Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
We're continuing our reflections today on Franciscan spirituality, looking at Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, as he says in John 14, verse 6, that it will speak about Christ as our life, again, taking from Father Ciccarelli's reflections from his work, The Cornerstones of Franciscan Spirituality.
We know that God is life by his very essence, and he communicates that life to his Son in the Blessed Trinity.
St. John tells us that from the bosom of the Father in the heart of the Trinity, the Son came among us.
He became flesh and dwelt among us, we read, or made his home or tabernacled among us, John 1, verse 14.
The eternal word is also the bread of life, who gives himself to us.
Jesus says in John 6:57, as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
Jesus owes everything he is and he has to the Father.
He doesn't live except for the life that he has from the Father, and he ardently desires that we, too, who owe him everything, he desires that we only live for him, that we don't have any life outside of his life, essentially.
For as the Father has life in himself, he says, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, John 5:26.
Jesus who possesses life by nature, life in its infinite fullness, came to give us full and abundant life, as he says in John 10:10.
And only those who remain in intimacy with him will have a life that truly bears good fruit.
Very famously, Jesus says in John 15, I am the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser.
Abide in me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branch, as he who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing, Jesus says, John 15, verses 1 through 5.
The life that our Lord speaks about is the divine life that the Father communicates to the Word and to the Holy Spirit, and from the Word is communicated to the sacred humanity of Christ as grace, and from the sacred humanity of Christ is shared by all people who believe in him.
It's the divine charity that circulates in the mystical body of Christ, from the head, who is Jesus, to the heart, who is Our Lady, and then to all of us, to all of his members.
Being incorporated into Christ, humanity returns to where God had placed it in its original design.
This is really the central idea from which Franciscan spirituality draws its supernatural and its intimate dynamic, and it connects those two realities together.
It connects the reality of intimacy and the reality of the supernatural, puts those two together.
Without the supernatural, there really is no intimacy in life.
And the point of departure for every vital movement is our insertion essentially into the life of Christ, Christ who stamps every one of our actions with a new and even an eternal value, too.
To live means to journey towards a goal, and Christ is the way that guides us and brings us to that goal.
He's the way who will bring us to where we need to go and to where our heart of hearts truly desires to go, which is to heaven, but he wants us to trust him in that journey.
To live means to journey to a goal.
To live is also to know.
Christ is the light who interiorly opens our eyes to all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
To live is also to love, and Christ is our love, a love which attracts us to him and attracts him to us as well, since love is a two-way street.
To live is also to be fruitful and dynamic, and Christ is our strength who transmits his supernatural energies into our souls and into our heart, into our whole being, so that our works in him will bear fruit.
From this intimate life, from this intimate conviction, is born that movement and that attraction which incessantly urged St. Francis and his brothers not only to imitate Jesus, but also to be conformed to him, to identify with him, knowing that they were incorporated into Christ by means of his grace.
This imitation, this conformity, this identification with Jesus is the only thing that St. Francis desired in life.
It's the only thing that he worked for.
It's why he practiced poverty and humility.
It's why he prayed and worked to help grow within himself and in others the life of Christ, toward which he was profoundly attracted.
St. Bonaventure, in this regard, said, Christus mentum Francisci absorbuit, Christ absorbed Francis, said St. Bonaventure.
Christ entered into St. Francis in order to communicate to him his very life, to communicate to him the fullness of life that God had predestined for Francis from all eternity.
So you can say that St. Francis really was overflowing with Jesus.
There was anyone who was overflowing with Jesus, it was St. Francis.
Thomas of Celano writes, Jesus he carried always in his heart, Jesus on his lips, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in his whole self, referring to St. Francis.
Bonaventure took that word, absorbuit, which is Latin, absorbed, he actually took that word from Francis himself, from the, which is St. Francis' one of his prayers.
Francis prayed, absorbeat, queso, domine, is the Latin, which means, may the power of your love, Lord Jesus Christ, fiery and sweet as honey, so absorb our hearts as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven.
Grant that we may be ready to die for love of your love as you died for love of our love, prayed the Seraphic Father.
So along the lines of the Seraphic Father was St. Bonaventure, long before the revelations of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Bonaventure began speaking of devotion to the Sacred Heart after having lovingly contemplated the wounds of Jesus.
It was also the Franciscan St. James of the March who developed the devotion to the precious blood of Jesus.
It was the Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena who spread devotion to the holy name of Jesus.
All the sons of St. Francis testify that Christ truly is the life, that he is truly our life.
St. Francis could say with St. Paul, for me to live is Christ, Philippians 1:21, and Christ will be glorified in my body, Philippians 1:20.
That's his desire for all of us, for all of his sons and daughters, that all the followers of the Seraphic Father will have Christ as the center and source of their lives, center and source of our lives.
Let's ask Our Lady for the grace to understand that there's no true life, there's no true intimacy apart from a deep relationship with her and her Son.
Let's also ask her for the grace to have that relationship so that we can become the person that God has destined, that God has predestined us to become.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.

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Ave Maria.