We are down to the last two chapters. Jesus has completed His Passion. When I enter the scene in between chapters nineteen and twenty, I find myself locked in a room with the disciples for fear of the Jews. The room is heavy with anxiety and disappointment. Just the night before, I enjoyed a meal with my beloved Teacher. Now He has been crucified and all the good that I anticipated would come from His presence seems to have been lost in an instant. I cannot begin to process what has happened.
My friend Simon Peter is in the corner. He is despondent because the prediction Jesus made about him came true. He denied Him just as Jesus said he would. I want to console him, but where would I start?
As the night passes, I sleep in fits. The horror of the previous day keeps me restless. When I doze, the images in my dreams are more than I can bear. I see Jesus with Pilate, wearing a purple robe and a crown of thorns. I see Him carrying the Cross through the streets, falling again and again. I see Him being nailed to the Cross and then the Cross raised in the air. I see Him take His last breath. Over and over again these images run through my head. There is nothing I can do to stop them.
Despite my fatigue, I am grateful when the morning comes. Anything is better than the lonely and empty dark. Then Mary Magdalene comes in and says that the stone at the tomb was rolled away during the night and the body of Jesus is missing. Simon Peter and the other disciple get up immediately and go out, so I follow them. I run along behind them to the tomb.
I take my turn looking inside. I see the burial wrappings lying there, the face cloth set off to the side. My confusion, fear and disappointment are not allayed, but they build to even greater heights. What is happening? Who has done this? As yet, I do not understand. I return home with the others.
And a little later, Mary comes in and says she has seen Jesus. I desperately want to believe her, but this is impossible. I watched Him die yesterday. She must be going mad in her grief. There is no way she could be telling the truth. She’s not lying, but she is too distraught to know what she is saying.
The day presses on and I do not know what to do with myself. I am lost without His guidance. I have not eaten, but I am not hungry. I am paralyzed by my grief, not interested in anything. Is this how it will be from now on? Will my life ever feel full or have purpose again? Evening comes on and I am gathered with my friends in the midst of a stifling sorrow. We sit and look at each other. No one knows what to say. The silence is oppressive.
And suddenly, despite the doors being locked, He is there! To say that we are glad is the greatest understatement in the history of Creation! He is there, standing amongst us, showing us His wounds and speaking to us!
There is no way to describe the astonishment and the joy!
You have to be there! You have to enter the scene!
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John Chapter 20, verses 21 and 22:
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
I hope you stayed in the scene long enough for Jesus to breathe on you. Could you imagine the risen Jesus being close enough to you that you physically feel His breath upon your face?
I also hope you are filled with joy at this very moment. If you aren’t, then go back to the beginning and read the introduction again and again until you are. If Jesus appearing to you in the room is not enough to make you joyful, then you better pray for the help of Thomas until you come around.
And finally, I hope that all the confusion, fear and disappointment engendered by His brief absence has departed from you, and that they have been replaced by the peace that comes from being in His presence along with the knowledge that you never have to worry about Him departing again. With His Resurrection, He has triumphed over death and thus He can and will always be there to guide you if you simply have enough humility to allow it.
Now is a good time to hearken back to the discussion on peace that took place in the reflection on chapter fourteen.
Remember that peace is essentially an internal quality. It is a grace that comes about when we embrace minority, conversion and penance with enough intention that our faces are turned toward Christ and we are united to Him. When we reject the world and embrace the gospels, we walk in His peace bestowing presence. If we were able to live flawlessly the message of the gospels we would be perfectly united to Christ, and that perfect unity would leave us in a state of pure peacefulness. This is what Jesus meant when He said “my peace I leave you.” The entirety of His gospel teaching is a pathway to peace.
Because of our human frailty, we cannot be flawless. We require assistance. Jesus, in His Wisdom, gives us (my peace I give you) the Holy Spirit to bolster our efforts. If we desire it, the Holy Spirit will assist us as we attempt to remember, understand and live the teachings of the gospels. He will help us to accomplish, as much as we are able, that perfect unity with Christ which translates into that state of pure peacefulness.
It is no accident that the ideas of peace, sending and the Holy Spirit are linked in these two verses. Jesus has reiterated his teaching from chapter fourteen by once again linking peace and the gift of the Spirit together. And then he has added as a necessary consequence of the possession of peace the requirement to go forth and share it. The most intense desire of Jesus is that He be united to every individual in this state of pure peacefulness that His coming made possible. We are meant to help Him achieve that.
Our calling, then, with the help and support of the Spirit, is to carry that peacefulness into the world. In the words of Francis, as quoted in the reflection on chapter fourteen, “let everyone be drawn to peace and kindness through your peace and gentleness.”
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The SFO Rule embraces completely this sending of the disciples by Jesus, making it a requirement of the Secular Franciscan life. The instruction to go forth is linked specifically to the act of profession in chapter two, article six:
…… they have been united more intimately with the Church by profession. Therefore, they should go forth as witnesses and instruments of her mission among all people, proclaiming Christ by their life and words.
