Our journey through the gospel of John has come to a conclusion.  Since there is no scripture to immerse myself in, I went back to the Introduction and used it as the material I prayed over this month. 

I still, however, used a similar approach.  I read the Introduction multiple times, allowing it to sink in.  I put myself in the scene to the extent that I tried to recall my frame of mind as I wrote that Introduction and prepared to make this Journey through John.  I also tried to let my own words narrow down as I read and reread.  Just as with the scripture, I tried to be aware of which words were speaking to me and then to focus in on those. (This approach to prayer works with any spiritual reading, not just scripture.)

That introduction took as its jumping off point two foundational statements directly from the OFS experience.  The first came from the binding text that every OFS speaks during Mass on the day of their profession:

I promise to live all the days of my life the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Secular Franciscan Order by observing its rule of life.

This professional statement directly commits the new OFS to obedience to the Rule moving forward, so it’s only natural that the second come directly from the Rule itself.  Because the gospel was our concern, it was article four of the Rule that made the most sense:

The rule and life of the Secular Franciscans is this: to observe the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by following the example of St. Francis of Assisi who made Christ the inspiration and the center of his life with God and people.

Christ, the gift of the Father’s love, is the way to him, the truth into which the Holy Spirit leads us, and the life which he has come to give abundantly.

Secular Franciscans should devote themselves especially to careful reading of the gospel, going from gospel to life and life to gospel.

The Introduction proposes to investigate the question begged by the first quotation, namely “how do I live all the days of my life the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ?”  Or, if you prefer the second quotation, “how do I go from gospel to life and life to gospel?”

But the intent was not to answer the question by argument or proof, but instead to seek an answer to the question by experiment, trial and error.  Rather than describing a method by which one should live, the reflections on each chapter attempt to actually do what the profession text and chapter four of the Rule require of us. 

They are an attempt at immersion in the gospel to such an extent that the gospel itself, even if in subtle rather than dramatic ways, becomes a vehicle for conversion in the life of the reader. 

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When I hearken back to my state of mind as this journey began, I have to confess to a bit of selfishness in my motivations.  During my own initial formation, and even after my profession, article four of the Rule was always tugging at my consciousness.  The phrase “gospel to life and life to gospel” was what defined the Franciscan charism for me.  I kept waiting for it to be explained more fully or to be acted upon more completely, but nothing ever quite met the depth of the hunger I was feeling.

When Dick McCloskey became ill and asked if I would stand in for him as Formation Director, this personal interest began to exert itself immediately.  A journey through a gospel with reference and links to the foundational documents of the Franciscan charism was, if you will, on my bucket list.  The desire to do this within the context of ongoing formation only intensified as my time as Formation Director unfolded. 

This meant using an actual gospel as formation material, so I proposed this to the council.  I was unaware of any existing materials that I could use to supplement this endeavor, but my prayer experience led me to believe that I could provide the material that was needed to make this work.  I thought that with the help of the Holy Spirit, I could lead a journey through a gospel that would be meaningful and useful to the fraternity.

But I have to confess that while there were times when I thought I was being called to this, there were also times when I thought this was just so much hubris.  To hearken back to Peter in the last chapter, there were times when I feared that my attempt at this would end with me looking extremely foolish. 

I have to thank the council for allowing me to make the attempt.  I do not know whether they thought this would work at the beginning, but they allowed me to try.  There was a time a couple chapters in when I got an email from Sister that said something like “now that’s the way it’s supposed to be done!”  I can’t express to you how much that meant to me.     

I also cannot express to you how much the kindness of the members of the fraternity has meant to me throughout this effort.  I have been told on more occasions than I can count that I was on the right track and that has meant the world to me.

It allowed me to continue forward with confidence that I was, at least in some small way, conforming myself to the Will of God.

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I hope every time someone said something nice to me about one of my reflections, I remembered to deflect the praise to the Holy Spirit.  I do sincerely believe that whatever I have accomplished in this, the accomplishment belongs to the Holy Spirit.  If I have a skill, it is not as a writer or as a developer of keen insights, it is in being open to wherever it was the Holy Spirit wanted to take me.     

It is extremely important to me that this be the emphasis of this Conclusion.  To whatever extent this endeavor has been a success, it is a success because God made it a success, not me.  All the glory and the praise and the thanks belong to Him.

I have, on several occasions, been told that what I did here was something that not everyone can do.  The reason it is so important to me that this be seen not as my accomplishment, but as God’s, is because that opens the door to everyone to do and experience what I have experienced during this journey.

I have been more than happy to share my reflections with you, and if those reflections were helpful in some way, then I am pleased about that as well.  But please understand that the purpose of the journey has not been for me to impart my wisdom to you.

The purpose is for you to learn how to open yourself within the context of your own life to the gospels and the Franciscan charism in such a way that the Holy Spirit also has room to work within you based on your own place, time and needs. 

The gospels have plenty of mystery associated with them, but when I think back over this experience, one thing is crystal clear.  Jesus loves us and wants us to know Him.  He experienced Incarnation, death on the Cross and everything in between so that we would come to know Him in ways that were otherwise impossible.  It makes no sense that my ability to glean insight from the gospels would be unique to me.  The Holy Spirit was sent to each of us, and the Holy Spirit will reveal the nature of Truth to each of us as we require it.

Thus, I will dispute to my dying breathe and beyond that I did something here that others cannot do.  Right now, through my words, the Spirit is calling you to the exact same thing He called me.  There are three more gospels that lie untouched by this experiment.  He wants you to pick up those gospels and read them.  As was noted in these reflections, the gospels are the peace that Jesus left us.  He wants us to know and love Him intimately, and the Spirit is the peace He gives to guide us through those gospels to that intimacy.

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If there is one single piece of advice for me to give based on my experience in writing this series of reflections, it is to be patient.

When I reread the introduction, the word that called to me the loudest was immersion.  

Because we have ongoing formation at our monthly meetings, I had a full month to be immersed in each chapter of John.  You should understand that there were times when it took most of that month for the reflection to emerge.  There were times when halfway through the month I thought I would not have anything to share for the next meeting.  I made sure to start reading for the next month almost immediately after finishing the last reflection.  I learned to do this right away because I found that it did take time for the message to emerge.  It did not jump out at me on the first, or second, or third readings. 

I would read the gospel chapter multiple times over the course of at least a week, if not longer.  It might take ten or twenty or more readings before a section of the story became preeminent.  And then it might take a few more readings before a specific verse or phrase within that section of the story became truly dominant.  And then it would take multiple more readings before the message of that single phrase became clear.  Interspersed with this was the research into the Franciscan sources.  When a phrase caught my attention I would take the verse, and the word or the person or the place and search through the index and read through what the references took me to. 

It was the coalition of all these things that ultimately led to the reflection.

But the key was time and patience.  If I had not had that month, I doubt that I could have had as much success as I did.

So, the best piece of advice I have to give on how to “live all the days of your life the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” or, if you prefer, how to “go from gospel to life and life to gospel,” is to exercise the patience and dedication that keeps you present to Jesus in the gospels over an extended period of time. 

Decide now that you are in it for the long term.  Make the commitment to immerse yourself each day in the presence of Christ the Truth as revealed in the gospels and do not be afraid to devote time to developing your relationship with Him.  What more important thing is there for you to do?  Let your worldly concern go, including the worldly concern that says you must have answers now and immediately.  Jesus does not experience time the way you do.  And to the extent He does experience time, He will react to you on His terms, just as He did in the last chapter with Peter.

Your responsibility is just to be there with Him, and to trust that He will reveal Himself when the time is right.  This is mostly a matter of persistence.  Pick another chapter from another gospel and stay with it for a week, or a month, or a year, however long it takes.  Don’t worry about results.  Just be with Him by reading it day after day.  When you experience distraction, reread the chapter or the passage or the verse to bring yourself back.  Do not become frustrated, just come back.  Allow the words of the gospel to work in you absent from any expectation at all.  Allow the words of the gospel to convert you in the way you pray from a person in a hurry to a person who loves to dwell in the presence of your Savior, all agendas aside. 

The time will come when you experience His presence.  After you have exhausted that encounter, go to the next chapter and repeat.  As your reps increase, you will discover that your relationship with the Spirit is progressing.  Your ability to be open has increased.  Your connection to Him has intensified.  The distractions never disappear, but you know how to come back to Him without guilt or frustration and thus the barriers associated with those negative emotions are broken down.

You come to believe that He is always there, always available to you, always present with you whenever you make yourself present to Him, even if it is just the quiet experience of sharing the same space together with nothing momentous to mark the time.

Eventually, He will become an old friend, one of those folks where communication does not require words or even thought.  Communication is simply intrinsic to the time you spend together, a given in your relationship.

When you reach that point, then you will know you have achieved conversion, and that an ever-deepening ongoing conversion through this ever-deepening relationship with Jesus is something attainable in your life.

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Please, please, please, above all else, do not allow the conclusion of this journey to be an end, but instead be determined to make it a beginning.  Whatever we have discovered together in this Journey through John, our efforts to know and emulate Jesus through Francis have not culminated, but only taken a small step forward.  Our human frailty remains, and it demands that we dedicate ourselves to the search for ongoing conversion in just the way your profession and your Rule require. 

We must, at all times, be seeking an ever-closer relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior through immersion in the life and peace that He reveals to us in the gospels.

This is what we promised to do the day of our profession.

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The final plea for your continued striving and conversion I will leave to Lady Poverty.  Here are excerpts from the final words she spoke to Francis and his company in the last chapter of The Sacred Exchange between Saint Francis and Lady Poverty.

She ordered all of them to be seated about her and spoke to them the words of life.  “You are blessed by the Lord God Who made heaven and earth, my sons (and daughters).  You who have received me into your home with such a fullness of charity that it seems to me that today I am with you as in God’s paradise.  I am, then, filled with joy…………I see what I have yearned for; what I have desired I now possess, for I am joined on earth to those who bear the image of Him to Whom I am espoused in heaven.

I ask and greatly beg you as dearly beloved children to persevere in what you have begun by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, not abandoning your perfection as is the custom of others.  After you have avoided all the snares of the dark, however, may you always strive for what is more perfect.  Your profession is very lofty.  It shines with a more brilliant light……….

Let there be no doubt about your possession of the kingdom of heaven.  Let there be no hesitation among you!  For you already possess a promise of a future inheritance and have received the pledge of the Spirit.  Signed with the seal of Christ’s glory, you respond in everything, by His grace, like those of that first school which He established upon coming into the world.  For what they did in His presence, you have thoroughly begun to do in His absence.  Isn’t it what you dare to say: ‘Behold we have left everything and followed you?’

Let the length of the race and the immensity of the labor not deter you for you will have a great reward.  While focusing on the author and goal of all good, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, after he condemned its shame, endured the cross for the sake of the joy that awaited Him, hold onto the unwavering confession of your hope.  Run in love to the race that is set before you.  Run with the patience which is especially necessary for you that, while you are doing God’s will, you may receive what is promised.  For God is able to bring to completion with joy what you have begun with His grace beyond your powers, because He is faithful to His promises………..

Therefore, I beg you, brothers (and sisters), through the mercy of God which has made you so poor, do that for which you have come, that for which you have risen up from the waters of Babylon.  Humbly receive the grace offered you.  Always use it worthily for the praise and glory and honor of Him who died for you, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.  Who lives and reigns, conquers and rules, with the Father and Holy Spirit, God eternally glorious, forever and ever.  Amen.

