Without any human help, it was my own desperate need to find God that enabled me to persevere in the Dark Night in which I found myself when first fervour left me flat. However, in case I give the impression that first fervour is of little consequence and can easily be bypassed, this is not [...]
Understood properly, October purges us of our follies and reminds us that death hovers just in front of us. It reminds us that we always stand in time, but at the very edge of eternity. The autumnal coolness—just on the edge of the dying summer—is in the air, and it feels good. Very cool, very [...]
It may sound fine to proclaim a new age in which the primacy of love was to be paramount, as it was in the beginning. But it must not be forgotten that the love Francis was talking about was God’s love, the love that can change all things including us. It was thanks to St [...]
It can be seen how St Francis was able to see, not just with such clarity, but in poetry and in technicolor what St Paul originally called “God’s Secret Plan”, and to see the way to enter into it by entering through Love into the one who embodied it in his mystical body. I have [...]
Before He was born as Christ the King on earth, He was “born” in the “mind” and “heart” of God as Christ the King in Heaven. He was firstly born in eternity before time began, so that the glory that reigned in Heaven could also reign on earth, in Him. However, if God’s Son was [...]
Saint Francis heard our Lord’s intimate call: “sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” But even more importantly, St. Francis knew that such an invitation came from the fact that “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” This is the backbone of our [...]
Saint Francis of Assisi took no created thing for granted, finding them all reflections of God and reasons to praise Him. For Francis, even the birds themselves praised God by their singing—an action we perform consciously with the assent of our reason and will. Some of the earliest literature in the Italian language owes its [...]
Two books about St. Francis: one by the protean English critic and one by an equally protean Greek. How, though, to treat their differences, especially since the books are unalike in length and fervency? St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton and Saint Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis So in this perilous grace of God [...]