Franciscan Prayer Quote -- for St. Francis' feastday

 

 

A HAPPY FEAST OF ST. FRANCIS to all for October 4th:

The following quote appears in the book, FRANCISCAN PRAYER, by Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF.   She talks first about prayer, and then what is characteristic of 'Franciscan' prayer. As we approach this Feast of St. Francis (Oct. 4^th) for 2010, let's feast our Franciscan spirits on Ilia's words in Chapter # 3: 'Prayer and the Spiritual Journey.'   She begins the chapter with these words:

 

"Prayer is about God and our relationship to God. The important questions we ask or the conclusions we draw about prayer center around the "God question," what we say about God or how we understand God's relation to human existence.   The God to whom we pray is the God who gives direction to our lives.   The monastic "rule,"  Lex orandi lex credendi,  holds true, that is, the law of prayer is the law of belief.   If I use distant and remote language to speak of God, then I will imagine that God is distant and remote.   If I use male language to speak to God, then I will imagine that God is male.   If I use language of humility and love to pray to God, then I will believe in a God who is humble and loving.   The God to whom I pray is the God who directs my life; thus, my image of God, the kind of God I believe in, is crucial to the way my journey of prayer proceeds.   Is God essentially engaged with my human experience or disengaged? Is God primarily judge or savior for me?   Do I treat God as ruler or lover?   Is God faithful and interested in my world?"

 

A few paragraphs later she talks about how we as Franciscans view prayer:

 

"The Franciscan journey differs from the Neoplatonic ascent (Neoplatonists feel you need to 'withdraw' from the sensual world in order to contemplate God) because the journey to God is not linear but a journey inwards toward a new relationship with God in which God takes on flesh anew in one's life.   A more appropriate image for the Franciscan journey (different than 'the ladder' for Neoplatonists) is that of 'the spiral', one that goes to the depths of the human person's capacity for God and the capacity of God's love for the human person. The Good News of Jesus Christ, as the Franciscans understood it, is that we do not "go to God" as if God sat in the starry heavens awaiting our arrival; rather, God has "come to us" in the Incarnation.   "The eternal God has humbly bent down," St. Bonaventure writes, "and lifted the dust of our nature into unity with his own person."   We move toward God because God has first moved toward us -- this is the Franciscan path of prayer."

 

"The journey of prayer for Franciscans is the discovery of God at the center of our lives. We pray not to acquire a relationship with God as if acquiring something that did not previously exist.   Rather, we pray to disclose the image of God in which we are created, the God within us, that is, the one in whom we are created and in whom lies the seed of our identity.   We pray so as to discover what we already have - "the incomparable treasure hidden in the field of the world and of the human heart."   We pray not to "ascend" to God, but to "give birth to God," to allow the image in which we are created to become visible.   We pray to bear Christ anew.   In prayer, therefore, we discover what we already have, the potential for the fullness of life, and this life is the life of Christ."