And then the emphasis on peace as a primary part of our message is unmistakable in article nineteen:
Mindful that they are bearers of peace which must be built up unceasingly, they should seek out ways of unity and fraternal harmony ……..
The transition “therefore” is binding upon us, linking profession and going forth without question. It does not leave us with a choice. When we made our profession, we agreed to go forth and proclaim Christ, bearing the peace He offers as part of the deal.
If you are like me, the idea of going forth is intimidating. This is especially true when you are seeking to live a life of minority. There seems to be some inherent conflict there. If I am truly humble, how can I be worthy of proclaiming the peace of Christ to the world? And yet, that very humility is what makes me qualified and capable of doing the proclaiming. It is a mystery that causes me to doubt myself.
Think of the vast majority of people with public voices in our world today. They might be politicians, reporters, celebrities or even athletes who think that kneeling during the national anthem is appropriate. How many of them would you characterize as minor or humble? How many seem to be mostly concerned with forwarding their own worldly agenda?
How many are you attracted to in a way that makes you say I want to follow or be like that person?
How many would you characterize as messengers of peace?
I know that I live in a culture that is deeply divided. At least half of the strongest voices I hear are actively working against the things I believe in as a Franciscan. And then, in all honesty, when the ones I am inclined to agree with speak, I often find them unattractive. There is so much divisiveness in the messages of both sides that they all often appear ugly to me.
I think, after contemplating it, that this is because neither side ever speaks about peace, even in generic terms. The desire for peace is built into us, but no one is calling for us to gain peace. Instead they are calling us, always, to confrontation with those who are supposedly against and different from us. Or they are calling us to more and more worldliness in the pursuit of false happiness. They tear our peace from us for their own personal advantage in the pursuit of worldly power and/or material gain.
Who among them would offer a message of poverty, penance and humility and thus a message of true peacefulness and joy? Can you imagine them even thinking about the peace of Christ as they prepare their public pronouncements?
The Franciscan charism is desperately needed in the world today, just as it was in the time of Francis. I want so desperately to make a difference, to do something that will safeguard the future of my children.
But I am unsure how to proceed. So, as I must, I turn to Francis to see what insight he has to offer.
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In The Legend of the Three Companions, chapter eight describes the going forth of Francis. Francis is at Mass and he hears Christ instruct His disciples as He sends them out to preach. Francis conforms himself to the gospel by donning a “cheap and plain tunic and girding himself with a cord” and he sets out.
Applying all the care of his heart to observe the words of new grace as much as possible, he began, inspired by God, to be a messenger of evangelical perfection and, in simple words, to preach penance in public. His words were neither hollow nor ridiculous, but filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, penetrating the marrow of the heart, so that listeners were turned to great amazement.
As he later testified, he learned a greeting of this sort by the Lord’s revelation: “May the Lord give you peace!” Therefore, in all his preaching, he greeted the people at the beginning of his sermon with a proclamation of peace.
…….
Immediately, therefore, filled with the spirit of the prophets, the man of God, Francis, after that greeting, proclaimed peace, preached salvation, and, according to a prophetic passage, by his salutary admonitions, brought to true peace many who had previously lived at odds with Christ and far from salvation.
Of course “he learned a greeting of this sort by the Lord’s revelation.” He learned it directly in this chapter of the gospel. Both times that Jesus appeared to the disciples, the first thing He said was “Peace be with you.” Francis, as was his utmost and deepest desire, is imitating Jesus precisely by using this as his greeting.
He is also imitating Jesus by placing peace at the core of his message. If the gospels, in their entirety, constitute a pathway to peace, that makes the core of the entire message of Jesus an invitation to deep, personal peace. If Jesus was continually inviting all people everywhere to share in His peace, it is only natural that Francis make this the core of his own preaching.
Be sure to note that all three components of the gospel verses, the greeting of peace, the going forth, and the presence of the Spirit, are present and united in this story of Francis. As Francis goes forth, he greets his listeners with a message of peace, and as the passage declares, he does so while “filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
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In The Legend of the Three Companions, the next paragraph reads like this:
As both the truth of blessed Francis’ simple teaching as well as that of his life became known to many, two years after his conversion, some men began to be moved to do penance by his example and, leaving all things, they joined him in life and habit. The first of these was Brother Bernard of holy memory.
In Celano, The First Book, chapter ten, we hear this:
….., brother Bernard, embracing the delegation of peace, eagerly ran after the holy man of God to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.
As these passages make clear, the combination of the presence of the Spirit and the message of peace in Francis’ preaching is what makes Francis such a powerful figure. It might be tempting to say it is all the Spirit, but the message must be one in harmony with the Spirit, and spreading the good news of peace is one of the priorities assigned to the Spirit by Jesus. Thus the “delegation of peace” is instrumental in defining what Bernard found so attractive that he ultimately was willing to give up all his worldly possessions in order to follow Francis. Bernard (like all of us) was built to seek peace, and Francis capitalized on this part of his nature.
