for all you're worth. Throw sticks and stones at them, curse at them, call them names-anything you can think of. Spend the whole day doing nothing but that."

The young man must have thought the great monk was crazy, but he spent the next day doing everything he was told. When he returned, Abba Macarius asked him, "What did the dead people say out there today?"

The young man responded that they didn't say a thing. They were dead. Macarius said, "Isn't that interesting? I want you to go back tomorrow, and this time spend the day saying everything nice about these people. Call them righteous men and women, compliment them, say everything wonderful you can imagine."

"The desert is a perfect
place to let go of the
need for recognition"
-Belden Lane

So the young man went back the next day, did as he was told, and returned to Macarius. The monk asked him what the dead people said this time.

"Well, they didn't answer a word again," replied the brother.

"Ah, they must indeed be holy people," said Macarius. "You insulted them, and they did not reply. You praised them, and they did not speak. Go and do likewise, my friend, taking no account of either the scorn of men and women or their praises. And you too will be a holy man."

It's a wonderful story that asks two questions: What do you ignore? The answer is the scorn and praise of others. The other question is more indirect-What do you love? That is, since you are not going to be motivated by what others think, what are you going to give yourself to fully?

But how is it possible to learn love when you're solitary?

The monks learned that the desert teaches you how to live apart from others, how to live without compulsively needing them to give you worth or make you feel loved. In the desert, you learn how to live with yourself. Only then are you capable of giving love-sacrificial love that accepts or needs nothing in return.

Let me give an example from our lives, because even when we live in the city, we can have this type of desert experience. There's a point when you realize you have to let go of what you love most if you ever hope to really keep it. And only when you reach that point (e.g., in your career or your marriage or your deepest relationships with others), when you move beyond a compulsive need for them. Only then is it going to be possible really to love for the first time.

It's incredibly painful letting go. But once you do that, there is an incredible sense of the desert, as Isaiah says, blossoming like a rose. Suddenly in the place of abandonment, in the place where you let go of everything you knew, you realize that what you could not hold God gives back. And love is born there in the very place where you had lost everything.

Now as the monks learned, the desert makes no promises. If you're going out there to suddenly become a deeply loving person, if like the young man you want to become holy, there are no guarantees. It is only at profound risk-letting go, ignoring yourself and the distractions of the world-that love and compassion might occur. But as many mystics, East and West, have discovered, "The experience of emptiness engenders compassion."

In a lot of the desert father stories, it feels as if the monks practiced ascetic disciplines to earn salvation.

You could interpret it that way on a surface level. But I see them living out what medieval mystic Meister Eckhart once said, that the spiritual life isn't so much a matter of addition as subtraction.

Though we Protestants talk about justification by faith (versus by works), we often act as if the key to the spiritual life is adding all the active virtues, doing great things for God, sharing the gospel with others, and the like. Eckhart said, no, it's a matter of subtraction. How much can you let go of? It's not a matter of anxiously having to prove yourself to your teachers, to your parents, or to God so as to finally make yourself acceptable. It's a matter of letting go of all those compulsive needs for approval and recognizing that only after you abandon those compulsions will you be able to accept God's utterly free grace that comes in the gospel, in Jesus.

The desert is a perfect place to let go of the need for recognition. I love the image of the canyon cliff that Gregory of Nyssa used back in the fourth century. Being on top of that cliff, in a place of beauty and uneasiness-that's where you discover the majesty, greatness, and glory of God. You look at that canyon cliff, think about it being there thousands, maybe millions of years, and you ask yourself, how did that canyon cliff change on the day your personal world fell apart?

What's an example of that?

For me, that was the day my father was tragically killed when I was 13, and I thought the whole world had fallen apart. What did that canyon cliff do that day? Or how did it change on the day of your divorce, or the day you admitted your dependence on alcohol, or the day you finally shared a hidden shame with someone else?

And you find, sitting there watching that canyon wall, that it didn't change at all. In the midst of your world falling apart, something didn't change. It was waiting, staying there as if for you, in the same way that God does not change. That stone cliff, a metaphor of God, invites you to pour out all the grief and anguish you can muster, then accepts it all without rebuke, receives it all right there in the desert.

Something amazing happens at that point. When you become silent enough and empty enough, pouring out your needs to God in that desert place, you are able for the first time to hear what you had never heard before, and that's a single word whispered by Jesus: love. It's one of those words that you can't hear until you are utterly silent and utterly empty.

Speaking about what the most devout desert monks had experienced, John Climacus wrote, "Lucky the man who longs for God as a smitten lover does for his beloved."

To me, this is what attracted and held monks in the desert, and why it still attracts some souls to this day.

For more on Belden Lane, see his bio at:

Faculty of American Studies Department at SLU
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/amers/faculty.html

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Antony and the Desert Fathers: Christian History Interview - Discovering the Desert Paradox

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I t is difficult to fathom today why the desert fathers did what they did, or why the church, East and West, was so taken by their example for the next millennium. It requires a great deal research and historical imagination to see what the desert monks were getting out of their ascetic discipline.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-wisdom-of-fathers-mothers-essential.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
St. Anthony the Great