Team Spiritual Care: Vital Life No: 3

Vital Life: A Friar's Experience Fellow Residents and Staff, On Tuesday, October 4, Franciscan men and women throughout the world celebrate the life and death of the Little Poor Man of Assisi, Saint Francis. Few saints have captured people's hearts like Francis. Why? What was or is there about Francis of Assisi that has drawn people to him across centuries and cultures? Perhaps it was his genuineness. Francis was authentic. There was no pretense in him. He knew that God loved him, and that was enough. He had no need to promote himself and his own agenda. In God's love he found freedom. He did not have to worry about what other people thought of him. Francis responded to God's love with joyful exuberance. He broke forth in song. He gave praise. People took notice. They wanted that same joy for themselves. They sought his way of life. In our own day I sometimes think that Saint Francis has been tamed. People still want to have his joy, but most want it to fall on them like sunshine. They don't want to work for it, for in order to experience true joy, people have to let go of their own egos, their own concerns, their own security—and letting go is scary. Saint Francis found joy through the Cross, and the Cross is neither pretty nor popular. The raw Francis is too threatening to most people. A domesticated Francis with robins and squirrels and goldfish is a whole lot safer. . . and a lot less real. . . and a lot less joyous. Overly zealous biographers can sometimes suggest that Francis experienced no doubts or struggles as he sought to follow Jesus, and how wrong they would be! Francis struggled just like the rest of us. His greatest struggle may have been in watching the brothers develop a vision and structure for his Order which differed from his. From a human point of view, his greatest achievement was taken away from him by the very people who claimed to be his followers—but what a paradox! When Francis let go of the Order, when he embraced the Cross, he had only Jesus. He found freedom by letting go. In that freedom he could sing for joy. Only forty-four years of age, Francis completed his life on the evening of October 3, 1226, at his beloved Saint Mary of the Angels in the swamps outside the city of Assisi. May all of us who are inspired by Saint Francis embrace the Cross in our own lives and thereby come to joy. In his words, Peace and every Blessing! Loren Connell, OFM, sacramental minister October 1, 2011