SCHOOL OF FRANCISCAN PRAYER
Patrick O’Flynn
The Catechism defines prayer as “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God.”[1] Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, nicknamed Francesco,(1180-1226), better known as St Francis of Assisi, made prayer a journey where God was the centre of his life.[2] Through his journey he was able to discover his own identity in God and found God “in the fragile, wounded flesh of his brothers and sisters.”[3] Francis never attempted to give his followers a definition of prayer. He never found it necessary to study books to learn how to pray. “For Francis, prayer was as natural to him as breathing.”[4] To learn about the School of Franciscan Prayer is to learn about Francis’ experiences in his forms of prayer in his relationship with Christ and from his writings.[5]
Francis’ influences on the School of Franciscan prayer are too numerous to discuss here. The areas that are discussed are: prayers that illustrate a lifestyle that came about from a life-changing encounter with Christ; the importance he saw in community prayer; prayer that was based on the Gospel and various forms of liturgy; prayer that was associated with the Incarnation of the Son of God and the resulting poverty of Jesus; and, finally, prayer based on his devotion to Mary.
Before discussing Francis’ influence on Franciscan prayer, it is important to try to understand the spiritual “threads” of prayer and see how they relate to Francis’ prayer.
Prayer can take many forms which may include an overflowing of the heart expressed in shouting, singing, and even dancing, but prayer can also be silence, stillness, and a time of self-emptying before God. Francis was certainly a person who believed in all of these various forms of prayer.
Prayer can be seen in two distinct forms. Both of these forms were used by Francis and consequently are present in the School of Franciscan Prayer. These two forms,emanating from a spirituality base arefrom an apophatic approach or from a kataphatic approach. Philip Sheldrake briefly describes:
“apophatic as emphasizing silence, darkness, passivity and the absence of imagery; and kataphatic emphasizing by contrast the way of images and the positive evaluation of creation or human relationships as contexts for God’s self-revelation.”[6]
Most of Francis’ prayers would fall into the category of kataphatic. Francis was a very practical person in his prayer life. His prayers used images of the suffering Christ, the “Almighty” and the “omnipotent” God of creation, prayers that reflected peace and tranquillity and prayers that showed his humility and simplicity. He taught his companions to say the Divine Office, recite the Psalms andpray from the “Book of Christ’s Cross”, the contents of which refer to “the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.”[7] All of these show the imagery of various facets of God, the Trinity and the poverty of Jesus himself; that is prayer which has a Christocentric focus.
Francis also used the quietness and solitude to pray. Thomas of Celano talks about the contemplative prayer life of Francis.[8] He says that Francis would have been aware of saints who lived either alone or in communities. He was very insistent that his friars would not live the monastic life. He told Pope Innocent III that he had “a pious leaning towards another life.” Francis did not want to establish another monastic order.
Francis’ prayers at times werecontemplative;Francis used the Latin word ‘quies’ to describe this form of prayer.[9] This implies a sense of contemplation of “inner peace, but even a stronger sense of ‘resting in God’. This resting in God, the emptying of his heart and “centring” his prayer only on God brings in a sense of apophatic prayer. Interestingly, William Cooks believed that Francis often withdrew from his various ministries to be alone in contemplation and prayer.