For this last chapter of the gospel of John, I once again found myself in the in-between time as I entered the scene.  By the end of chapter twenty, Jesus has appeared twice to the disciples.  In the second appearance, he deals directly with Thomas and his doubts.  What is missing, however, is any contact with Simon Peter.  Presumably Peter was present, but there is no discussion of any interaction specifically between Jesus and Peter.  If Jesus had forgiven Peter in either appearance, you would think John would mention it.

The context of chapter twenty one seems to confirm this hypothesis.  Make that assumption and put yourself in Peter’s place.  How frustrating would it be to have denied Jesus three times, to be truly repentant, to find yourself in the presence of the Risen Christ, and to not have the chance to reconcile with Him?  Peter testifies about Jesus in chapter twenty-one, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  If Peter believed this during the two appearances in chapter twenty and Jesus did not acknowledge him, how much guilt and doubt must Peter be carrying?

It’s easy to imagine that Peter has returned to his roots at the Sea of Tiberias, in Galilee, to gather himself.  When something negative happens in our lives, especially something monumentally negative, the natural instinct is to return to a place of comfort to deal with the crisis.  It’s even easy to imagine that the other disciples have traveled with Peter out of concern for his wellbeing.  Given what has happened, Peter’s despondency would have been hard to hide and his friends would have rightly been worried about him.

You can see this in verse three of the chapter.  Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.”  They said to him, “We will go with you.”  Peter doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he does something familiar.  His friends do not wish to leave him alone so they roll with the punches.  If he wants to go fishing, they will go fishing.  They have no luck, but perhaps that’s to be expected.  They might have been going through the motions of fishing, but their hearts and minds likely were focused on other issues given the events that have just taken place.

I have to admit that I do not have a confident explanation for Jesus’ motives.  Why wait?  Why not interact with Peter right away if it was still His intention to found the church upon him?  It’s one of those mysterious things that I cannot fathom, which also makes it one of those mysterious things where the only real choice is to trust His judgment.

I have similar experiences in my life.  There are times when my desire for Jesus is so intense it causes me to ache.  For His reasons, He chooses His own time to react to my need.  This scene in the gospel is perhaps a place of refuge for me in those dark times.  Whatever troubles me, it likely does not outdistance the doubt and fear that Peter experienced in this in between time.  For Peter, this was a time of cross bearing.  For me, it is the same.

Jesus knows how much I can bear and the benefits I will experience from the bearing, even if I cannot see them in the moment.  He chooses based on calculations I simply cannot comprehend.

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John Chapter 21, verse 7:

That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”  When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

Are you still with Peter in the scene?  Have you been experiencing his despondency this entire time?  As you dwelt in the in-between time, were you able to feel the fear and doubt associated with the possibility that you missed your chance and forgiveness may never come your way?

If so, can you empathize with Peter’s reaction to hearing that Jesus is once again available to him?  Can you feel a desire to be with Him so intense that the boat cannot hold you?  Are you unwillingly to wait even the few minutes that it will take to row the hundred yards to shore?  Will you jump into the sea in order to not be separated from Jesus for even a moment longer than you must?

It would be more convenient for me as a Franciscan if Peter had been clothed and disrobed before he jumped.  Then maybe I could draw a parallel between Peter and Francis in the scene with the Bishop and his father Pietro.  I could note how Peter stripped himself of all worldly raiment in his anxiousness to be closer to Christ and then observe how Francis did the same.

But this might be better.  Peter is a little out of his mind.  It makes no sense to cloth yourself just before you are about to jump into the sea.  All the clothing will do is weigh you down and make the swim to shore that much harder.  Peter wants so desperately to be with Jesus, but at the same time, there is this worldly concern about appearances that still lingers with him.  Peter remains so very human, and this is perhaps the last of what Jesus is looking to remake in him. 

Imagine Peter coming out of the water and Jesus looking at him with an unspoken expression that says, “Really?”  Perhaps Jesus then turns away to stir the coals in His fire, but really to laugh to Himself as Peter takes in the ridiculousness of what he has just done.  And perhaps, somewhere in that unrecorded moment, something clicks for Peter that allows him to recognize and shed his worldly attachments, thus clearing the way for Jesus to go forward with His plan.  Perhaps Jesus delayed precisely because He knew how this moment would unfold and what it would mean for Peter.     

Whatever the motivation of Jesus, it worked.  If you read ahead into the Acts of the Apostles, you will see that Peter has become grounded.  By the middle of chapter two, he is giving a sermon at Pentecost.  At the beginning of chapter three, he has healed a lame beggar with the name of Jesus and he is boldly preaching repentance in the Temple, which leads to his arrest (along with John) at the beginning of chapter four.  The powers that be are once again confounded, but they release the two of them because the people were praising God for what had happened.

And all of this is rooted, in some mysterious way, in the intense desire Peter demonstrates for Christ by his decision to jump into the sea.   

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There is a certain innocence, eagerness, and even foolishness that is present in the moment when Peter is standing on the shore of the sea, drenched to the bones, in all his clothes, in front of Jesus. 

In several of the chapters that have preceded this one, I have suggested to you the possibility that Francis read a particular passage of the gospel and acted directly because of it.  This scene is a little different.  I don’t think it likely that Francis took some direct action because he read about Peter jumping into the sea.  But I think, maybe in his later years, Francis could have looked back and recognized some kinship with Peter.

This is because Francis also carried a certain innocence, eagerness and even foolishness with him as his vocation and conversion got started. 

Think about this scene from chapter nine of The First Book of The Life of St. Francis by Celano:

One day the gospel was being read in that church about how the Lord sent out his disciples to preach.  The holy man of God, who was attending there, in order to understand better the words of the gospel, humbly begged the priest after celebrating the solemnities of the Mass to explain the gospel to him. When he heard that Christ’s disciples should not possess gold or silver, or money ……… the holy man, Francis, immediately exulted in the spirit of God.  “This is what I want,” he said, ……… The holy father, overflowing with joy, hastened to implement the words of salvation, and did not delay before he devoutly began to put into effect what he heard.  Immediately, he took off the shoes from his feet, ………

Note the eagerness being conveyed.  In one paragraph, the word “immediately” appears twice, along with the word “hastened,” and the phrase “did not delay.”  Compare that to the urgency that made Peter jump in the water as soon as he knew that Jesus was present.

Francis’ reaction to hearing Jesus say “go rebuild My house” is similar.  Celano describes it like this in chapter Six of the first book of The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul:

He does not forget to care for that holy image
nor hesitate to carry out the command.
He gives the priest money to buy a lamp and some oil,
lest the sacred image lack, even for a moment, the honor of light.
He then runs quickly to fulfill the rest,
working tirelessly to rebuild that church.
Although the divine word spoken to him
was really about the Church
which Christ acquired with His own blood,
he did not immediately reach that level,
but moved gradually from flesh to spirit.

Francis “does not hesitate.”  “He runs quickly to fulfill the rest,” and he “works tirelessly” at the task.  Again, the eagerness is present, but here we also see the innocence and foolishness front and center.  Francis misses entirely what Jesus is actually instructing him to do.  It takes a while before he figures out that it is not just the bricks and mortar of San Damiano that Jesus is telling him to rebuild, but the entire church.  Again, you can picture Jesus laughing to himself, knowing that Francis will get it eventually.

Perhaps this kinship between Francis and Peter reveals a little about the intent of Jesus in making Peter wait.  Remember that Jesus at one point tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Is it possible that in order for Peter to truly leave behind human things, the kind of human things that led to him denying Christ, he had to pass a foolishness test?

Only in doing something truly foolish in the eyes of the world, without an ounce of regret, can one be truly shed of worldly entanglement?  Maybe Peter was not qualified to lead the new church until he jumped out of that boat and then recognized his own foolishness as he stood in front of Jesus on the shore, soaking wet? 

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At this stage I want to hearken back to the reflection on chapter eight.  Article 12 of the SFO Rule was under consideration:

Witnessing to the good yet to come and obliged to acquire purity of heart because of the vocation they have embraced, they should set themselves free to love God and their brothers and sisters.

The discussion then was about freedom and Love.  Jesus said in the verse from that chapter, “anyone who sins is a slave to sin.”  The reflection concluded with the assertion that freedom is a pre-requisite of Love.  If we are not free, we cannot Love, and thus the ultimate purpose of Creation, the expansion of Love, cannot be fulfilled.

Peter, when he denied Christ, put himself in a state of sin.  He allowed worldly concern to undermine his relationship with Christ.  He might have rightly feared that the repercussions of admitting he was a disciple were life threatening, but even so, his denials were sins. 

In that state of sin, Peter was not pure of heart, nor was he free to love God as the Rule suggests. 

Recall that in the chapter Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”  Peter says yes three times and ultimately Jesus accepts his assertion.  If Peter is able to love Jesus at that time, he must have shed his state of sin in favor of a state of freedom.

I want to suggest to you that jumping in the sea was the action that took Peter from one state to the other.  This action, whether you want to call it innocent, or eager, or foolish, or any other word you might ascribe to it, was at its core a rejection of worldly concern.  No one caught up in the world would put their clothes on in order to jump in the sea.  In fact, they wouldn’t jump in the sea at all.  They would be too concerned about the danger of drowning, or catching cold, or the way others might react.

But when Peter took that action, none of those things crossed his mind.  His only concern, his only desire, was to be reunited with Jesus as quickly as possible, consequences be damned.  In that moment, he separated himself from the world in a way that became life changing, and in doing so, he gained a level of freedom that he had never possessed up until that point in time.  That freedom allowed him to answer with an honest “yes” when Jesus questioned him about his love. 

Now, recall the end of this section of the chapter.  Jesus tells Peter “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”  And John adds, in parentheses, “This He said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.”

During the Passion, Peter sinned against Jesus by denying Him because he was afraid of the “kind of death” that might result.  Jesus has now informed him that he is going to experience that kind of death anyway.  This time Peter does not shy away.  He does not sin and deny Jesus again.  Instead, as Jesus requests, he “follows Him” despite being told of the hard outcome that awaits him.  He now belongs to Jesus completely, even to the point that he is willing to give up his life for Him if that is what his commitment requires.

The freedom to love and follow Jesus without reservation empowers Peter completely.  He is only able to preach, and to heal, and to defy the Jewish powers that be because he is no longer a slave to sin, but instead free in the Truth and Love that is Christ.

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Francis was similarly empowered by his innocence and eagerness and foolishness and the freedom they engendered.  Recall this scene, referenced above, from chapter six of The First Book of The Life of St. Francis by Celano:

When he was in front of the bishop, he neither delayed nor hesitated, but immediately took off and threw down all his clothes and returned them to his father.  He did not even keep his trousers on, and he was completely stripped bare before everyone.

If you can, think back to the very first time you heard this story.  Did Francis’ actions seem entirely foolish to you?  Did you think to yourself, I would never do that?  If you are honest with yourself, is your first reaction to Peter jumping out of the boat the same?  Is that something you could never see yourself doing? 

