The Franciscan Saints: Bonaventure
Robert Ellsberg
July 15, 2021
This popular Franciscan saint left behind a structured and renewed Franciscan Order and a body of work all of which glorifies his major love—Jesus.
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Robert Ellsberg
From 1975-80 Robert Ellsberg was part of the Catholic Worker community in New York, working with Dorothy Day during the last five years of her life, and serving for two years as managing editor of the Catholic Worker newspaper. He has devoted much of his life to promoting Day's life and legacy, editing Dorothy Day: Selected Writings, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, and All the Way to Heaven: Selected Letters of Dorothy Day. Since 1987 he has served as editor-in-chief and publisher of Orbis Books. He is the author of The Franciscan Saints (Franciscan Media).
The Franciscan Saints: Matt Talbot
Robert Ellsberg
June 18, 2021
Matt Talbot was one of twelve children born to a poor family in Dublin. His addiction to alcohol began at twelve, when he got his first job with a wine merchant.
Dorothy Day: Model of Mercy
Robert Ellsberg
May 15, 2020
She provided a voice to the unheard. Pope Francis acknowledged that in his speech last September to the US Congress.
St. Maximilian Kolbe: Franciscan Martyr
Robert Ellsberg
January 29, 2020
On July 30, 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi camp in Poland…
What If We Did What Francis Did?
Robert Ellsberg
September 18, 2019
In one way or another the Franciscan saints were all struck by the question that came to St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, whose dramatic conversion was prompted by his meditation on the saints: “What if I should do as St. Francis did?” Another translation of that question might be: What if I were to live as if the Gospel were true?
A Church of the Beatitudes
Robert Ellsberg
October 31, 2018
Jesus left no formal religious rule for his followers. The closest he came was his proclamation of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers…. Francis took to heart this spiritual vision and translated it into a way of life. In various ways, other saints before and since have done the same.
The Franciscan Saints: Pope John XXIII
Robert Ellsberg
July 30, 2018
Pope John XXIII, as Pope Francis said, “was a country priest, the priest who loves all the faithful, who knows how to care for the faithful, and this he did as a bishop, and as a nuncio.”