I asked earlier whether or not the voices of today are attractive to you? Do they inspire you to imitation as Jesus inspired Francis and as Francis in turn inspired Brother Bernard and all those who would follow after him? Or do they do the opposite?
It is clear that Jesus was a man who was attractive. People saw Jesus and thought, “There is something about Him. I am not sure what it is, but I want that for myself.” That something was the great sense of peacefulness that He exuded. Just as we find our peace in Him, He found His peace in God, and that bond between He and God caused Him to radiate a magnetism that people found irresistible. People were willing to set aside their entire lives in order to follow Him and be in His presence. They sought then and we seek now to imitate Him by following His teachings, frail and failing human beings that we are, in pursuit of His peace.
Francis is also clearly an attractive figure. Bernard was the first, but within a space of twenty years or so, Francis and his message of peace had attracted enough people that his movement became permanent. Eight hundred years later, he is still attracting people to his charism.
That all begins with his decision to go forth and preach a message of penance, Poverty and salvation that encourages a unity with Christ that can then be summarized in the word peace. The attractiveness of that gospel inspired message of peace is the reason that you and I are Secular Franciscans today. It secured the following that ultimately grew into the three orders of the Franciscan movement, which have sustained the message of Francis for all these years. If Francis chooses a different emphasis, he disappears from the pages of history and you and I might still be looking for that elusive something that no one else embodies quite the same way that Francis does.
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I would like to tell you that I can enter the scene of Francis’ preaching and understand the details of the attractiveness that he displayed. I would like to tell you that I know the secret to Francis’ success and that I am happy to share it with you right now so that you and I can preach peace as successfully as he did. I would like to insert some bullet points at this juncture that we all can follow as we go forth into the world and begin to attract converts just as Francis did.
I have tried to enter that scene and I have to admit that I failed. I can’t tell you how to go forth. All I can tell you is that when you do, carry peace with you if you want to be heard.
I think the main reason for this is that I am simply not ready yet. I have not achieved enough conversion or made enough progress to truly grasp the peace that Francis exuded as much by his presence as by his words. I have been graced enough to understand that profound peace through unity with Christ is possible, but I have yet to make true and meaningful progress as I work my way toward that goal. I am still too connected to the world, too ensconced in the habits of fifty plus years of secularity to be able to approach the holiness that Francis displayed as he preached.
I am not Francis, nor am I truly close to understanding and imitating him, let alone imitating Jesus.
But I do, at least, feel like I have a much clearer purpose now. When I started this journey through the gospel of John, this conception of peace through unity with Christ was not something I could have articulated. I would not have even been able to identify peace as the thing I longed for. I knew that I needed to draw closer to Jesus, but I did not know how to name that which I was seeking.
Now I can at least name what my conversion is pointed toward. That is an incredible grace in and of itself.
Thanks to both Jesus and Francis for bringing me this far.
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In closing, I want to share one more story with you about the going forth of Francis. In chapter fifteen of The First Book, Thomas of Celano tells us what the mature version of Francis’ preaching resulted in. I offer you this because I often get very discouraged about the current state of our culture and it is an expression of profound hope for the future.
This passage from Celano begins with the same combination of peace, going forth and Spirit as the gospel verses. He then goes on to give a very hopeful vision of what the Franciscan charism can accomplish when these things are properly employed in unison.
Francis, Christ’s bravest soldier, went around the cities and villages, proclaiming the kingdom of God and preaching peace and penance for the remission of sins, not in the persuasive words of human wisdom but in the learning and power of the Spirit. ……………… Men ran, women also ran,clerics hurried, and religious rushed to see and hear the holy one of God, who seemed to everyone a person of another age. People of all ages and both sexes hurried to behold the wonders which the Lord worked anew in the world through his servant. At that time, through the presence of Saint Francis and through his reputation, it surely seemed a new light had been sent from heaven to earth, driving away all the darkness that had so nearly covered that whole region that hardly anyone knew where to turn. Deep forgetfulness of God and lazy neglect of his commandments overwhelmed almost everyone, so that they could barely be roused from old, deep-seated evils. He gleamed like a shining star in the darkness of night, and like the morning spread over the darkness. Thus, in a short time, the appearance of the entire region was changed and once rid of its earlier ugliness, it revealed a happier expression everywhere. The former dryness was put to rout and a crop sprang up quickly in the untilled field. Even the uncultivated vine began to produce buds with a sweet-smell for the Lord, and when it had produced flowers of sweetness, it brought forth equally the fruit of honor and respectability. Thanks and the voice of praise resounded everywhere, as many,casting aside earthly concerns, gained knowledge of themselves in the life and teaching of the most blessed father Francis and aspired to love and reverence for their Creator.
There’s more if you want to seek it out. But I think this is enough to give you an idea of what a message of peace delivered with the aid of the Holy Spirit might accomplish in our culture.
The beginning of that effort is, of course, to repeat to you the greeting of Francis, and to encourage you to use it as often as possible by saying to everyone you meet,
“May the Lord give you peace!”
OFS Ongoing 