It’s hard to imagine anyone less concerned with the opinions of others than Francis was in this moment.  His conversion to a life of Spiritual Poverty represented a total rejection of worldly concern and this was his public affirmation of his intent.  Just as it did for Peter, the conversion of Francis moved him from a place of sinfulness to a place of freedom.  Francis, like Peter, became a gifted preacher and a person capable of miraculous healings.  Peter led the church at its founding.  Francis was called to lead the rebuilding of a church that was, to quote Jesus on the San Damiano crucifix, “all being destroyed.” 

Different men for different times, but definitely kindred spirits both empowered by the freedom that comes from rejecting the world in favor of loving Christ in a way that the world can only see as foolish.

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The question that confronts me now is how to live into this?

If I am a follower of Francis, and Francis is marked by such a love for Christ that he tosses aside worldly concern to do the Will of God without a second thought, how do I respond in similar fashion?

Am I willing to do the equivalent of “throwing myself into the sea” or “stripping myself completely bare” in public in order to confirm the preeminence of Christ in my life?

We have come to the end of the gospel of John.  There will be one more reflection in the form of a conclusion to bring things full circle.  We can revisit what we set out to do at the beginning, summarize the major themes that emerged, and talk about how to stay emerged in the gospels going forward.

But when I look at the questions above, I have to acknowledge that, at least for me, I have a long way to go.  I can affirm to you that I have never come close to throwing myself in the sea or stripping myself bare in public.  Nor do I feel particularly ready to do such things despite the many graces that came to me during this Journey through John.

I have to confess that at the end I do not see myself as appreciably more disconnected from the world than I was when I started.  I am more aware of what Jesus taught about worldliness and the need for separation, but to truly achieve results would require a change in lifestyle that I am not sure how to achieve given the perceived constraints of my secular life.

It’s curious and interesting and mysterious that the end has turned out to be no end at all.  This last reflection has not tied things up neatly, but instead resulted in questions that I am feeling unprepared to deal with.  

But I suppose that is, in and of itself, a Franciscan outcome.  Article seven of the Rule does say this:

United by their vocation as “brothers and sisters of penance,” let them conform their thoughts and deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel itself calls conversion.  Human frailty makes it necessary that this conversion be carried out daily.

I still need a tremendous amount of interior change in my life before I am ready to jump out of boats or strip myself bare on the square.  My frailty remains ascendant in my life.  As a Franciscan, I must acknowledge that my conversion will likely never be complete.  There will always be unanswered questions and goals that require my daily attention.

But perhaps words like penance, radical, conversion and frailty suggest a little about what the next topic in formation wants to be if I am to continue to progress toward the goal of “perfect Christian love” that I undertook on the day of my profession.   

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Perhaps, as I come to the end of this Journey thru John, it is appropriate to revisit all the words of beginning that I spoke on the day I made my profession:

     I, Timothy Short,
     by the grace of God,
     renew my baptismal promises
     and consecrate myself to the service of His Kingdom.

     Therefore, in my secular state
     I promise to live
     all the days of my life
     the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
     in the Secular Franciscan Order
     by observing its Rule of life.
     May the grace of the Holy Spirit,
     the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary
     and our holy father St. Francis,
     and the fraternal bonds of community
     always be my help,
     so that I may reach the goal
     of perfect Christian Love.

That goal of “perfect Christian Love” is eternal. 

Peter strove for it.  Francis strove for it.  All those who achieved the honorific of Saint throughout history strove for it.  In order to achieve that goal, they “set themselves free to love God.” (Again, Article 12 of the Rule, above.)  To become “pure of heart,” they abandoned all their worldly concerns in order to be free and thus able to love God wholeheartedly. 

For me to do the same, I must embrace the work of Penance and Spiritual Poverty, which ask me to turn my face completely and unconditionally toward God, leaving all earthly worry behind, just as Peter and Francis and all the Saints did.  To the extent that I succeed, the conversion I experience will be radical, capable of empowering me to overcome the frailty of my human condition.

My embrace of Penance and Spiritual Poverty is likely to be incomplete.  Therefore, it is necessary to pursue these principles daily.  Peter and Francis both went through long periods of doubt and distraction before they ultimately succeeded in their quest to make Penance and Poverty integral to their daily lives.  All Saints have lived through such experiences in the pursuit of this goal of “perfect Christian Love.”  (If you doubt it, read The Confessions of Saint Augustine!)

Worldly authority will inevitably see this pursuit as foolish.  “Such a goal is simply unattainable!  It is too hard!  It is impossible!  It cannot be done!  Think of all the good you can do if you master the ways of the world!  You are powerful!  You possess the wisdom and strength to embrace the world and serve God at the same time!  It is better to focus on life in this world, enjoying what this world has to offer while you can!  Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil!  You will not surely die!”   

Worldly influence did everything it could to distract and dissuade Peter and Francis and all the other Saints from their goal.  There is no reason to think it will not do the same with me.     

Above I asked, how do I live into the example of foolishness that Peter and Francis set for me?

The gospels, in their entirety, are meant to teach me the courage it takes to embrace that foolishness.  They are meant to teach me that in the end the foolishness of the Saints is not foolishness at all, but instead it’s very opposite.  The foolishness of the Saints is Wisdom.     

Do I have the strength and the courage to accept that Truth and live into it?

Do I have the strength and courage to “jump in” and follow not the foolishness, but the Wisdom of Peter and Francis as this Journey thru John concludes and I determine how to take the next steps of my spiritual development?

In chapter nineteen, we encounter the climactic scene of the gospels, Jesus crucified upon the Cross.  Up until now, entering the scene has been a suggestion.  Hopefully your best efforts have been successful and helped you to be present with Jesus as He moved through His public ministry.  Hopefully your ability to enter the scenes has steadily improved as you journeyed with Jesus toward this ultimate scene.  Hopefully that improvement has deepened and enriched the experience of being immersed in the gospel narrative.

But for Franciscans, entering the scene of the Crucifixion is mandatory.  We believe gazing upon the Cross is a primary way of encountering Jesus and deepening our connection to Him.  We are meant to spend meaningful time in prayer and contemplation before the Cross, taking in everything it has to teach us. 

On the Cross, Jesus is a flawless sacrifice for the sins of every man and woman who has ever existed, which makes Him an infinite expression of uncompromising Love.  On the Cross, Jesus combines perfect obedience and Kingship and becomes the faultless servant of God His Father, and we, His brothers and sisters.  On the Cross, Jesus is an impeccable expression of Poverty, stripped both literally and figuratively of all earthly raiment and at the same time completely triumphant over all earthly care, seamlessly joined to the Will and Love of His Father in heaven.

We know that one of Francis’ main conversion experiences happened before the San Damiano Crucifix.  Thomas of Celano, in book six of The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, describes that event like this:

He was walking one day by the church of San Damiano, which was abandoned by everyone and almost in ruins.  Led by the Spirit he went in to pray and knelt down devoutly before the crucifix.  He was shaken by unusual experiences and discovered that he was different from when he entered.  As soon as he had this feeling, there occurred something unheard of in previous ages: with the lips of the painting, the image of Christ crucified spoke to him.  “Francis,” it said, calling him by name, “go rebuild My house: as you see, it is all being destroyed.”  Francis was more than a little stunned, trembling, and stuttering like a man out of his senses.  He prepared himself to obey and pulled himself together to carry out the command.  He felt this mysterious change in himself, but he could not describe it.  So it is better for us to remain silent about it too.  From that time on, compassion for the Crucified was impressed into his holy soul.  And we honestly believe the wounds of the sacred Passion were impressed deep in his heart, though not yet on his flesh.

By our profession, we have obligated ourselves to follow the footsteps of Francis in this.  We believe the Spirit leads us just as it led Francis to gaze upon the Crucifix as a regular part of our prayer life.  We hope to be shaken by unusual experiences before the Cross.  We want Jesus to speak to us, if not out loud, at least in our hearts.  We long to experience the same mysterious conversion that Francis experienced.  We want desperately to have the wounds of the sacred Passion impressed deeply upon our hearts.

We place ourselves in the scene of the Crucifixion anticipating that these things will happen to us.

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John Chapter 19, verse 19:

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put in on the cross.  It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

In the first half of this chapter, there is an interesting contrast between the suffering of Jesus and His status as “King of the Jews.”  In the first verse, Jesus is flogged.  In the second and third verses, the soldiers crown Him with thorns and dress him in purple.  They then mock Him as “King of the Jews” and strike Him across the face.

I would like to put the possibility in front of you that the soldiers, in their actions, are truly crowning Jesus even though their intent is to humiliate Him.  The abuse that Jesus suffers at the hands of the Romans constitutes His worldly coronation.  God uses the Romans for His own purposes to present us with a very new and different image of what it means to be a proper King.  A King is not someone who is exalted, but instead someone who deliberately leaves His heavenly thrown in order to experience what His people experience.  He does not avoid the hardship of everyday life, but instead He shares in the suffering of His subjects.  He does not even understand His subjects to be subjects, but instead He sees them as friends and is willing to lay down His life in service to them.     

In our experience, an inauguration is a very earthly event, full of pomp and circumstance.  The new leader and all his guests are dressed in their finest clothes, they eat the finest food, and they drink the finest wine while attending a banquet that none of us are invited to attend.  Grand speeches are made and concerts are given in celebration of the new leader.  The paparazzi are present in every nook and cranny, documenting the scene in every way possible, so that the media can make the event ever larger in the eyes of our earth-centric culture.  

But we have learned as we have journeyed through the gospel of John that a primary part of the message of Jesus is the rejection of these earthly trappings.  Jesus gives us an example of Poverty to follow, not an example of indulgence.  His Kingdom is not of this earth.  It would be inappropriate for His coronation to be filled with material, earthly accoutrements.  By enduring suffering for the sake of His unfathomable Love for us, Jesus has made an indisputable claim to the title of King.  He has earned His title in a way that no earthly King ever could.  

In verse 14, Pilate says to the Jews, “Behold your King.”  In verse 15, he asks, “Shall I crucify your King?”  The Jews will not relent, so despite his acknowledgement of Jesus as King, Pilate delivers Him over to be crucified. 

In essence, Pilate introduces the new King to the people and the coronation ceremony ends when Jesus is handed over.  Now the King will go about the business of governing.  The King will lead his people, but not in any way they might expect.  He will not exercise power, but instead he will govern by perfect example.  His reign, at least the earthly portion of it, will not be long, but it will be long enough for Him to teach a most powerful eternal lesson about selflessness, obedience, service and Love.  The lesson is so powerful that the world has never forgotten it and His Kingship has endured forever.     

After declaring Jesus to be “the King of the Jews” in the verses above, Pilate, in verse 19, places that title on the top of the cross.  This upsets the Jews, and they ask that it be taken down or amended.  In response, Pilate finally stands his ground.  At verse 22, he declares “I have written what I have written.”

Pilate has come to the conclusion that Jesus truly is the King of the Jews.  His unwillingness to change the sign he ordered mounted to the Cross is his confession of this conclusion.  Despite ordering and allowing the suffering of Jesus, in the end, Pilate stands as a witness to who Jesus truly is.   

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The Kingship of Jesus is different than our earthly perception of kingship.  His willingness to experience the Incarnation, to meet us on our own ground, to become man and to suffer as man suffers, breaks down the kind of barriers that exist between an earthly king and his subjects.  Thus, while we acknowledge Jesus as Christ the King on one hand, we also experience Him as brother and friend on the other in a way we never would the President or the Queen of England. 

