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St. Francis changed the world with his Gospel-infused spirituality, but he was also free to be an itinerant. His sister in faith, Clare, was just as effective in evangelizing without ever leaving San Damiano.
Q: I am a big supporter of Glenn Beck and all the work he is doing to save the country. On one of his programs, he was discussing social justice, which is Marxism, and how the government is trying to absorb the churches to run them as everything else—as the Communists do. He said there is a part of our Church that is tied into Marxism. What is it and how can we stop it?
It is not a matter of “carrying God inside us.” That would be too mechanical. It’s better to say that we are filled with God’s presence within us—along with our weaknesses and imperfections.
While few humans are blessed with receiving a beatific vision—or seeing God directly—most of us, like Moses, see God’s back after God has come and gone. In other words, we see (or experience) God in hindsight, through holy aha moments.
Q: A few years ago, I overheard a Catholic woman ask her friend, “When did Jesus become a Catholic?” A few of us laughed but did try to explain that Jesus was the Christ. He was born Jewish and died Jewish.
One of my Jewish friends asked me, “When did Jesus become a Christian?” Soon after that, a relative asked me, “Well, when did he become a Catholic?” Please address these questions in your column.
The focus of this special feast day episode is St. Clare of Assisi’s remarkable, poetic letters to another woman of nobility, St. Agnes of Prague. Guiding listeners through these four letters is Sister Joanne Schatzlein, OSF, a Franciscan scholar, co-author of a major study on Clare of Assisi, and lifelong student of her spirituality. Sister Joanne is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, whose Motherhouse is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and entered her Congregation in 1965. In this episode, Sister Joanne echoes to us Clare’s invitation to Agnes: to gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate in our lives what Christ has taught us.
Living in precarity with faith in God’s providence may lead to this startling conclusion: I am rich because my needs are few. Enough will be enough.
Reflect In Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare, Margaret Carney, OSF writes of when St. Francis went to San Damiano seeking aid for
Can the obligation to attend Mass on holy days be fulfilled before or after the actual day?
Forgiveness isn’t just about letting our grievances go. Forgiveness is the path to restoring the love that binds us to God and to one another.
