Transitus: Passing as a Pilgrim with St. Francis.

This evening, after sundown, in friaries and convents and chapels and hermitages all over the world Franciscans come together to mark the Tranistus, the passing to the Lord, of our holy father Brother Francis. In the year 1226, worn our by his labours and knowing his end was coming close Francis asked the brothers to bring him to the little chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, just outside Assisi so that he could pass to the Lord under the watchful care of the Blessed Mother to whom he had entrusted his life and the Order he was leaving behind. Commemorating this event we franciscans gather every year and in song, chant, reading and reflection meditate upon the way of his passing and the teaching it brings. Last year I was asked to preach at one of these gatherings and a number of people asked me to publish the homily I gave on that occasion. I never got around to it but as the feast comes round again it offer the opportunity to make good my promise! So here it is... may it bring benefit and blessing so that inspired by Brother Francis we will all be a little more ready for our own Transitus whenever it comes...

Homily for the Transitus of Our Holy Father, Brother Francis of Assisi

We have entered into sacred time, into that storied time where past becomes present, as, once again, we stand at that sacred point between life and death, between this world and the next, and, in the eternity that is God, we turn our minds and hearts to that little cell outside the tumbledown chapel of St. Mary of the Angels as Brother Sun sets and Sisters Moon and Stars rise in the heavens, clear precious and fair. There the birds quieten their vesper singing and we take our place with all the followers of the “Poverello”, the little poor man of Assisi, who gather from all of time and space around him as he breathes slowly, gently towards his end… and as we vigil with his brothers and with all of creation we realise that we have forgotten how to die…

Does that sound strange? After all, die we shall. It is the one definite point in our existence. We have been born, we shall die.

But…

Tied up in life and in all of it’s vicissitudes we can begin to believe the great myth of human ego that this earthly life lasts for ever… and then, when Sister Death draws near to us, as she will to all of us, we are lost in panic, lost in pain, we are simply lost… and we hold out against her not knowing that her gentle purpose is simply to bring us home again…

And so we forget how to die…

St. Francis remembered how to die…

He knew that if we would face the embrace of our sister when it finally comes we must do so with love, yielding to her, being ushered by her into the Divine Presence; and for this to happen then in such a gentle way we must practice dying…

We must die, every day… just a little…

We must die to our self, die to our false self, die to every part of us that is not us but is the accretion of property and wealth for their own sake…

We must die to the use of others rather than to the love of others; die to the holding onto power so as to dominate and even and especially die to the belief that I am at the centre of all things and that I am in some way owed my existence, my success, even my life…

Francis…the little poor man now lying bare upon the bare earth, has long since died to each of these…

He has died to the rich home and sumptuous clothes of his youth and even to the joy a young man takes in his own vigour and power…

He has died to the rich young man, who was the toast of Assisi and the centre of attention who was named “Master of the Revels”…

He has died to his family’s longing to see him raise their profile and their fortune…

He has died to the noble knight whose armour was really forged from the ambition of his father and the myths that filled the head of a young boy who believed war could ever be noble…

He has died to a Mother’s love and favour…

He has died to the pride that saw only the sores of the lepers but never their souls…

He has died to the embarrassment of the Poor Man who begs for his living from door to door…

He has died to the rejection of some and the adulation of many…

He has died to the opinion of Bishops and Princes, Popes and Kings…

He has died to the fear that the brotherhood would not listen… and would not follow…

He has died to the desire to be a martyr…

He has died to the fear of suffering and pain…

He has died to his own flesh, to the world, to the devil…

He has died to his own will…

He has died upon the Cross with Christ…

And in so doing he has remembered how to die, and now with the last great effort of his being he teaches his brothers and sisters, present and absent and all those who will come after him how to die so that one may truly live…

Yes, he has died so completely, as only the saints truly die in life, that as Death approaches he recognises her and smiles at her knowing that she is only the shrouded sister whose touch brings entrance into the only real life there is…

His body is now only a mere shell that holds a heavenly treasure of mind and heart and soul so converted by grace, so consumed by Holy Spirit fire, that it can barely contain it anymore. It already shines radiantly from those five crimson stars seraph-sealed upon his body, when the deepest desire of his life to be one with the One who is love was fulfilled upon Alverna’s height…