Jesus has established a measure of equality with us.  We don’t aspire to be His equal in His role as our Lord and Teacher, but we do want to emulate Him in the areas of our life where we can.  The measure of equality given to us by Christ as He shares in our suffering makes that emulation feasible.  If He were only King, then we could not hope to be like Him.  But when He chooses to embrace Poverty as part of His Incarnation, He becomes our brother and draws close enough to us and experiences enough of our same experiences that we can hope to emulate that side of His example.

It’s easy to embrace the idea that we should love one another as Jesus loves us.  It’s not easy to actually do, but we can at least readily embrace the idea without reservation. 

We also, with the help of our formation, accept the need to embrace His Spiritual Poverty.  Again, it’s not easy to enact.  But with the support of the Spirit and the fraternity, we find ourselves able to profess the intent to live a life that includes Franciscan Spiritual Poverty as an ideal.

But what about suffering?  Can I accept the suffering in my life without reservation?  If I look again through the Passion of Jesus, am I even willing to acknowledge that suffering is a preeminent and necessary component of His coronation?  What about His ability to endure the pain of the Cross as the cost of perfectly enacting His Kingship? 

Am I ready to accept suffering and pain as a preeminent and necessary component of the equality that Jesus has graced me with?  Can I accept them as central to my ability to emulate both Francis and Christ?

Francis struggled with this himself.  But just as Jesus was present to him at the San Damiano crucifix, He was also present to him when Francis faced this hurdle.

This story about Francis and his illnesses is given to us in The Assisi Compilation, chapter eighty-three:

One night as blessed Francis was reflecting on all the troubles he was enduring, he was moved by piety for himself.  “Lord,” he said to himself, “make haste to help me in my illnesses, so that I may be able to bear then patiently.”  And suddenly he was told in spirit:  “Tell me, brother, what if, in exchange for your illnesses and troubles, someone were to give you a treasure?  And it would be so great and precious that, even if the whole earth were changed to pure gold, all stones to precious stones, and all water to balsam, you would still hold these things as nothing, as if they were earth, stones and water, in comparison to the great and precious treasure which was given you.  Wouldn’t you greatly rejoice?”

“Lord,” blessed Francis answered, “this treasure would indeed be great, worth seeking, very precious, greatly lovable and desirable.”

“Then, brother,” he was told, “be glad and rejoice in your illnesses and troubles, because as of now, you are as secure as if you were already in my kingdom.”

The next morning on rising, he said to his companions:  “If the emperor were to give a whole kingdom to one of his servants, shouldn’t he greatly rejoice?  But, what if it were the whole empire, wouldn’t he rejoice even more?”  And he said to them, “I must rejoice greatly in my illnesses and troubles and be consoled in the Lord, giving thanks always to God the Father, to His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit for such great grace and blessing.  In His mercy He has given me, His unworthy little servant still living in the flesh, the promise of His kingdom.”

Note, first of all, that Francis is called brother on two occasions.  Here is the measure of equality that I was speaking of above.  Brothers can do the same things and share the same experiences.  That is not true of earthly kings and their subjects. 

Then note the phrase, “my kingdom.”  Who, I ask you, can grant passage into “His kingdom” other than the King? 

Jesus here is represented simultaneously in both his role as brother and as King.  

And what is it that links the two together but suffering?  Jesus, in the gospel of John, is established as King in the midst of the Passion, in the midst of His suffering.  That suffering is integral to his identity as King and Lord.  That suffering makes Him the proper “not of this world” loving servant King that He was born to be.

That suffering also defines Him as man and brother.  He suffers as Francis suffers.  Jesus willingly bore His suffering in order to fulfill the Will of God and He invites Francis to do the same.  When Francis willingly accepts the burden of suffering that Jesus requests of him, he unites himself to Jesus.  In the process, he gains access to the Kingdom. 

Francis was able to accept the burden of suffering without losing his sense of joy.  Recall again the Franciscan definition of true joy that we have already discussed in multiple places, especially chapters three and twelve.  This joyful acceptance of suffering as the opportunity to be united to the Passion of Christ results in Francis emulating Jesus precisely. 

And it would seem that Jesus likes the company of those who are willing to emulate His suffering.  He likes their company enough that He is willing to promise entry into His Kingdom as their reward. 

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Francis is not alone in receiving the promise of the Kingdom in exchange for enduring tribulation.  In chapter 5 of The Deeds of Blessed Francis and His Companions, we are given this story about Brother Bernard:

It happened that one day while Francis was praying, it was revealed to him that Brother Bernard with the permission of God was being attacked by many fierce devils.  While Saint Francis with a compassionate heart was pondering over these things concerning such a beloved son, he tearfully prayed for many days and asked our Lord Jesus Christ to give him victory over so many assaults.  And during this prayer while Francis was ever alert, troubled, and attentive, he received an answer from God:  “Brother, never fear.  All the temptations by which Brother Bernard is being assailed were given to him for the purpose of improvement and a crown, and at the end of all these attacks on him he will joyously carry off the palm of victory.  Brother Bernard is one of those who will eat at the same table with God in his kingdom.” 

Again, note that Francis is called “brother” by the Lord. 

And note that the tribulations that Brother Bernard is experiencing are done with the permission of God.  These temptations were given to Bernard.  It’s hard to think of being attacked by fierce devils as a gift, but this seems to be the case.  They are a gift that allows Brother Bernard the opportunity to share in the coronation of Christ by uniting his tribulations to the suffering of Jesus.  They even share a purpose according to the description.  Jesus, at the end of his trials, manifests the mantel of Kingship.  Bernard endures his devils for the purpose of a crown.

I think it’s safe to assume that Bernard, following the example of Francis, willingly accepted these trials.    And in the end, like Francis, Bernard winds up joyous.     

And also, like Francis, Bernard’s reward for victory over these tribulations and temptations is a seat at the table of God in his Kingdom.  Francis was given the promise of the Kingdom in exchange for enduring his illnesses.  Brother Bernard has received the exact same promise in exchange for enduring his trials.

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In the end, the promise of the Kingdom is made to all faithful Franciscans.  In the prologue to The Book of Chronicles or Of the Tribulations of the Order of Lesser Brothers, we find this reference to the promise of the Kingdom:

You and all your brothers whom I will give you are to live in My likeness, as strangers and pilgrims, dead to the world.  Ground yourself, your rule and life on the poverty and nakedness of My cross, because My substance of all communicable riches of graces and glory is grounded and based on poverty, and the infinite blessed enjoyment of all My goods is possessed in striving toward My humility.  For the depth of humility is immense, and in those who truly love and possess poverty and humility is the look of My happiness and the resting place and dwelling of My favor.

Therefore the congregation of your brotherhood will be called the religion of lesser ones, so that from the name they might understand that above all they are truly to be humble of heart; since humility is the cloak of My honor and praise, and anyone passing from this life with this habit will find the gates of My kingdom open.

The Poverty of the Cross is established by the suffering of Jesus throughout His Passion.  His acceptance of the Will of the Father is an act of profound humility that graces the path to Golgotha.  We are called to ground ourselves in the “Poverty and nakedness of the Cross.”  As with Brother Bernard, the hardships we encounter are to be looked upon as gifts from God, as opportunities for Poverty and humility, as opportunities to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and Francis and Bernard by uniting our sufferings and tribulations to those of Christ’s Passion. 

When we possess Poverty and humility, we gain His happiness.  We remain joyous despite the trials we might have to endure.

The reward for being able to embrace this Poverty, this suffering and this humility are the open gates of the Kingdom.  The King has promised us entry into the Kingdom in exchange for a life lived as lesser ones, as those who embrace the Poverty and humility of the Cross and the Passion of the Lord.

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As he prays before the San Damiano crucifix, the wounds of the sacred Passion are impressed deep in the heart of St. Francis.  Francis feeds that impression resolutely until the wounds become so much a part of him that they are manifested externally in the form of the stigmata.  Francis is perhaps the greatest emulator of Christ who has ever lived.  And his earthly reward is to physically endure the wounds of the Passion.

It’s not what you would expect.  How is it that such perfect worship leads to such suffering? 

But the coronation of Jesus is also not what you would expect.  Jesus is following the Will of God precisely, and He winds up flogged, wearing a crown of thorns and nailed to the Cross, and thus is His Kingship revealed.  Again, the earthly reward for perfect worship is physical suffering.

Bernard endures fierce devils in order to secure his entry into the Kingdom.  As a Franciscan, I am asked to embrace Poverty and humility, to embrace my own version of the Cross as closely as possible, in order that the gates of heaven might be opened to me.  Even if I lived out my profession perfectly, I should not expect to be exempt from earthly suffering.

But the key is in the word “earthly.”  The suffering is all confined to the earth.  The true reward, the true goal, is the promise of the Kingdom.  When the promise of the Kingdom is fulfilled, the earthly suffering disappears, is easily forgotten and comes to nothing more than a passing inconvenience.

Our goal as Franciscans is to emulate Jesus as closely as we can, to draw as close to Him as possible. 

We should not be surprised, then, that we are asked to share in His suffering.  His suffering is integral to who He is.  If we are to become like Him, our experience would be incomplete if we did not share in His Passion in some way. 

But our joy comes from knowing that He is triumphant.  His suffering ends and His victory is eternal.  If we manage to secure the promise of the Kingdom, we will get to spend all of eternity with Him not in a state of earthly suffering, but in a state of eternal bliss.

As I live out my life on this earth, I find myself in a state of constant distraction.  The enemy does everything he can to keep my focus on only the short term, on only the conditions that I am currently experiencing.  He wants me to see my suffering not as an opportunity, but as the only reality I will ever know.  He wants me to get lost in my suffering.  He wants my suffering to consume me and blind me to any possibility that everything will end up ok.  He wants my suffering to bring me down to such a level that all I can do is rebel against it, unable to embrace it as the link to Jesus that it truly is. 

He wants me to remain oblivious to the promise of the Kingdom that awaits me at the end of my tribulations.

Jesus wants me to understand that the suffering of the world is necessary but temporary.  As we read through the accounts of His Passion in the various gospels, we are horrified by what He had to endure.  But what He endures is over in a day.  In only three days’ time, He is raised from the tomb.  A short time after that, He ascends into heavenly blessedness to take His place at the right hand of the Father.

Even if I am asked to suffer for years at the end of my life before I am taken home, those years will seem to be only a day when looked at in retrospect.  When compared to all of eternity, even a lifetime of suffering would be over in the blink of an eye.  Suffering, no matter how severe, is temporary.  It will pass.    

Even in the midst of suffering, Jesus is there to comfort me.  He knew that I would have to endure the trials of an earthly life.  Therefore, He made the decision to do the same.  He is my King, but he is also my brother.  He knows and understands what it means to suffer as a human being, and thus He possesses the ability to shepherd me through any hard times I encounter. 

But even more importantly, as the King, He has the ability to guarantee me entry into the Kingdom that is not of this world, His eternal Kingdom where suffering is no longer present, no longer possible.

The promise of the Kingdom is eternal bliss.  Suffering is nothing more than a bump on the road that leads to that bliss.

I will suffer gladly, even joyfully, knowing that the doors of the Kingdom are open to me as a result.

