Franciscan Quote of the Day

We can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord. When we are not walking, we stop moving. When we are not building on the stones, what happens? The same thing that happens to children on the beach when they build sandcastles: everything is swept away, there is no solidity. When we do not profess Jesus Christ, the saying of Léon Bloy comes to mind: “Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil.” When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.

~The Holy Father Pope Francis,  Homily, Thursday, 14 March 2013

Too many people who claim to be Christian simply don’t know Jesus Christ. They don’t really believe in the Gospel. They feel embarrassed by their religion and vaguely out of step with the times. They may keep their religion for comfort value. Or they may adjust it to fit their doubts. But it doesn’t reshape their lives because it isn’t real. And because it isn’t real, it has no transforming effect on their personal behavior, no social force, and few public consequences.

~Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America

A certain amazed, astonished, joyful wonder is the spiritual climate of Christmas. We are amazed to see that the birth of Jesus Christ reverses everything that our insecure and acquisitive minds think power and mightiness should mean. The Word of God, through whom all things are created, is born as one of us, born to plain parents, born away from home, born into a people and a place that were considered important by no known criterion of human civilization.

But Christmas is not only astonishing because it is an amazing and even scandalous revelation of God; Christmas also invites us to wonder because it reveals who we really are, what creation really is.

~ a minor friar: Reek of Stupefaction.

The reason that following the Gospel is so challenging, that engaging the world from a Franciscan perspective is so difficult, is that in a world that organizes its thoughts and responses according to the logic of violence and the possible, the Good News of Jesus Christ is communicated in the poetics of the Kingdom of God, which is an expression of the impossible experience of love, forgiveness, and peace.

~Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith by Daniel Horan OFM

“When I came to you,” writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, “I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Stay a while. Do not hurry by the cross on your way to Easter joy, for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said that the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity. The only joy to be trusted is the joy on the far side of a broken heart; the only life to be trusted is the life on the far side of death. Stay a while, with Christ and him crucified.

~Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

Wherever they may be, let all my brothers remember that they have given themselves and abandoned their bodies to the Lord Jesus Christ. For love of him they must make themselves vulnerable to their enemies, both visible and invisible, because the Lord says: Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it in eternal life.

~St. Francis of Assisi, The Earlier Rule

We are disciples of Jesus Christ whose power and influence reach to most corners of the world. We are called to bring healing, help and hope to the places where it is needed most, especially to the most vulnerable of our fellow members of the Body of Christ. We, too, have the Spirit of the Lord upon us, and we have been anointed to embody the mission of Christ in our lives and in our world.

This is our destiny; this is what we are called to do. The greatest tragedy of all would be for us to settle for anything less.

~Francis Gunn, OFM from “Thoughts on Impact of Haiti’s Catastrophe“

In Jesus Christ, God has given away everything it means to be God, and has lavishly bestowed upon us every blessing of the divine life. And we are called to imitate God by wasting the best of ourselves on each other, to give of ourselves for the life and happiness of the other. That’s what it means to give up your life for the life of the world, just like Jesus does on the Cross.

Brother Charles, in his blog post: “The Gospel of Prosperity“