And so, he who preached joy to men and beasts, to wolves and women, to birds and children and saw with Eden sight what seeds of the new creation are already planted in their souls, now gives to us his last and best sermon, and teaches a world that grasps greedily on to life and so fears the reaper and the quiet and the last stilling breath, simply how to die… so that one might truly live…

Absolved and blessed, and blessing others too he has heard the Gospel with ears now straining for Heaven’s summons and breathing deeply he looks with dim eyes beyond into silence…

And then…

He sings…

This poor man now blinded by tears and weak with sickness borne for humanity’s boon…

He sings…

And the brothers who had gathered sombrely and sadly, now with smiles newly rekindled begin to chant with him the song of his illumined heart the canticle of Sir Brother Son… a song a lifetime of grace in the making…

He, Francis, sings…

And for a moment, just for a moment, the Troubadour of peace, the Herald of the Great King, the one who charmed the birds and the beasts and the fierce men of war into silence and peace with his songs is amongst them once again…

“Laudato si mi Signor!” Be Praised my Lord… each verse rises as his farewell benediction… exulting one last time in the beauty that speaks more eloquently than any missive or word of sacred writ could ever do of the Love that holds all things in being and now calls back to itself Francis, its little one and its servant, first sent into the world to remind it of its beauty, its original blessing, its redemption and final calling into a communion of love in the Christ who is Love…

And so he surrenders himself to Love… singing as he goes upon his last journey, this pilgrim brother whose songs filled the roads for too short a time… and in his going he teaches us how to die…

How to leave behind all that would hold us back…

How to come empty handed before the One who fills us with His Song of Love holding back nothing of ourselves for ourselves so that the One who gave Himself totally for us may receive us totally…

Then… comes a moment of silence and stillness… the brothers stand in quiet reverence… the song seems to cease…  

And, barely above a whisper, his last words sound, “Welcome my sister death.”

The echo of his last breath, his last song, has barely passed and then from hills and valley and woods all about, in twilight star speckled skies, a mighty rush of wings is heard as the larks, those truest of his disciples, who own nothing more than their song, rise like arrows into the air, as brothers flocking together in the moon light and star light and sing his soul skywards…

His passing is complete…

He lived and died a little every day… and so in dying shows us how to live… that we too would remember to die a little every day until we may greet our Sister Death with only our own soul song to sing…and with empty hands but full heart enter into Life…enter into Love…

Let us begin again, for up until now we have done nothing...
Let us begin to die... so that we may live.

Amen.

 

Poem for the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis

Today is the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis. It commemorates the apex moment of Francis' earthly spiritual journey when, in answer to his prayer to feel as much as possible both the compassion of Christ for His creation and the pain He went through upon the Cross to redeem it, he became the first person in history to receive the Sacred Stigmata, the visible imprints of the five wounds of Christ upon his body. Many people are unaware that this took place on the Feast of the Holy Cross while Francis was keeping the "Lent of St. Michael", 40 days of prayer and meditation to prepare for the Feast of the Archangel under whose protection he had placed the Order. This connection with St. Michael led me to a poem, (in a vaguely medieval style), some years ago.

The Lay of St. Michael and Brother Francis

Angelic being whose nature is fire,

whose song cried loudest and star brightest flamed.

Born as a spark from the light of God’s radiance

to the Glory of One in Threeness revealed.

First to defend the honour of Him; whose

silence allows all accept or complain,

first one to honour the plan then put forward

of dying, and rising to glory again.

One who was then made Captain of Heaven,

One who was then made Weigher of Souls.

One who was then made Guardian of Gates,

Keeper of Keys, and Master of Rolls.

Lord of the Cherubim, Master of Seraphs,

all the nine choirs bow low before him,

who bowed lowest first, to the Light that dims never

in silence surrounded from last until first.

He was made bearer of Heaven’s fell sword,

emblazoned it is with name, “Verbum Dei”.

He was made bearer of the shield of the just,

whose name is remembered as “Gloria Dei”.

He is the one whose bright helm is crowned

with star of bright fire in Tau shape arrayed

He is the keeper of Heaven’s great seal

the one whom the saints do call when afraid.

He bears the Rod and the Orb of  Shekinah

standing aside the throne of their Ward.

