Find what you’re looking for
Being poor does not, in itself, guarantee inner freedom. Poor people can be imprisoned by bitter and resentful feelings. To become spiritually free, we must first become poor in spirit by trusting God, no matter what life brings. To be poor in spirit requires an attitude of simplicity, as we open our arms and heart, like a trusting child, to our ever present, loving God.
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.
Recently I was standing with my kids in the checkout line at the store when my son, Alex, fixed his eyes on a woman a few lines down, dressed in traditional Muslim attire.
When we think of Thérèse of Lisieux, we think of her “Little Way,” the practice of offering up even the most commonplace tasks to God’s glory. But the Little Way came no more easily to its originator than it does to us.
She was just two when, instead of selecting a single item from a doll dressmaking kit as her sister did, Therese grabbed the basket and the remaining contents, saying, “I choose all!”
The Franciscan mystic is the ordinary Christian mystic who is brother, sister, bride and mother of Christ by means of a fidelity, made possible by the Holy Spirit, in doing God’s will, in carrying Christ within and through love and a pure and sincere conscience and in giving birth to Christ by the charity of good works. In all of this is intimacy with God, and intimacy with God that results in charity is practical mysticism.
Surely you have heard of Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval mystic, composer, author, poet, and playwright who, in October 2012, became the thirty-fifth Doctor of the Church—and the fourth female Doctor.
A simple map for living is why St. Francis is still listened to and followed today in our fractious and divided world. What he teaches, if lived out, brings joy, which is the result of union with God who lives with us and within all of creation. God lives in creation but is also apart from creation as its Creator who existed before the existence of the universe. St. Francis’s teachings, then, become both a theology and a way of living.
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross may be one of the best known Catholic converts of the twentieth century. She was born Edith Stein on Yom Kippur and was raised Jewish, but she abandoned a faith life at an early age.
Kateri Tekakwitha, called the “Lily of the Mohawks,” had virtually no traditional family support on her Christian journey. By some reports, her Algonquin mother was a Christian, educated by French missionaries.
However, before her mother, father, or baby brother could have much influence on the four-year-old’s life, all of them died of smallpox. The disease also left the child with facial scarring and partially blind. It was because of the latter that she became known as Tekakwitha—“she who bumps into things.”
It’s easy to view saints as distant, historical figures that we can only try to imitate. Pope Francis encourages us to consider as examples the quietly holy people in our lives who inspire us to a deeper spiritual life.
