Franciscan Quote of the Day

Holiness is not limited to the sanctuary or to moments of private prayer; it is a call to direct our whole heart and life toward God and according to God’s plan for this world. For the laity holiness is achieved in the midst of the world, in family, in community, in friendships, in work, in leisure, in citizenship.

~ United States Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy

Franciscan prayer is not an escape from the world but an entrance into it. We become conscious in prayer of how much the world is with us and we are in the world.

~Ilia Delio, Franciscan Prayer

Those brothers to whom the Lord has given the grace of working may work faithfully and devotedly so that, while avoiding idleness, the enemy of the soul, they do not extinguish the Spirit of holy prayer and devotion to which all temporal things must contribute.

~St. Francis of Assisi, The Later Rule

The humility and gratitude that arise from acknowledging God as the source of all good gifts should lead us to freely share those gifts with others. Hoarding our talents, resources, and power for our own good or glory is an injustice. Francis calls us to use our gifts wisely, serving God and others through good works.

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

If we mean by what is practical what is most immediately practicable, we mean merely what is easiest. In that sense St. Francis was very impractical, and his ultimate aims were very unworldly. But if we mean by practicality a preference for prompt effort and energy over doubt or delay, he was very practical indeed.

~G.K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.

~Hermann Hesse (via The Hammock Papers)

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

~Thomas Sowell as quoted on Execupundit.com

He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of pleasure. There undeniably is the historical fact; and there attached to it is another moral fact almost as undeniable. It is certain that he held on this heroic or unnatural course from the moment when he went forth in his hair-shirt into the winter woods to the moment when he desired even in his death agony to lie bare upon the bare ground, to prove that he had and that he was nothing. And we can say, with almost as deep a certainty, that the stars which passed above that gaunt and wasted corpse stark upon the rocky floor had for once, in all their shining cycles round the world of labouring humanity, looked down upon a happy man.

~G.K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

~C. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

But in how great an error these persons have entangled themselves, and how far they are distant from that true perfection which we seek, may easily be gathered from their lives and habits. For in every thing, whether It be great or small, they seek their own advantage, and like to be preferred before others; they are self-willed and opinionated, blind to their own faults, sharp-sighted for the faults of others, and severely condemn the sayings and doings of other men.

~Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat

The Preacher: Meantime, why don’t you put me to work?

Hull Barret: Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to, uh… Well, I mean, ya know – maybe if there was somethin’ spiritual.

The Preacher: Well, that Spirit ain’t worth spit without a little exercise. Now you tell me where.

~Pale Rider (1985)

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, He can work through anyone.

~~St. Francis of Assisi