His is the voice that rang out with the challenge,

“Who could ever be like unto the Lord!”

All this is given in glory to him,

Heaven’s great prince, who first saw in the Light,

Better to serve both truth and humility

than to crawl for the dark one, who once was the bright.

This our dear father, Francis the Brother,

smallest of those, who account themselves small,

knew as he rendered praise and thanksgiving,

for to arms like St. Michael, he heeded the call.

Of him did he learn the way to be humble,

the grace to begin and accept being sent.

To him he accorded the honour of fasting,

to him he ascribed the gift of a Lent.

And in that sweet time, to his honour and glory

Francis, in prayer aloft on the mount,

sought for a share in Love’s light so redeeming

the pains of the Cross as joy he would count.

Then given the grace of a sight so ecstatic

he burned with a fire that never would end

For stamped was he then, with those wounds called stigmatic

sealed as a Seraph, made kin to his friend.

And later he went to that throne long prepared

and there he doth sit, at Heaven’s bright board.

Where Michael and Francis to ages unending, 

both joyfully sing, “Is aught like the Lord!”  

Ripening not Ageing: A Contemplative reflection.

Ripe.

What if
instead
of calling it
ageing;
we named it
ripening?
Seeing
in
each passing
stage of life
the
beauty
we ascribe
to
Seed,
Shoot,
Leaf,
Flower,
Fruit.
Never asking
one of them
to be,
or
remain as,
another;
but delighting
in their
present
presence
as a gift
from each
season.
Each perfect
and apt
in their
own
time.
What if
instead of
calling them
wrinkles
we saw in
them
only the
evidence of
experience?
Counting them
the way
children
count the
rings of trees;
delighting
in them
as
signs of
stories
to be told;
wisdom lines
to be
wondered at,
whether born
of tears,
or laughter,
or even,
pain.
What if
we taught
the young
to see
the old
as we,
standing back
in awe,
gaze upon
the ancient
being
of
trees?
Travelling to
simply
see them,
touch them,
to be
in their
canopied company.
Resting our
frantic
minds
in their
deep green
slowness,
while imagining
with awe
all that has
passed
beneath their
crooked branches;
the seasons
they have
seen,
the storms
survived,
and
the myriad lives
they have
sheltered
in their
long growing.
So then,
Go out,
go out
my friend
and let
yourself
ripen
beneath
the sun
and moon,
breathe freely
of your
present season
letting
the regrets
of lost time
fall from
you
and fly
like leaves
upon the
air.
Fear
no longer
Autumn's
harvest
or even the
seeming sleep
of Winter
for,
when ripened,
fruit's
earthward drop
frees seed
and
begets
always,
a new
Spring.

(with thanks to our brother Paul Dressler for the beautiful picture of Br. Teobalda of Italy, one of the noted elders of our Order.)

St. John's Eve: A poetic contemplative reflection

St. John’s Eve

Now, as Vespers sings itself to dusk’s silent sitting.
The beacons begin to burn.
Men watching for the moment
of Moon’s waning
in twilight midsummer sky
of a Sun too lazy to truly set,
to kindle flame for the Forerunner;
John.
He whose element is fire.
Both lamps now hanging in cloth of such deep blue
that the world seems enfolded in the mantle of she
who midwifed his birth,
even as she joined her magnificat
to old Elizabeth’s pangs and doubting Zechariah’s silence
beneath the shining stars of desert sky.

Now, as Matins touches midnight of Monks long vigiling
the herbs are gathered.
Women seeking the helpers and the healers
in wood, and dell, and garden bed
where, blessed by dew and moonlight
and the long warmth of Sun’s summer
the Yarrow and the Bracken,
the Fennel and the Rue,
the Rosemary and the Foxglove and
always the Elder and
the great yellow flower of the Forerunner
willingly give up their essence on the night
that marks the first whisper
of the Word’s healing breath,
breathed through the one who is His healing herald Voice;
John.
Dried, and hung, and laid upon the Lady Altar
to become more than they are
they will bestow divine healing.
Twice gifted and graced by
Summer’s picking
and Autumn’s
Assumption blessing, they
reveal the medicine present always beneath.

