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Franciscan Moments
We all have Franciscan Moments, when we gain insights or new spiritual growth from examples in the world around us. St. Francis of Assisi was especially gifted in this. When he meditated, he learned a lot from Brother Sun and Sister Moon and from all of nature around him. He saw spiritual lessons in everything.
A Franciscan Moment can happen with anything around us. It doesn't have to be in nature. Today, we have technology and other man-made creations in our environment, and God can use any of it to teach us lessons that will help us increase our holiness and grow in friendship with Him. |
The picture of St. Francis you see on this page shows him preaching to the birds, with his back to someone who has refused to listen to his spiritual wisdom. Because the townspeople rejected the truth, St. Francis has left the town, entered the woods, and begun preaching to the birds, for he cannot keep God's wisdom to himself. He will preach to whomever listens. The birds are paying close attention -- better than the people did! There is even a bird flying in to join the crowd, drawn by the message he has heard on the winds.
May we listen like those birds.
This corner of the website of Good News Ministries Online is a collection of Franciscan Moments. We hope they bless you as much as they've blessed us!
St. Francis is one of my favorite saints, a personal Patron Saint on whom I often rely for prayer support and other heavenly help, including for Good News Ministries. Like St. Francis, the core message of GNM's teachings is that we are all called to preach the Gospel with our lives more than with our words, so that our words are proven true by the way we love others. ("Preach the Gospel at all times, and sometimes use words.") We evangelize best by giving them Jesus, serving them as his helping hands and his healing embrace and his kind smile, etc.
St. Francis used the letter T (the Tau) to remind his friars of their life-long commitment to become a walking crucifix. Since my name begins with the letter T, I often sign my emails with just a T instead of my name, in recognition of my own commitment to live as St. Paul described in Colossians 1:24, offering up my sufferings as an intimate connection to Jesus Christ: "I rejoice in what I've suffered for your sake, as I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church." (Find out more about the meaning of the Tau...)
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