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John Michael Talbot Reflects on St. Francis, His Early Mentor, in the Light of His Monastic Experience at Little Portion Hermitage

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John Michael Talbot Reflects on St. Francis, His Early Mentor, in the Light of His Monastic Experience at Little Portion Hermitage “John Michael Talbot reflects on St. Francis, his early mentor, in the light of his monastic experience at Little Portion Hermitage. He is readable and engaging. His commentary is based on wide reading, and he demonstrates a wise and balanced judgment learned in his years as a religious founder and superior. Along the way he relates the teaching of Francis to contemporary events and movements.” — Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB Subiaco Abbey, Arkansas “John Michael Talbot has pondered deeply for many years the life and writings of St Francis. This book distills the wisdom of centuries old texts and applies them to contemporary life with his own wisdom, gleaned from life’s experiences. It is a good read that will feed people’s desires to reasonably apply to their own lives the lessons the Spirit led St. Francis to embrace.” — Abbot Timothy Kelly, OSB President American-Cassinese Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict “The oldest representation of St. Francis, a fresco painted during his lifetime, is to be found at the place where St. Benedict began his monastic journey. Both saints, so different in many ways, wanted to search for God and to live their lives completely according to the Gospel. In our own day, this desire prompted John Michael Talbot to found a new kind of community nourished by the springs which he happily presents here. This book will be a great enrichment for all and will encourage them in their turn to allow their lives be shaped by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” — Notker Wolf, OSB Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Order Reflections on St. Francis John Michael Talbot LITURGICAL PRESS Collegeville, Minnesota www.litpress.org Cover design by David Manahan, OSB. Detail of The Dream of Pope Innocent III by Giotto di Bondone, 1266–1336. The Art Archive, San Francesco Assisi, Alfredo Dagli Orti. Excerpts from the Rule and Testament taken from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, trans. Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982). Used with permission. © 2009 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minne- sota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Talbot, John Michael. Reflections on St. Francis / John Michael Talbot. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8146-3302-1 1. Francis, of Assisi, Saint, 1182–1226. I. Title. II. Title: Reflections on Saint Francis. BX4700.F6T35 2009 271'.3—dc22 2009021206 Contents Preface vii The Conversion The Conversion 3 War and Defeat 5 The Bridge at Apulia 7 San Damiano: Go Repair My House 9 The Life of Penance and the Bishop’s Trial 11 The Leper 13 The Hermit’s Habit and Way of Life 16 The Pivotal Gospel Passages 20 The Rule Introduction to the Rule of 1223 25 The Basics 27 The Evangelical Counsels 32 The Church, Succession of Saints, and Obedience 35 Renunciation 38 Simple Clothing 41 Gradual Stages 45 Family and Religious Training 47 The Divine Office 50 v vi Reflections on St. Francis Lay Prayers 53 Fasting 55 Itinerancy 58 Poverty 61 Daily Work 64 Begging and Mendicancy 67 Family and Interdependence 70 Penance and Forgiveness 72 Confession and Spiritual Direction 74 Centralization and Spiritual Parents 77 Democracy and the Chapter 80 Preachers 83 Missionaries among Muslims 87 The Testament Introduction to the Testament of St. Francis 95 God Inspired Me 98 Faith in Churches and Prayer 101 Priests 105 The Sacrament 109 The Word 113 Community 117 Simplicity 121 Houses and Churches 124 Use of Authority 127 Obedience, the Divine Office, and Discipline 130 Conclusion and Blessing 133 Preface I was a little surprised when I was asked by Liturgical Press to write a book on St. Francis. I had approached them about a mo- nastic book. But I was pleased to have this opportunity. I have im- mersed myself in the sources of St. Francis all of my Catholic life. I especially love the hermit tradition in the Franciscan family. All peoples love St. Francis of Assisi. Catholics and non- Catholics, Christians and non-Christians, religious and seculars all find a special place in their hearts for him. Eyes light up when his name is mentioned. Even those who are enemies on other matters reach agreement around love for him. Some of this is based on legend and myth, and some of it is based on fact. Some of it is romanticism, and some of it is very real. But the experi- ence itself is very real. I found my way from the Jesus Movement into the Catholic faith through the doorway of St. Francis. From that base I have found myself a greater lover of Jesus and a greater lover of all religions. After I read The Imitation of Christ and some of the books by Thomas Merton, a friend gave me a little book called Francis: The Journey and the Dream by Murray Bodo, a Francis- can friar. This little book changed my life. It was as if a fire was ignited in my soul. Truth was that I had veered from my original idealism as a follower of Jesus and was succumbing to a fanatical fundamentalist approach to Jesus. Where once my conversion to Christ had made me a better person, now I was becoming surprisingly inhuman in the name of Christ. It was vii viii Reflections on St. Francis killing me inside, and deep inside I knew it. Reading about St. Francis stirred me from my spiritual death process. The trouble was that he was a Catholic, and I was staunchly anti-Catholic and had argued many people out of the church. After much study and soul searching, I quietly became a Catholic a couple of years after reading that book. At first I moved into a little hermitage at a Franciscan retreat center called Alverna in Indianapolis, Indiana. Then a small com- munity formed around me. At first we began under the wing of the Franciscans in church law. It was most helpful, and we are grateful beyond what words can express. After eight years we eventually outgrew that covering because we included all states of life in one community. We grew in numbers, and became our own community in church law. We are called the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. But we never lost our love for the Franciscan family from which we were birthed. As we say, “Franciscanism is our mother, but we are a child that is unique and new.” One never ceases to love a good mother, and your mother is mother for life. In later years I expanded my studies and my experience to the wider monasticism of the East and the West in Christian- ity, and in other major world religions. On a practical level we found the Benedictine Rule to be most helpful for our integrated monastic way of life. But I have always said that when I find myself uninspired by St. Antony of the Desert or St. Benedict, I can always pick up the early sources about St. Francis and find myself renewed in the Spirit of Jesus. It rarely fails. Ironically, it was the folks at Liturgical Press, a Catholic pub- lisher founded by Benedictines, who suggested that I write a book on St. Francis. I was happy to give it a try. At first we thought about a daily devotional for an entire year. But as I began to write, it became clear that each entry needed to be a bit too long to work in that format. We settled on a simple format including reflections on St. Francis. The book is divided into three parts: The Conversion, The Rule, and The Testament. The Conversion covers Francis’s initial con- version to follow Christ more intently. Rather than one experience Preface ix it is a series of experiences that spans several years up to the founding of the Order of Friars Minor. The Rule is a description of the way of life of that community. I use the Rule of 1223. It is the final expression of the verbal Rule approved by Innocent III in 1209. The Testament is Francis’s last exhortation to the community just before he died in 1226. It calls the brothers back to the way of life he had originally inspired. They had started to stray, and he called them back to faithfulness. By the nature of the texts of part 2 and 3, this book does not treat some of the deeper and more personal aspects of Francis’s teaching. It does not deal much with his love for nature, his personal prayer, and his ascetical life. These are demonstrated in his Admonitions, his Canticle of the Creatures, and in the early biographies. After his personal conversion this book deals primarily with the more public side of Francis: the community he founded and its relationship to the church and the world in which he lived. It is my hope that this will help us navigate the church and world in which we live today. The entries wrote very easily. I wrote them off the top of my head, without looking up references. I tried to keep them short, balanced, rooted in Franciscan and monastic history, but appli- cable to our spiritual life as followers of Jesus today.
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