Now, as Lauds’ psalms sun skywards
the pots and pans and ancient drums are beaten.
The children sing the old songs and rhymes
long lost to meaning,
as young men and women harelike
leap heedless across the
dying flames together.
Recalling he who leapt with joy,
filled with fire, even in womb’s waters
so near was the One who first kindled flame
and rendered the rivers holy and made the wells
vessels of new birth.

Now, as Mass bell tolls dawn’s daily resurrection
monks and men, and women, and children all
hear the summons of the Sanctifier and His herald
loud upon morning’s breeze
as embers die down, and herbs are hung up.
Beneath the vaulted stone they gather
to join their voices to praise that vastness veiled
in simple bread and wine,
and hear again the word first spoken by
the herald,
the lamp,
the flame,
the leaper,
the prophet,
the angel,
the voice,
the Baptist
whose birth they have
blessed anew
“Behold the Lamb of God!”

The Inner Mysteries of the Feast of the Visitation: A contemplative breathing...

The Inner Mysteries of the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth...

A Contemplative Breathing...

There are so many mysteries to be meditated upon in this most beautiful of feasts where the Divine Mysteries are revealed in the most earthly and earthy of moments and places. Two women, blood cousins, elder and younger meet across the generations in the wilderness of the hill country and in the common holding of the mysterious gift of new life, and so much is gifted to us in their meeting…

For the Visitation is the feast of Mary as the Apostle of love as Charity;

Charity: the love that goes out, that actively seeks the other who is in need and feels the need of the other as its own need. In its ministering to the other in love becomes love even more so in itself… Mary, full of grace, full of the life of God, has only just heard her own call and yet responds immediately to the impulse to care for another… She leaves immediately and with great haste we are told, for love as charity brooks no delay. She will give the first three months of her own flowering to tending the garden of her cousin Elizabeth and helping her prepare for the birth of John… She thinks not of herself or even of the enormity of the miracle that has just been accomplished in her. In the need of her cousin for support she hears the call of God just as surely as she heard it in the words of the Archangel.

May Mary call us from our own self absorption to the Charity that generates life.

For the Visitation is the feast of the call to Spiritual Midwifery:

Mary as midwife to her Cousin… What a beautiful picture… The Archangel tells her that her cousin is six months into her journey towards birth and the scripture tells us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months. Could we possibly believe that Mary left Elizabeth alone for the birth of John? Of course not…for in her midwifery of Eilzabeth she is midwifing the mystery of the birth of the Old Testament Covenant into its new life its fulfilment in the one, John, who holds in himself both the lineages of the prophets and the priesthood, and who on Jordan’s banks will lay them down in homage before the Lamb from whom they first came on Sinai’s height to Moses.

May Mary midwife the birth in us of our own calling to birth Christ in our own life and in each moment.

For the Visitation is the feast of the mysteries of Woman…

In Mary coming to Elizabeth to care for her and serve her, God in Mary is coming to one who represents all of the mysteries of womanhood… Elizabeth had traversed all of the stages of life, she had been a girl, a young woman, a single young woman who held royal and priestly lineages in her descent and yet lived the life of a poor woman in a land oppressed by foreign occupation where it was dangerous to be a woman alone, where it was simply dangerous to be a woman at all… She had been shamed and excluded by her own people and even by other women for not fitting in, for not becoming what she was supposed to be. She had been labelled as barren, seen as cursed and as even carrying the possibility of cursing others. In Zechariah she knew the pain of loving someone but not being able to give them what they truly want… All of this pain she knew. Yet she never doubted the love of God for her or that His love would eventually bloom in her in a surprising way… Zechariah, the man and the priest doubts the Angel’s word and is struck dumb… Elizabeth, the woman, believes and bears the word of prophecy recognising in Mary the One who is blessed among women and then asks astonished “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord would come to visit me?” Who are you Elizabeth? You are Woman and God will always want to be with you and your heart that believes past man’s un-believing and He comes to you in His Mother, clothing Himself in Woman as His vestment, to reveal to you His love for you so that you may remember for ever His nearness to you in your very womanhood in every generation.

May Mary draw near to all Women and open their eyes to their intimate place in the Divine Mysteries.

