The practical conclusion of the first teaching of St. Francis is that if we listen and pray, God will show us what we are to do with our lives. In Francis’s life it had to do with intimacy with God in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, whom he found first in the lepers, and then in repairing the dwelling place of God; first in God’s churches and then in repairing the believing community, the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. The latter rebuilding had to do with repairing human relationships by, in Francis’s words, “working mercy” with them.
God indwells churches as he indwelled the Ark of the Covenant. God indwells people just as he had first become human in Jesus Christ. And God indwells the gathering of believers, which we call the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, the fullness of the Incarnation of God.
—from the book Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis
by Murray Bodo, OFM