As chapter eighteen unfolds, we find ourselves journeying with Jesus toward the Cross.  The scenes become familiar and hopefully easier to enter.  In this chapter alone, we have Jesus confronting the soldiers in the garden, Jesus being questioned by the high priest, Peter making his denials and Jesus being questioned by Pontius Pilate.  These next chapters of John, along with the sister versions from the other gospels, are read every year during Lent.  We participate in the readings as “the crowd.”  We are exposed to these scenes more often than any others in our liturgical life and thus we should be more readily present in them than any others.

In a moment, I will begin my regular pattern of picking a verse and reflecting on it.  I will again draw connections between the gospel, the SFO rule and the source material on Francis in an effort to deepen my understanding of the Franciscan charism. 

But before I do that, I just want to remind and encourage you to not just follow along with me, but to make your own meditation and investigation.  While I am happy to share my experiences with you, please recall that the ultimate goal of this Journey through John is for you to have your own individual experiences based on your own individual state of mind as you encounter each chapter of the gospel.  These scenes, because they are so familiar, should be the most accessible. 

If you have been reluctant to step out on your own, or if your success has been limited in the past, try anew with this chapter.  These scenes, if you are patient with them, will undoubtedly speak to you.  There is just too much here for them not to.  Take your time.  Read the entire chapter multiple times.  Become aware of the particular verse that is speaking to you, that is demanding your attention more than the others.  It might jump out at you, or it might be a subtle tug.  If you are lacking confidence, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.  Take whatever time you need to become fully engaged. 

Then make an extra effort to be present at the verses you choose.  See the soldiers fall to the ground in awe when Jesus declares “I am!”  See Jesus as he is struck in the face for the truthful answer he gave Annas.  Take on the persona of Peter as he is questioned by the servants.  Stand right there during the exchange between Jesus and Pilate. 

Shout with the crowd for the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus.  Make yourself really present and experience the pain that your hindsight gives you.  How could you ever ask for God to be crucified?  How, in the past few days, have you done the same without realizing it?  Be honest with yourself.  Recognize your sinfulness.  Recognize the shout in it.

Have your own experience before you move forward to share mine.

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John Chapter 18, verses 37 and 38 (partials):

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked.

Pilate is a fascinating character.  I am always drawn to him whenever I encounter these gospels.  He had the chance to change it all.  He knew that Jesus was innocent.  He attempts to exempt himself from blame for anything that happens to Jesus.  But even so, he knows that attempt to be wrong.  He has the power to stop the Crucifixion but he is not politically skilled enough to wield it, so the Jews get to proceed with what they want.  He must have been haunted by Jesus for the rest of his life.

Pilate is undoubtedly an ambitious man who is frustrated by his posting to the relative backwater of Jerusalem.  He is far from the seat of power while also living amongst the most contentious of the Roman subjects.  Keeping the Jews under control is a thankless job.  Very little reward for lots of potential trouble.

His reaction to Jesus embodies this position.  His reaction is wholly practical.  It has nothing to do with higher concepts like the moral difference between right and wrong.  He is driven entirely by his concern about what his decision will mean for his relationship with the Jewish leadership and his career.  They have manipulated him into being the bad guy.  They know it and he knows it, but despite the knowledge, he is unable to find a way out of his predicament.  No matter how much he might want to free or protect Jesus, the politics of the situation simply won’t allow it.  His power is hollow.  In the end, he acquiesces for very worldly reasons because he is unwilling to deal with the ramifications of holding his ground.

Again, the theme of world as negative surfaces.

When I enter this scene, this line from Pilate embodies all his frustration and failure.  He is asking a rhetorical question, but that question signifies his firm residence in the world.  From his perspective, all truth is relative.  Pilate might have been an idealist at some point in his life, but he lost those ideals along the way of pursuing political, worldly power.  When I see him utter this question, I see his resignation and hopelessness.  He is a beaten man, not just in this scene, but in his larger life.  Despite his lofty position, he remains frail, weak and very human and he did not expect that to be the outcome of his life.  He thought he would be in control, he knows he’s not, and that lack of control has defeated him.

His assertion that all truth is relative is amazing considering the circumstances.  Pilate is literally standing and conversing with the embodiment of eternal, unchangeable Truth.  And not only is he standing with that Truth, but that Truth has just openly declared and revealed itself to him.  Read the verses again, but read them in reverse order.  Pilate asks “What is truth?”  Then Jesus answers by saying in effect, “I am Truth.” 

And He does so in the context of what should be Pilate’s wheelhouse, in the context of kingship.  If anything should get the attention of someone concerned with power like Pilate, it should be a discussion about the nature of kingship.  But when Jesus declares that a King is not concerned with worldly power but with Truth, that definition of kingship is so foreign to Pilate that he immediately dismisses it.  This is why Jesus asserts that His Kingdom is not of this world.  A worldly king seeks worldly power, but a person of genuine, lasting power builds his power on the foundation of Truth.  Jesus has invited Pilate to reconsider his understanding of Truth and power, but Pilate is so preoccupied with his worldly concerns that he misses the invitation completely.              

The answer to every worry and concern that Pilate has is standing in front of him.  Pilate is frustrated by his lack of worldly power and control.  Jesus reveals to him why he is a beaten man.  If Pilate would have let go of his worldly preconceptions, he would have seen Jesus for who He is, God and Truth.  That knowledge had the power to set him free from his immediate predicament with the Jews and from all the failures of his life.  The answer that Pilate needs, the answer that would make him whole again, is to reject worldliness and embrace Spiritual Poverty and minority.  But Pilate is so preoccupied and so far gone that he never actually hears Jesus, let alone understands Him. 

If you look at Jesus in the scene, he would be bemused if not for what He is about to face.  You could almost see Him smirking and shaking his head at Pilate as the entire lesson passes him by.

He might wink at you if the stakes weren’t so high.

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The Prologue to the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order, also known as the Exhortation of Saint Francis to the Brothers and Sisters in Penance, has two chapters.  The first describes the rewards of those who do Penance.  The second describes the woe awaiting those who do not.  The second chapter begins as if it is written directly to Pilate:

But all those men and women who are not doing penance……..and live in vices and sin and yield to evil concupiscence and to the wicked desires of the flesh, ……… and are slaves to the world, in their bodies, by carnal desires and the anxieties and cares of this life:  These are blind, because they do not see the true light, our lord Jesus Christ: they do not have spiritual wisdom because they do not have the Son of God who is the true wisdom of the Father.  Concerning them, it is said, “Their skill was swallowed up” ………  They see and acknowledge, they know and do bad things and knowingly destroy their own souls.

Pilate, with his overarching desire to placate the leadership of the Jews in order to avoid worldly tension at all costs, is being governed by “the anxieties and cares of this life.”  He is “enslaved by carnal desires” to the point that he cannot exercise his power wisely and effectively.  His “skill has been swallowed up.”  He has yielded to the strongest “desire of his wicked flesh,” the need to maintain and/or increase his worldly position.  Not even the life of an innocent man can stand in the way of this desire.  He would rather sacrifice that innocent life than risk what it would take to protect it.

As a result, he is “blind.”  Jesus, knowing his need, has presented him with the Truth and a way out.  But Pilate “does not see the true light of Jesus.”  He is stuck because he “does not have spiritual wisdom, the Son of God who is the true wisdom of the Father.”  His blindness is so complete that even with Truth and Wisdom standing righting in front of him, openly declaring itself to him, he cannot see it.  This is the power and danger of carnal, worldly desire in all its forms.  It literally makes us unable to recognize the Truth and Wisdom of Christ no matter how plainly it is presented to us.

Pilate “sees and acknowledges” the innocence of Jesus.  But even so, he is so tightly enslaved that he still “knows and does bad things.”  At the risk of bestowing judgement which is not mine to name, he “knowingly destroys his own soul” by not interceding on behalf of Jesus.  (Perhaps, in the end, he was haunted enough by the memory of Jesus that he repented and was saved, but I can never know for sure.)

Jesus attempted to teach Pilate, but Pilate, in his obsession with his worldly position, blinded himself.  Pilate’s only source of truth was himself and thus he winds up in the position of not knowing the Truth at all.  Truth for him was relative, whatever he needed it to be at the moment.  His rhetorical question of “What is truth?” is an admission of this.

He attempted to convince himself that by washing his hands of Jesus, he was not responsible.  The problem is, eternal Truth is a real thing that is written in our hearts.  Whenever we try and skirt it, it haunts us.  Even as Pilate was convincing himself that he was covered, he knew in his heart that he wasn’t.  Thus it is that he winds up defeated, hopeless and despondent.    

When I do the same, I wind up the same.  How many times in my life have I convinced myself that the wrong thing was the right thing, only to have it weigh on me later as the eternal Truth worked its way forward in my consciousness?

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The most well-known use of the word “truth” in the gospels happened several chapters ago.  In verse 6 of Chapter fourteen, Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  This phrasing is echoed in article four of the SFO Rule, which includes this:

Christ, the gift of the Father’s love, is the way to him, the truth into which the Holy Spirit leads us, and the life which he has come to give abundantly.

Christ as Truth is fundamental to the point of view of a Franciscan.  The phrase above occurs in the same article of the Rule as the words “gospel to life and life to gospel.”  We have already referenced this article multiple times for earlier chapters, and we have also spoken over and over about the importance of immersing ourselves continuously in the gospel. 

Contemplation of the word “truth” yields another justification for spending so much time with the gospels.  As the first verse says, “everyone on the side of truth” listens to Jesus.  In order for me to listen to Jesus, in order for me to know and comprehend the genuine, eternal Truth that He embodies, I must be His constant companion in the gospels.  As the Rule suggests, as I do this, I must also invite the Holy Spirit along as my guide.  Otherwise, my frail human nature will hamper my ability to take in the Truth in even the smallest measure.  Without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, I become like Pilate, likely to miss the Truth of Jesus in its entirety. 

In fact, immersion as the pursuit of Truth is so important that the phrase “way of truth” can be found in the sources as a title for the entire religion that Francis founded. 

The following occurs in several locations.  I have taken this version from An Umbrian Choir Legend, a brief work that summarizes the last two years of Francis’ life, from the point where he receives the stigmata to his burial.  As Francis neared the end, he was aware his death would be coming soon.  Francis blesses the brothers, then asks to be returned to the Portiuncula.

“Goodbye, all my sons.  Live in the fear of the Lord and remain in Him always.  And because a future test and tribulation is drawing near, happy are those who will persevere in what they have begun.  For now I am hurrying to the Lord to whose grace I commend you all.”

After that he commanded that he be brought to Saint Mary of the Portiuncula, that he might give back his soul to God where he first came to know perfectly the way of truth.  This place he had learned from experience was full of grace and filled with visits of heavenly spirits.  This place he always wanted to be guarded by the brothers with honor, because the new seedling of the religion, sprouting first from there, filled the whole world.

Here you can directly see the link between the words “way of truth” and “the religion.”  As the context makes clear, the religion is the entire movement that Francis founded.  In this passage, Francis himself has labeled his movement “the way of truth,” combining the two labels “way” and “truth” that Jesus declared for himself in John chapter fourteen.