For the Visitation is the feast of the mysteries of Motherhood:

In the holy encounter of Mary and Elizabeth we are reminded that all of the life that flows through the veins of humanity begins in the womb of women as they co-operate with God in the creation of life… so important is this lesson that the Divine Word Himself decrees He will incarnate only through a Mother’s yes. There is no apostle, no prophet, no saint, and we can even say in awe, no Christ, who did not come from Woman. Mary journeys through the wilderness of the high country, the hill country, the place of fear and wildness and in her Divine Motherhood she tames it. And mother Earth, long sundered from Man, finds that God walks in her garden again in Mary as mother. In her silent journeying there and back again she allows the silence of motherhood, the silent and intimate communion of Mother and child to prepare the way of the Word. She is with the Wild and the Wild receives its new Eve who carries the new Adam in awe and reverence and enfolds her contemplation in the silence of sunrises, sunsets, moonlight and star light as she travels. For everything that we will receive from Christ as a Man He received from Mary and everything that we receive from Christ as God we receive through Mary… For her mother’s yes will be just as present in the temple, in Cana, on the roads of Palestine, and on Golgotha’s height as it is in this silent journey… 

May Mary call us to reverence and respect for the mysteries of the Mother…

For the Visitation is the first feast of the Holy Eucharist:

Does this astonish you that this feast would hold in itself the echo of the greatest of God’s gifts to humanity? Mary is the first tabernacle of the Lord and she bears Christ within her in the most holy of communions as she travels. Elizabeth then becomes the first Eucharistic adorer as her wise faith beholds the inner mystery beyond the veils of sense and in her adoration receives the gift of not just her own hallowing but the hallowing of the new life that joyously jumps within her. So too when we dwell in communion with the Bread of Life is the new life of His grace quickened in us and the word of prophecy born, as contemplation begets the call to action and from silence psalm erupts in magnifying praise. And from praise we fall back into silence in the  heart-knowing know that every moment of Holy Communion begins from Mary's yes to the Divine Mystery of Love.

May Mary call us to the mystery that lies behind the veils of sense and into ever deeper communion with the One who is our Eucharistic Lord. 

The Four Inner Directions of the Contemplative Stance:

The contemplative stands still and breathes in the present moment at the junction of four inner directions: meaning, purpose, intention and attention:

When purpose is joined with meaning it becomes service.
When meaning is joined with purpose it becomes transformation.

When attention is joined to intention every moment becomes filled with meaning.
When intention is joined to attention
all of life becomes filled with purpose.

When attention is joined to the breath then
the breath invites mindful awareness.
When intention is joined to the breath then the breath becomes prayer.

For the fullness of prayer let attention and intention be joined in the awareness of the breath as the place where we encounter Divine in-breathing.

For the fullness of life let meaning and purpose be joined in the awareness of the present moment as the place of Divine Encounter.

When meaning and purpose are lived in each moment with attention and intention then we become aware that Divine Love is present in this moment and we are changed, transformed in the fire of His Love into His likeness.

For us then, in each moment, anchored in the stillness and stability of our breathing...
Our intention is to become like Christ in each moment.
Our attention is on Christ in each moment.
Our purpose is to work with Christ in each moment
Our meaning is in Christ in each moment and in eternity; for Christ is God, and God IS Love...

Palm Sunday Ponderings: Entering the Sanctuary of Silence this Holy Week

Palm Sunday Ponderings...
  
The Holy Week begins...
The Sanctuary waits in silence...
Clothed in purple and palm it stone-stands in stillness
for the first acts of the Divine drama
soon to be played out upon its steps,
as time touches the eternal Now
and sister Moon's cycle signals
the annual encounter with the deep remembrance of redemption's blooded blessing...
Here in sacred time, we are called to trace, to encounter once again,
the Sacred Mystery of Divine Love poured out for humanity.
In this holiest of weeks, 
clothed in the wedding garments 
of symbol and song, 
of liturgy and light, 
the Eternal Action of the Word made Flesh 
inter-penetrates history, 
heals the sin-sundered cosmos, 
and grace weds humanity to divinity once again...
Hurry...
Leave aside Lenten longing...
Be ready to live 
in the in-between of these blessed days 
that 
begin with Hosanna 
and end in 
Alleluia 
and whose 
still centre 
is the cosmic silence 
that follows the last 
healing breath 
of 
the Blessed One...

Blessings to you and yours this Holiest of Weeks...