St Bonaventure (1221 – 1274) describes one of the “Threefold Ways” of Franciscan Prayer as “The Way of Perfection”:
“One directs one’s prayer to God alone with one’s whole heart, mind and soul. This is the highest degree of perfection which is that of union in affection and thought with God, until one reaches ecstatic communion, pure contemplation.[10]
Gustavo Gutierrez says that in the development of a new approach to prayer “someone has a powerful experience of the way of Jesus.”[11] The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were very different, as compared with today. In that time there was an emergence of mendicant spirituality which could be related to a social reaction to the wealth and power of society and Church.[12] Francis had a life changing experience when he encountered a leper. Embracing this leper and kissing his hand, Francis did the opposite of what he would have normally done, as he had a fear of lepers. With the disappearance of the leper, Francis realised that he had just encountered Jesus Christ. After several days he visited a nearby hospital, greeting each leper, kissing them on the lips and giving each a piece of gold.[13] This experience changed Francis. Like the leper, he now wore clothes that showed poverty and of being a nobody. Like any poor person, he too became a beggar.[14] On his death bed, Francis indicated this experience as a turning point in his life which became a source of spiritual and physical consolation to him. Francis’ prayer was now orientated to the marketplace, the hospital, the jail, the poor and the marginalised. Franciscan prayer reflects Francis’ encounter with God. It is a prayer of the “suffering and ugliness of daily life, it is prayer of action.”[15]
Franciscan prayer also includes community prayer. St John Vianney likened a single person praying to that of a single match, while a Church full of people praying is like a bonfire.[16] Francis taught his friars through the recitationof the Divine Office an expression of his following of Christ. He saw this spiritual exercise as one of primarily developing the spirituality of the initial group of friars in his community. This spirituality helped them in their early days to follow the Spirit of the Lord in their daily lives. The Earlier Rule for Franciscans highlights the importance of how Francis saw this liturgical practice. “All the brothers, whether clerical or lay, should celebrate the Divine Office, the praises and prayers, as is required of them.”[17] Francis believed that liturgical prayer had a special place and importance in the daily life of the friars. But, this liturgical prayer should not become a habit that was meaningless. Francistaught his friars that liturgical prayer was a personal prayer with meaning and had to be “prayerful.” He said “to make prayer more personal we must find a way to make our prayer more subjective so that we go deeply into it and learn to love prayer.”[18]
Francis also believed that his life should be a continual process of allowing the words of the Gospel to be actively “lived” each day.[19] The words of the Gospel should be “in every fibre of his being.”[20] But, Francis also said that prayer was more than an enterprise of “the Spirit of holy prayer and devotion”. Prayer should have the component of having everything you do be part of it. So that besides the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours each day, Francis insisted that each friar establish two periods of intense mental prayer each day, one hour in the morning when they would listen to the Lord speaking to them in their hearts, and another hour in the evening when they would reflect on how the Lord had revealed his presence to them during that day. Regis Armstrong comments that praying was so much part of Francis’ life that it could be said that “his entire life could be interpreted as being transparent with the Spirit’s activity of inspiring us to live as children of a loving God.”[21]
Francis had a profound devotion and wonder of the Incarnation of the Son of God. On one occasion at Greccio, Francis wanted the people to experience what it was like for the Son of God to be born in a stable, surrounded by animals. Francis decided to establish a nativity scene in a cave on Christmas Eve. The altar was above the manger and Francis dressed himself as a Deacon, sang the Gospel and preached the homily full of emotion. Francis brought the long forgotten infant Jesus into the hearts of those present. Thomas of Celano, writes that “God used Francis to have the child Jesus reborn in the hearts of many who had forgotten the meaning of the birth and significance of Jesus.”[22] It was said that Francis brought creation alive that night for the surrounding trees, stones, and mountains all echoed the praises of the people.[23] Christmas helped Francis to form a real live and practical image of God.
The “humility of the Incarnation” was for Francis a triad of simplicity, poverty and humility of the whole life of Jesus.[24] Francis characterised this same scenario of the Incarnation each time at the consecration and celebration of the Eucharist. He saw in the “little form” of bread the “hiding place” of the Son of God. The life of Jesus was the life he wanted to imitate and urged his brothers to follow - a life of simplicity, poverty and humility.[25] His admonition to his brothers was “humble yourselves”, that is “be like God.”[26]
Franciscan prayer also includes a component of a strong devotion to Mary which comes from Francis. He recognised Mary’s intimate role in the work of salvation. This stemmed from his belief in the Incarnation and its impact on him. Mary is for Francis the Madonna of the Poor. He believed God chose her to be his Mother and wanted to share his poverty with her in such a way that she shared a genuine solidarity with the poor.[27] “He meditated with tears, weeping over the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ and his mother.”[28] Francis sees God as choosing poverty and the poor as “his sacrament”, his sign and symbol. Thomas of Celano explains that the compassion and display of the poverty of Francis “made not only his heart to be lifted towards nature, but, for theological reasons, to charity towards others.[29] Francis called on Mary as his Advocate and also named her the Advocate of the Franciscan Order because he wanted her to represent them before the Lord, to defend them in all their difficulties.[30] Franciscans are noted for their important role in establishing the two dogmas of the Church about Mary: The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary into heaven.
Someone once said (I don’t know who) that growth in prayer is a measure of a journey to God. Francis illustrates this principle very well. He deepened his intimate relationship with Christ by making his life one of continual prayer. But he also wanted others, who shared his simplicity and humility, to follow the same footprints of Jesus Christ. Ilia Delio, O.S.F., describes how Francis saw his spirituality. She says “for Francis, Christ is the centre of the Trinity and the centre of our relationship to God.”[31] Francis saw the suffering, poor humble Jesus Christ as the one who would lead him to his Father by his imitation of Jesus. Through a life of prayer Francis was not only able to channel the depths of Christ’s mystery into his life but also lead others, his fellow Franciscans, to see Christ and live Christ as he did.