Celano takes this phrase even farther.  In the Second Book of The Life of St Francis, chapter two is entitled in part The Highest Desire of Blessed Francis.  Francis has sought silence and separation from the press of the world.  This is how Celano defines the high desire that resulted from this time of silence:

After he (Francis) had been there for some time, through unceasing prayer and frequent contemplation, he reached intimacy with God in an indescribable way.  He longed to know what in him and about him was or could be most acceptable to the Eternal King.  He sought this diligently and devoutly longed to know in what manner, in what way, and with what desire he would be able to cling more perfectly to the Lord God, according to his counsel and the good pleasure of His will.  This was always his highest philosophy; this was the highest desire that always burned in him as long as he lived.  He asked the simple and wise, the perfect and imperfect, how he could reach the way of truth and arrive at his great goal.

We know already that the highest goal of Francis is to emulate Jesus as perfectly as he can.  Now we see the highest goal of Francis equated to a search for the “way of truth.”  And we also see that the entire religion that Francis founded is also described by that phrase, the “way of truth.” 

If we then recall “life” as the third piece of Jesus’ description of himself in John fourteen, we can complete the circle.  The pursuit of the “way of truth” is in fact the core of the Franciscan religious “life.”  If I were to immerse myself in the gospels, searching out Jesus as the Way and the Truth that I might emulate Him, I can then believe that I am living the “life of abundance which Jesus came to give me.”   

This is the purpose of a well lived life.  It has nothing to do with earthly power or the accumulation of earthly goods.  A life that is spent in poverty and minority, a life that is spent without regard to earthly concern, a life spent in pursuit of the “way of truth,” is the most abundant and complete life I could live.

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We need to understand beyond any doubt the importance of Pilate as a figure in the life of Jesus.  If Jesus is the embodiment of Truth, then Pilate is the embodiment of the failure that occurs when we are unable to set worldly concern aside in favor of seeking the “way of truth.”

Because of this, Pilate, despite his brief appearance, is as important as any other figure in the gospels other than Jesus himself.  He has so very much to teach us.

He is the embodiment of failure for me on a personal level.  When I think back across my sinful life, I find the same mistake occurring over and over again.  Some worldly concern has my full attention.  As a result, my decision process is flawed.  My decision process is not governed by the Truth that is Jesus revealed in the gospels.  Instead, I decide based on my own desire for what I want the truth to be in order to fulfill the wicked desire of my flesh.  I follow in the footsteps of Pilate and allow truth to become relative and I fail as a result.

I would like to tell you that being a Franciscan has cured me, but it simply is not the case.  I need to be continually immersed in gospel centered conversion in order to have a chance.  I need, just as Francis did, the silence and unceasing prayer that allows the desire for the “way of truth,” the Franciscan religion, to fully blossom within me just as it did in him.

Pilate, because he is a prominent politician and a worldly leader, is also the embodiment of the failure of our culture at the macro scale.  We live in a culture that presses us at every turn to accept relativism as an overarching guiding principal for our lives.  The gravest of our social ills, issues like abortion and same sex marriage, are rooted in this moral relativism.

God is present at the moment of conception.  His Will is active as a fetus is formed. That fetus is destined by God to be born into the world as His child.  This is an eternal Truth that we accept as having been discerned throughout the long history of the church.  It is not the church’s truth or our individual truth.  It is the type of Truth that Jesus testifies to in his invitation to Pilate.

The same logic applies to the definition of marriage.  Scripture addresses this directly and the Church builds upon what scripture says in Genesis 2:24 to reach its conclusions on the nature of marriage, stating that it is the will of God that marriage be between a man and a woman.  Again, this is the type of Truth that Jesus testifies to in the gospels.

Yet our culture allows a woman to abort her child because it wants the power of truth for itself. And it allows a man to marry a man or a woman a woman for the same reasons.  It refuses to accept the higher Truth because it is not convenient to the goals of those who wickedly desire earthly power and pleasure as their first and only concern.  They can never succeed in their pursuit so long as Jesus as eternal Truth thwarts them.  So they work with all their energy to make truth relative in order to achieve their desires, which are so very different from the desire for the “way of Truth” that Franciscan religion expresses.

It is Pilate all over again.  Our culture is deaf to the Truth of Jesus just as Pilate was.

And innocents pay the price now, just as Jesus did then.

Chapter seventeen closes out the run of teaching by Jesus that John has located between the Last Supper and the walk across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane.  In the next chapter, we will begin to move with Jesus through the events of His Passion and Resurrection.

Teaching, however, might not be the best word to describe what is happening here. Yes, Jesus is teaching.  But in this instance His teaching has taken the form of a prayer.  In fact, the entire chapter is one continuous prayer by Jesus to the Father entitled The High Priestly Prayer.

That gives special context to the effort to enter this scene.

Verse one begins like this:  “After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed.”

My suggestion is that you do whatever it takes to be able to picture this.  Perhaps in your vision Jesus is still sitting at table.  Or maybe He is sitting in a circle with eyes riveted on Him.  Or maybe He is standing with arms outstretched.  However you see it, make sure you see it.  The picture above, by French artist Alexandre Bida, might be helpful.

Then read the chapter with this vision in your mind’s eye.  Understand that Jesus is praying specifically for you as an individual.  At the beginning of verse nine, when He says, “I pray for them,” understand that them is you.  He is praying for you expressly as one of those given to Him out of the world by God.  This is confirmed at the beginning of verse twenty when He says “My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”  That’s you.  You are one of those who believe in Jesus through the message of the gospels and the balance of the New Testament.

Everything that Jesus prays for in this passage applies directly to you.  Narrow your vision so that it is just you and Him.  Move in as close as you dare.  Tune out whatever else might be a distraction in your vision, and focus on the significance of Jesus praying directly for you to God the Father.    

In verse eleven, Jesus asks the Father to protect you by the Power of His Name.  Then He asks that you may be one as He and the Father are one.  In verse fifteen, He asks the Father to protect you from the evil one.  In verse twenty-four, He asks that you be with Him in His glory.  In the last verse, verse 25, He asks that the love the Father has for Him be given to you, and that He be allowed to be in you always.

Are the immensity and intensity of what Jesus is doing here sinking in yet?

If you are like me, there are times during prayer when you just don’t know what to pray for.  There is an uncertainty that only Jesus can fill.  In these times, I often ask Jesus to simply pray for me.  He knew that I would make this request and this chapter is His answer. 

To envision Him, eyes upturned to heaven, arms spread wide, saying these words on my behalf, is the very definition of humbling.  How could I ever respond adequately to this scene?

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John Chapter 17, verses 2 and 3:

“For you granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him.  Now this is eternal life:  that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

I would be remiss if I did not start by directly linking this verse to our overall theme of immersion in the gospel of John.  Again, we go back to paragraph four of the OFS Rule:

Secular Franciscans should devote themselves especially to careful reading of the gospel, going from gospel to life and life to the gospel.

The gospel of John has 21 chapters.  We have been reading and reflecting on one chapter a month.  By the time we are finished, we will have spent over two years working our way through just this one gospel.  Why have we done that?  What makes the gospels so important, so central to the life of a Franciscan, that this expenditure of time and effort is justified?

The answer is here.  Jesus declares in these two verses that He was born into our world so that each one of us might have the chance to obtain eternal life, to obtain salvation.  And then He declares that the key to gaining that eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ, whom God sent.

How do we gain that knowing? 

We gain it by immersing ourselves in the gospels! 

They are our primary source for obtaining the knowing that leads to eternal life! 

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Here is a description by Thomas of Celano of Francis’ understanding about the link between knowledge of God and salvation.  This is the entirety of Chapter 68 from The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul.

Although this blessed man was not educated in scholarly disciplines,
still he learned from God wisdom from above and,
enlightened by the splendors of eternal light,
he understood scripture deeply.
His genius, pure and unstained, penetrated hidden mysteries.

Where the knowledge of teachers is outside,
the passion of the lover entered.
He sometimes read the Sacred Books, and whatever he once put in his mind,
he wrote indelibly in his heart.
His memory took the place of books, because, if he heard something once,
 it was not wasted, as his heart would mull it over with constant devotion.
He said this was the fruitful way to read and learn,
 rather than to wander through a thousand treatises.

He considered a true philosopher the person who never set anything ahead of the desire for eternal life.
 He affirmed that it was easy to move from self-knowledge to knowledge of God for someone who searches scripture intently with humility and not with presumption. 
He often untangled the ambiguities of questions. 

 Unskilled in words, he spoke splendidly with understanding and power.

In chapter seventeen, Jesus once again brings separation from the world into the conversation.  The deeper we get into the gospel of John, the higher the profile of this message becomes.  In verse 14, Jesus says “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.”  Other verses in the chapter have similar overtones. 

Francis incorporates this part of Jesus’ message into his ideas about knowledge.  When Francis speaks about worldly knowledge, it is often with negative connotations.  In Chapters 68 and 69 of A Mirror of Perfection, Francis addresses the subject directly.  Some of the brothers, in collusion with the Cardinal of Ostia, tried to persuade Francis to adopt a Rule more favorable to scholarly pursuits.  Francis responded with this:

“My brothers!  My brothers!  God has called me by the way of simplicity and humility, and has truly shown me this way for me and for those who want to trust and imitate me.  Therefore I do not want you to mention to me any Rule…….or any other way or form of life except the one that the Lord in His mercy has shown and given to me…….God did not wish to lead us by any way other than this knowledge, but God will confound you by your knowledge and wisdom.  But I trust in the Lord’s police that through them God will punish you, and you will return to your status, with your blame, like it or not.”

The cardinal was greatly shocked, and said nothing, and all the brothers were greatly afraid.

It grieved blessed Francis when brothers sought learning which inflates while neglecting virtue, especially if they did not remain in the calling in which they were first called.  He said, “Those brothers of mine who are led by curiosity for knowledge will find themselves empty handed on the day of reckoning.” ……….. He did not say these things out of a dislike for the reading of Holy Scripture, but rather to draw all of them back from excessive concern for learning.

It’s a stern message.  Francis believes what the brothers are asking for will corrupt his religion and jeopardize their chance for eternal life.  There is something about worldly knowledge that Francis sees as particularly dangerous to the way of life he is cultivating at the behest of God.   

Francis casts worldly knowledge as being in direct conflict with simplicity and humility, which would also place it in direct conflict with the core value of Franciscan Poverty.  Recall that Franciscan Poverty is very much a spiritual concept.  At its core, it is about removing anything that constitutes worldly distraction from our list of priorities.  When we do this, we provide space for heavenly considerations (for the knowledge of God that leads to eternal life) to enter in.

Knowledge “that inflates,” which I think we can read to mean knowledge that is worldly, is just such a distraction from Francis’ point of view, and thus it is to be avoided.  Knowledge “that inflates” must never be “set ahead of the desire for eternal life.” 

The passage from Celano is not overt, but still the stance against worldly concern is there.  Read again the line about “wandering through a thousand treatises.”  There is a bit of sarcasm there.  Juxtapose it against the instruction to “search scripture intently with humility and not with presumption” and decide for yourself which course you ought to take. 

Think of it this way.  What good would it do to perfectly understand those thousand treatises if we did not know God at all?  What good if we spent all our time studying those treatises and none of it studying scripture?  During our earthly sojourn, we might be widely respected for our knowledge.  Our knowledge might make us wealthy.  It might give us great earthly power.  But when our short sojourn on earth is over, and it is time to face judgment, and we do not achieve eternal life because we do not know God, would we not trade all that knowledge, respect, wealth and power for just one chance at salvation?

