Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Continuing our reflections today on Franciscan spirituality, today looking still at what's called spiritual Christocentrism.
If you've been following our reflections, it's pretty clear that the Christ embraced by the Franciscans isn't so much the ascetical Christ of the synoptic Gospels, it's not so much the deny yourself and do external practices to imitate Christ, so it's not so much the asceticism of the hermits and the monks.
Franciscans don't limit themselves to see Christ simply as our guide and our model whom we have to imitate simply by our own initiative.
Admiration of Jesus, obedience to his commandments, in trying to imitate him as our master and model, can still bring with it a spirituality that sees Christ as separate from us, as outside of us, as just a person, maybe even from the past, who we just have to try to be like.
Franciscan spirituality emphasizes Christ's presence with us and in us as a person and as a power operating in us by means of his grace, operating in a mysterious but in a real way.
There's a vital life-giving union between him and us, a union that we need to be conscious of so we can deepen that union all the more.
This mysterious union of grace is called a mystical union, a union which the Franciscan soul tries to realize by following the supernatural interior movements of their heart.
That being said, we know that Franciscans don't ignore or deny in any way the ascetical part of the spiritual journey.
There certainly is an emphasis on renunciation, on detachment, on mortification, the denying of one's self and selfishness, saying no to our selfishness.
So all the exercise we have to do to better cooperate with God's grace, we do that, we try to do that, we strive for that.
But the preference or tendency of Franciscan spirituality is to see the ascetical simply in function of our union with Christ, which is more of St. John the Evangelist's perspective.
The ascetical is at the service of union with God and under the direction of his grace in an ever-increasing spirit of docility to the initiative and the working of the Holy Spirit in us.
So the Christ of the Seraphic Order is Christ who mystically lives inside of us.
He's the Christ whom we encounter in the works of the beloved Apostle and the Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul, the Christ who's our interior master, our brother, the life of our soul, the beloved spouse who makes our life his, who is the life of our very life, who's more intimate to us than we are to ourselves, says St. Bonaventure, borrowing from St. Augustine.
St. Francis in his letter to all the faithful, writes of those who follow Christ, he writes, quote, they are children of the Heavenly Father whose works they do, and they are spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are spouses when the faithful soul is joined to our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.
We are brothers to him when we do the will of the Father who is in heaven.
We are mothers when we carry him in our heart and body through divine love, a pure and sincere conscience, and when we give birth to him through his holy manner of working, which should shine before others as an example, says St. Francis.
So the negative element of self-denial and self-renunciation, even though that's indispensable, again, it's not the soul of seraphic spirituality.
The fundamental and directive element for us is a positive one.
It's a constructive one.
It's that notion, really that union with God.
Renunciation helps us to get there, but it's not our destination.
The Franciscan soul aims at conformity to Christ, at incorporation into him, identification with him according to the supernatural, again, interior movement withinside of us.
Jesus is our light.
He's our guide, our impetus, the source of every supernatural relationship.
He nourishes, regenerates, and grows the life within us until its perfect completion.
The Franciscan soul knows that they're a member of the mystical body of Christ, and they try to make themselves more aware of that every day, more aware of that reality.
Since they feel the need to be similar to Christ, their head, through their own personal sanctification, they voluntarily let themselves be guided by grace, which brings them, as St. Paul says, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, Ephesians 4:13.
So this development, this growth in Christ is conditioned too, it's based on progressively becoming more dependent on the Lord, on having a more intimate dependency on him, a dependency which permits God to pour into us the abundance of his life and to make of our lives a continuation of his life on earth, which is his goal.
So our thoughts need to become his thoughts.
When that happens, our thoughts become the light that illuminates our mind.
Our will, which is the springboard of our actions, our will needs to become his will, which conforms our will to the will of the Heavenly Father, like it or not.
Our sentiments need to become a continuation of the sentiments of Christ that includes a hatred for sin, love for God, love for others.
Our emotions and affections need to become his as well, his fondnesses, his favorites, his friendships.
To arrive at this life with him and in him, we must gradually renounce our own capricious autonomy and selfishness, our own will, selfish will.
We must grow and progress in a spirit of docility and humility until we arrive at what Father Ciccarelli calls the vigilant and active passivity, which is the mystical life in the full sense of the word.
It's then that we begin to experience what St. Paul says, the hidden life with Christ in God, he calls it, Colossians 3:3.
It's then that we'll be able to begin to repeat with the apostle, probably that most beautiful verse or one of the most beautiful verses in the New Testament, when St. Paul says, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, Galatians 2 verse 20.
This highest goal that God has for us can be reached through Christ's giving himself to me and me giving myself totally to him.
It's reached through reciprocal donation, total reciprocal donation.
Let's ask Our Lady then to be more receptive to her grace so that our intimacy with her and her Son can deepen all the more.
I don't think that suffering gets in the way of that intimacy.
Suffering is usually what deepens it.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Amen.