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[1] Catechism of The Catholic Church, Part IV, What is Prayer?, (Strathfield: St Paul’s Publications, 1998), n. 2559.
[2] Thomas Richstatter, "Franciscan spirituality." Liturgical Ministry 10 (September 1, 2001), 206. “Loving all that God loves leads the Franciscans to love every man, woman and child as brother and sister. These terms are extended to other besides human beings for Francis loved everything that God has made: Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the stars; Brother Wind and Sister Water; Brother Fire and Sister Mother Earth.” These names of God’s creation are expressed in the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon of St. Francis of Assisi.
[3] Ilia Delio, O.S.F., “St Francis’ Style of Prayer”, St Anthony’s Messenger (October 2004), Accessed 16September2014.
[4] Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”, Unit 6: Franciscan Prayer and Devotion, 208, Accessed16September 2014. “Francis himself was totally transformed so that he himself became a living Prayer”, 209.
[5] The New SCM Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed. Phillip Sheldrake, s.v. “Franciscan Spirituality”, by William Short. The Primary Sources mentioned refer to authors and editors Regis Armstrong and William Short. Books with these authors and editors have been used here.
[6] Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method (New York:Crossroad,1992), 191.
[7]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”, 214.
[8] William R.Cook, The Way of the Christian Mystics; Francis of Assisi (Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1989, 79. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Thomas of Celano”, by J.A.Hellmann. Thomas of Celano was the first to write a life of St Francis and the first to offer information about Francis’ early followers and the development of the early fraternity. c.v. “Thomas of Celano”.
[9]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”, 222.
[10]Ibid. 223.
[11] Gustavo Gutierrez, We drink from our own Wells: The spiritual Journey of a People (New York: Orbis, 1984), 53.
[12] Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method, 58.
[13] Arnaldo Fortini, Francis of Assisi, A translation of Nova Vita di San Francesco by Helen Moak (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 211.
[14] Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. CAP. And Ignatius C.Brady, O.F.M., translation and Introduction, Francis and Clare: The Complete Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 109. The First Rule for Franciscans is “the Bothers must live without anything of their own and in chastity and in obedience.”, 116. And again Rule Eight “The brothers are not allowed to receive money.” Also, Rule Nine, “Begging alms.”, 117.
[15] Joseph M Stoutzenberger and John D.Bohrer, Praying with Francis of Assisi, 62.
[16]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”, 215.
[17] Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap. and Ignatius C. Brady, O.F.M., Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, 111.
[18]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”, 216.
[19]Thomas Richstatter,. "Franciscan spirituality", 206. “the relatively short Rule of twelve chapters is summed up in its first sentence: ‘The rule and life of the Friars Minor is this: to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’”
[20] Regis J. Armstrong and Ingrid J.Peterson, The Franciscan Tradition; Spirituality in History (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2010), xxiii.
[21] Regis J. Armstrong and Ingrid J.Peterson, The Franciscan Tradition; Spirituality in History, xxiii.
[22]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”.
[23] William J.Short, Poverty and Joy: The Franciscan Tradition, Philip Sheldrake ed. (New York: Orbis, 1999), 41.
[24]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”,236.
[25] Thomas Richstatter,. "Franciscan spirituality.", “The lover wants to know all he or she can about the beloved.”
[26] William J.Short, Poverty and Joy: The Franciscan Tradition, 42-43.
[27] The New SCM Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed. Phillip Sheldrake, s.v. “Franciscan Spirituality”, by William Short. “Francis compares the Eucharistic ministry of the priesthood to the role of Mary, who first gave to us the ‘body and blood’ of the Lord.
[28]Norbert Pittorino O.F.M., “Following in the Footsteps of Francis and Clare”,239.
[29]loc. cit.
[30] Regis J.Armstrong,O.F.M. Cap., and Ignatius C.Brady, O.F.M., translated and Introduction, Francis and Clare The Complete Works, (New York, Paulist Press, 1982), 16. Francis’s view suggests the Mother of God as the model of his spiritual growth, and in his devotion to her Poverello seems to have anticipated the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, in which Mary is presented as the Mother and the Model of the Church.
[31]Ilia Delio, O.S.F., “St Francis’ Style of Prayer”. Ilia Delio, O.S.F., is the Director of Franciscan Studies at Washington Theological Union in Washington D.C.