This is a lesson in Franciscan Poverty.  From our modern perspective, we tend to think of knowledge as a supreme good, something to be pursued incessantly for its own sake.  But Francis is saying something different.  The pursuit of knowledge is not itself the highest good, but instead a distraction unless it is specifically directed toward knowing God for the purpose of achieving salvation.  The desire for eternal life supersedes the pursuit of worldly knowledge “that inflates.” 

We need Poverty to fight against the tendency toward worldly distraction, even when that distraction comes in the seemingly benign guise of the general pursuit of knowledge.

We need Poverty to help us stay focused on the pursuit of knowing God for the purpose of gaining eternal life.

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Would you believe me if I told you Lady Poverty herself agrees with Francis? 

In The Sacred Exchange between Saint Francis and Lady Poverty there is a paragraph with the title Poverty Warns False Religion.  Lady Poverty is addressing “the False Poor.”  These are “men who took up the habit of holy religion but did not put on the new man and only covered the old.”  They claim Poverty should be set aside so that wealth can be accumulated in order to better serve the needy.  But their motivations are corrupted, and the wealth they seek, even if they do use a portion of it to serve the poor, has worldly incentives and ramifications that will inevitably taint their activities. 

I said to them: “I am not contradicting the good that you have said, brothers, but I beg you:  look at your calling.  Do not look back.  Do not come down from the housetop to take something from the house.  Do not turn back from the field to put on clothing.  Do not become involved in the business world.  Do not become entangled in the world’s initiatives and the corruption you have fled through knowledge of the Savior.  For it is inevitable that those who are again entangled in these affairs will be overcome and their last state will become worse than their first, for under the appearance of piety, they withdraw from that which was given them by holy commandment.”

Francis is arguing that the pursuit of worldly knowledge will have a similar effect on his brothers.   

In A Mirror of Perfection, Francis is grieved by those who “did not remain in the calling in which they were first called.”  Here, Lady Poverty similarly begs the brothers to “look at their calling.”  She wants them to remember first things first.  Poverty is the essence of who they are.  To reject it would be to reject “knowledge of the Savior” and to “withdraw from that which was given them by holy commandment.”  As a result, their “last state will become worse than their first.”  They potentially have given up eternal life.

If they forego Poverty, even if they do so for another seeming good, then they are no longer who they claim they wanted to be.  They have forfeited their core status and as a result they have rejected knowledge of God and Jesus.  That loss of knowledge places their salvation in jeopardy.

The danger lies in not understanding the hierarchy of good.  In the Franciscan charism, Poverty is not something that can be traded off against another good.  It is foundational.  It is sacrosanct.  It cannot be compromised. 

Poverty gained this status because, as article eleven of the SFO rule says,

“Trusting in the Father, Christ chose for Himself and His mother a poor and humble life.” 

Jesus accomplished everything He accomplished from a position of Poverty.  As Franciscans, we believe we must do the same.  Poverty is not an idea to be embraced or set aside based on human evaluation, but it is instead a grace that Jesus taught us by the very example of His life.  Once we understand and accept this, there is no turning back from that truth.  We must follow the example of Jesus and live as He lived. 

Franciscans who would forsake Poverty on the premise of pursuing another good they deem as equal do not understand the true nature of Franciscan Poverty.  Serving the needy and/or gaining knowledge are goods to be carried out, but they do not have equal standing with Poverty.  Poverty comes first, and only from a position of Poverty can these other goods be properly pursued, at least if you are a Franciscan.   

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It’s not possible to discuss chapter seventeen of John without talking about the prologue to the SFO Rule, otherwise known as The Exhortation of St. Francis to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.  In that prologue, at the end of the first chapter Francis quotes this chapter of John by paraphrasing the words of Jesus:

O holy Father, protect them with your name whom you gave me out of the world.  I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me and they received it.  They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed it was you who sent me.  For these I pray, not for the world.  Bless and consecrate them, and I consecrate myself for their sakes.  I do not pray for them alone; I also pray for those who will believe in me through their word that they may be holy by being one as we are.  And I desire, Father, to have them in my company where I am to see this glory of mine in your kingdom. 

Please be aware that an extended version of this language occurs in the Early Rule that Francis wrote for his Brothers.  It also occurs in the Fragments, hinting that this was also part of a Rule or Way of Life that has not survived to be passed down to us.

All have been given to Jesus that He might guide them to eternal life.  A fortunate few (myself included) have also been given to Francis.  Francis feels responsible for those that God has inspired to seek him out as an example and an advocate in their own search for salvation.  Francis therefore prioritizes this teaching by Jesus about the path to eternal life by referencing the words of Jesus from this chapter of John in multiple prominent locations. 

He wants to ensure that his followers know and understand that the only way to eternal life is “knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one whom He sent.”

In the process, he specifically references Jesus’ teaching about the distracting nature of the world.  He is reinforcing for his followers that the world is an impediment to gaining the knowledge of God and Jesus required for eternal life.  By this reference, he brings the entire role of Poverty in the Franciscan charism to the fore of the conversation.

I can’t help but feel that while Francis has quoted the words of Jesus here, it is Francis who is making the prayer on behalf of his followers.  His desire that his “Brothers and Sisters of Penance” achieve eternal life and join him in “the company of Jesus in the Kingdom” is so strong that he is forcefully compelled to instruct them on how to do so, but he simply can’t find any words better than this prayer by Jesus.  Recognizing that he cannot improve on these words, Francis chooses to repeat them.

In some sense, I feel as if both Francis and Jesus are praying directly for me as an individual.  I could enter a scene and see Francis praying for me just the same way I do with Jesus.  Francis knows that he is not the source of eternal life, but he so desperately wants his brothers and sisters to join him there that he cannot help but align his prayers for this outcome with those of Jesus.  Francis wants to pray for us, but he cannot find any words better than these to use, so he gives them to us as his prayer as well.

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We are about to move into the final phase of the gospel of John, the Passion of Jesus.

Check this chapter one last time before you move forward.  Look at the last three verses.  Jesus says “I want those you have given me to be with me……..they know you have sent me.  I have made you known to them……..in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

In John’s gospel, these are the last words Jesus will speak to the disciples before His Passion begins.  It’s no accident that they are deeply profound and that they deal with eternal life.  The verses from the beginning of the chapter that I have been focusing on have been restated and amplified.  When I see Jesus in this scene, the most striking thing is the intensity of His prayer.  His desire for my salvation is palpable.  I can see Him, as He finishes His prayer and moves to the door to embrace His destiny, looking over his shoulder to make sure I was paying attention and that I got the message.

He wants me with Him for all of eternity!

Francis wants that eternal life for us just as intensely as Jesus does.  This is why he quotes these words from Jesus in multiple places as his personal prayer for us as well.  Look at his distillation again.  He finishes with “And I desire, Father, to have them in my company …….”  When I enter the scene with Jesus, it is easy to imagine that Francis enters with me.  I can see him looking directly at me to make sure I got it.  He also is praying vehemently for my salvation.

Francis wants me with Him for all of eternity!

This makes Francis uncompromising in showing us his way.  As the passage from Celano suggests, he “untangles the ambiguities.  He speaks splendidly with understanding and power.”  The intensity of the desire of Francis for our salvation is demonstrated by the severity of the reaction he had when the brothers suggested a path that probably made perfect sense to them but that he knew to be compromised.  He felt the need to make sure they understood his position beyond a shadow of a doubt in order that they would stay the course toward that ultimate prize of salvation.        

Immersion in the gospels, combined with and as a result of staying true to the ideal of Franciscan Poverty, is the answer to my greatest hope, that I might achieve salvation when my time on this earth is done.  It is a sure path to the knowledge of God that Jesus lays in front of us as the key to eternal life in the chapter.

Living Poverty is not easy.  It is often tempting to turn away from it to fulfill this or that earthly desire that seems in the moment to be perfectly reasonable, even pious.

Heeding the words of our Father Francis and staying the course is the key to being a faithful Franciscan, knowing God and Jesus, and achieving the eternal life I so desperately desire.

As with the last two chapters, Jesus is once again in full teaching mode.  We remain in the time between the last supper and the Passion as Jesus continues to give final instructions to his disciples.

In chapter fifteen, Jesus gave me an image of a grape vine to focus on during my contemplation.  In chapter sixteen, He gives another powerful image that allows me to do the same.  In our modern world, many of us, both female and male, have personal experience with the birth of a child.  If that includes you, take some time to go back and relive that moment from your personal history.  Then take your memories and use them to help you contemplate this chapter, focusing on the juxtaposition between tribulation and joy not just in the image that Jesus presents, but in the overall context of this chapter and the previous one.   

I have three children and I was present for the birth of each one.  Each experience was unique, but the effort required of my wife is a constant theme for all three.  I can’t claim to have experienced the pain she did, nor did I have to endure her anguish (to use the same word as Jesus), but I am grateful to have been at her side throughout.  Even though I was spared the physical hardship and exhaustion, I can at least recall that experience and empathize to some extent with the wonder and joy that a mother feels when “a child is born into the world.”

I know even as the bystanding dad that no other experience in my life quite equates to that one.

Jesus’ reference to the “world” in this little vignette is fascinating.  The reflection from chapter seven focused entirely on the definition of the word “world.”  The “world” as understood there is generally antagonistic to Jesus.  If you were to go back and review all the chapters from seven until now, you would find that this definition holds steady.  When the word “world” is used in the text, it generally signals something opposed to the message of Jesus.

If you don’t believe me, just go back to verses 18 and 19 from the last chapter.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.”

Yet, in the vignette, Jesus uses the image of a “child being born into the world” as an entirely positive teaching tool.  A mother’s pain and anguish is changed to joy despite the hardship of childbirth.  In the same way, the disciple’s pain and anguish at the coming events will also be changed to joy despite the hostility of the world. 

Every child is meant to become a disciple of Jesus.  Those who succeed will do so in the context of a world that does everything it can to prevent their success.  When they reject the world in favor of Jesus, they will unavoidably be subject to the same forms of pain and anguish that the disciples are about to experience. 

One might think this would temper the joy a mother experiences at the birth of her child.  But when I think back on my own experience, there was only hope and joy in the delivery room.  As parents, we were not thinking about the hardships that would inevitably come into the life of this new creation.  Despite those inevitabilities, the birth of our child into this world was not a cause for concern and fear, but instead, unmitigated joy.

It is clear that Jesus understands that joy to be pure.  (In Franciscan terms, this joy is true and perfect.)  Otherwise, it would not be suitable as the basis of His reassurances to His disciples.  The fact that the child will have to face the trials, tribulations and temptations of the world does not dilute or inhibit this unadulterated joy.  The mother’s joy, despite the inevitable hardships of her child’s life, is justified and honest and good.  If the disciples can live into this teaching of Jesus, the joy they will experience will likewise be true and perfect despite the hardships they are about to endure.

What does this teach me about the nature, necessity and value of tribulation?  

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John Chapter 16, verse 33:

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

This is the last verse of the chapter.  The opposition of the world to Jesus is once again reinforced.  The world brings tribulation.  In verse two of the chapter, Jesus goes so far as to say that the world will kill us while believing it is offering a service to God via our deaths.  Some of the disciples will soon experience this first hand.

As is referenced above, the theme Jesus summarizes using the metaphor of the birth of a child actually goes back to the middle of the last chapter.  If you have not done so already, go back and read from verse 18 of chapter fifteen through to the end of chapter sixteen as a single unit in order to understand the continuity.  Starting at verse 18, Jesus begins to directly anticipate the Passion.  His teaching about the world, about tribulation and about joy is meant to help the disciples cope with coming events.  This includes not just the Passion, but also the tribulations, difficulties and persecutions that will come after His Resurrection and Ascension.

In fact, those persecutions are a constant throughout post Ascension history.  They never stop, forming one unbroken line from the Romans feeding Christians to the lions straight through to the present day, where ISIS fulfills the words of Jesus from verse two by martyring Christians for their faith.  Even in the US, the reward for being a Christian is often a label of intolerance, as we are expected to embrace and approve alternate lifestyles even if we believe them to be based in sin.

The same thing was true in the time of Francis.  The order was regularly subject to persecutions.  In chapter five of The Anonymous of Perugia, the treatment of the brothers is described like this:

Although the brothers wore the poorest and cheapest clothes, for amusement many people still took these away from them…………People threw mud at the heads of some of the brothers; to others, they shoved dice in their hands, inviting them to play.  One brother was carried by the capuche across someone’s back, for as long as he pleased.  These things, as well as many others, were inflicted on them.  But we will not go on about these things, for it would unduly prolong our words.  In a word, people considered them despicable; that is why they nonchalantly and brazenly persecuted them as if they were criminals.  In addition, they endured a great deal of hardship and suffering from hunger and thirst, from cold and nakedness.

Clearly, the Franciscan movement was not immune to the tribulations of the world.

The unique thing about the Franciscan charism, and for me, one of the hardest things to grasp and embrace, is the view that these tribulations are not a negative experience.  In fact, they are to be welcomed and even hoped for.  There is nothing in our modern culture that prepares me to accept that point of view.  Tribulation, for me, is always something to be avoided.     

The above passage from chapter five of the Anonymous of Perugia goes on like this:

They suffered all these things with constancy and patience, as blessed Francis had counseled them.  They did not become dejected or distressed, but exalted and rejoiced at their misfortune like men placed at great advantage.  They fervently prayed for their persecutors.  When people saw them rejoicing in their tribulations and enduring them patiently for the Lord, unceasing in very devout prayer, ……….many of them, by the kindness of the Lord, experienced a change of heart.  They came to them, begging forgiveness for their offenses against them.

The phrase that I struggle with is explicit here.  How, exactly, does one “rejoice in his tribulations?”  It’s something that I have never been taught to do.  At best, I learned something in the vein of “anything that does not kill me makes me stronger.”  But that is not the same as what is being suggested here.  In that, the tribulation is still to be avoided if possible.  It is to be endured, not embraced.

Of course, in true Francis style, his counsel is backed up by his own personal example.  In chapter seven of the first book of The Life of St. Francis by Thomas Celano, we get this short story:

He who once enjoyed wearing scarlet robes now traveled about half clothed.  Once while he was singing the praises to the Lord in French in a certain forest, thieves suddenly attacked him.  When they savagely demanded who he was, the man of God answered confidently and forcefully, “I am the herald of the Great King!  What is it to you?”  They beat him and threw him in a ditch filled with deep snow, saying:  “Lie there, you stupid herald of God!”  After they left, he rolled about to and fro, shook the snow off himself and jumped out of the ditch.  Exhilarated with great joy, he began in a loud voice to make the woods resound with the praises to the Creator of all.

My tribulations almost always have the opposite effect on me.  They drag me down.  They make me sorrowful.  They even make me depressed at times, draining energy from me and making me lethargic and unresponsive to the call of God.  I simply do not know how to live out this example from St. Francis.

And honestly, who can claim that they would respond to the same situation in the same way?  If you were beaten by thieves and thrown in a snow filled ditch, would you react by making snow angels in the snow, which is what we might as well assume Francis is doing as he rolls about to and fro?  Would you be “exhilarated with great joy,” and then would you begin to sing the praises of Creation to the woods around you?

I don’t do such things when I am in a good mood.  I can’t imagine doing them after being beaten by thieves.

Yet, as a Franciscan, this is what I am called to.  How will I ever achieve this?

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A list of the persecutions and tribulations of Francis and his followers could quickly get unwieldy.  We would have to talk about the pain inflicted upon him by his father, about rejection at the hands of the people of Assisi, etc., etc.  As the first passage suggests, there is not room to “go on about these things” in a short reflection such as this. 

And to focus on them would be to miss the point. It is already clear that Francis’ attitude towards these tribulations is different than what would be expected.  The clear question is, why does Francis react differently?  What did Francis know that places him so far from the norm for the rest of us? 

In the gospel passage, Jesus tells us to take heart because He has overcome the world.  Somehow, He personally embodies a negation of the tribulations of the world.  Is that the starting point for understanding the perspective of Francis?  Did Francis perhaps take this passage, or another one similar to it, and apply it to his life in a way that led to his extraordinary reaction to the persecutions he experienced in the world?

The SFO Rule, in paragraph 10, says this:

Let them also follow the poor and crucified Christ, witness to him even in difficulties and persecutions.

The commentary from Hidden Power III: From Gospel to Life on this sentence reads like this:

Simple living begins with the choice to unite with Christ so intensely that one is willing to share even His Passion:  ………

Both passages make a clear connection between our own hardships and the Passion of Jesus.  His persecution, which culminates in His embrace of the Cross, must inform how we accept and deal with our own adversity.  The rule is suggesting that the answers to the above questions are yes, Francis did have a unique understanding.  By linking the crucified Christ to our difficulties and persecutions in the same sentence, the Rule locates that unique understanding in the mystery of the victory of the Cross. 

Understand that Jesus is timeless.  When He says in the gospel passage that He has overcome the world, He is actually talking about His Resurrection, which for Him is an assured future, which allows Him to speak about it as if it has already happened. 

Jesus suffers His own tribulation on the way to the Cross.  His arrest.  Being abused by the Pharisee’s guards.  Being flogged.  The crown of thorns.  The burden of carrying the cross.  And ultimately being nailed to the cross.  These tribulations are an essential part of the story.  They were horrific, but necessary to His ability to declare victory over the world in this gospel passage.  If the world did not culminate its opposition to Him by inflicting these tribulations on Him, then His declaration of overcoming the world would lose meaning.

Why then, in our own lives, would we expect to go from now until the day of our deaths without tribulations of our own?  If Jesus had to suffer, then why not us?  And if Jesus’ tribulations were essential to His story, then perhaps our tribulations will also be essential to ours?

We know that Francis sought above all else to emulate the example of Jesus as found in the gospels.  That’s relatively easy when the cost is low.  But when the cost involves embracing are own difficulties and persecutions, it becomes less attractive.  But even so, a life without the opportunity to emulate the tribulations of Jesus would have to be an incomplete life.  Without our own versions of the Cross, our ability to follow Jesus completely would necessarily be compromised. 

The conclusion has to be that we need tribulation in our life.  It is an essential part of who we are and how we are to become what we are supposed to become.  Without it, Jesus in His most important details, the details of His triumph on the Cross, the details of His overcoming the world, would be unknowable to us.

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There are many things that are exceptional about Francis, but perhaps the most exceptional is that he was not afraid of this conclusion.  His devotion to emulating Jesus was so strong that he not only decided to accept difficulty, he actually longed for it.  He wanted to follow Jesus as exactly and as precisely as he could, and he knew that his own personal tribulations were integral and necessary to his success.

This understanding and desire culminates in Francis’ definition of “what true joy is.” I have already used the words from the Little Flowers of St. Francis in regard to this a couple times, but that is not the only place this definition occurs.  It is also present in the Undated Writings directly attributed to Francis under the title “True and Perfect Joy.”  Brother Leo asks, “Then what is true joy?”  Francis responds as follows:

“I return from Perugia and arrive here in the dead of night.  Its winter time, muddy, and so cold that icicles have formed on the edges of my habit and keep striking my legs and blood flows from such wounds.  Freezing, covered with mud and ice, I come to the gate and, after I’ve knocked and called for some time, a brother comes and asks:  ‘Who are you?’  ‘Brother Francis,’ I answer.  ‘Go away!’ he says.  ‘This is not a decent hour to be wandering about!  You may not come in!’  When I insist, he replies: ‘Go away!  You are simple and stupid!  Don’t come back to us again!  There are many of us here like you – we don’t need you!’  I stand again at the door and say:  ‘For the love of God, take me in tonight!’  And he replies:  ‘I will not!  Go to the Crosiers place and ask there!’ 

I tell you this:  If I had patience and did not become upset, true joy, as well as true virtue and the salvation of my soul, would consist in this.”

Again, the reaction of Francis makes no sense on the surface.  If it were me or most any other man, I would be furious with the brother for not helping me in my time of need.  And yet Francis is ignoring the actions of the brother, not judging them one way or the other.  They are irrelevant to Francis because his focus is elsewhere. 

What, then, is Francis focused on?  What understanding of his own is he using to evaluate this situation?

The answer is that he is evaluating his situation within the context of the Cross.  Francis recognizes that he is undergoing some difficulty and perhaps even some persecution.  But instead of being angry with his antagonist, his focus on Jesus and the Cross gives him an entirely unanticipated perspective.  He sees the tribulation not so much as a hardship but as an opportunity.

He is being given the opportunity to share in the tribulations of Jesus during His Passion.  His tribulation is not as extreme as that of Jesus.  Nothing we experience ever quite matches the experiences of Jesus.  But nonetheless it is an opportunity to embrace kinship with the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross.

In past chapters we have reflected on “Living in Jesus,” on “Laying Down One’s Life,” and on “Loving as He Loved.”  Instead of tribulation being an inconvenience or a disaster, tribulation embraced as an opportunity to share in Jesus’ experience of the Passion becomes in some sense the culmination of all of these teachings.  The ultimate experience of the life of Christ is His Passion.  If you truly want to imitate Christ, if you want to identify with Him as closely as possible, then a chance to share in the tribulations of the Passion is the ultimate experience you can hope for. 

This is the genius of Francis the Saint.  He has found a perspective that perhaps was never found by anyone else who ever lived.  It’s a perspective that allows him to draw closer to Christ than anyone else.  He wants so much to share in the suffering of Christ that it ultimately leads to him receiving the stigmata, which in turn allows him to draw closer yet. 

Chapter thirteen of the Major Legend of Saint Francis, by Bonaventure, describes this symbiosis like this:

The man filled with God (Francis) understood that, just as he had imitated Christ in the actions of his life, so he should be conformed to him in the affliction and sorrow of his passion, before he would pass out of this world.

Is that something I wish for?  I’d like to say yes, but I am not sure it would be the truth. 

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Francis, in the end, knows that his reaction to tribulation is out of the ordinary.  He knows that most every other man he encounters will think his position foolhardy.  He knows that his position is in contradiction to the world.  At some level, he experiences the same reaction that the rest of us do.  But at some other level, he is working against that typical reaction.  It is a contest with himself.  If he can master himself and not succumb to the worldly desires of his flesh, if he can remain patient and not become upset, if he can stay focused on Jesus and opportunity instead of taking the typical path, then for at least one moment in time, he will have escaped his human frailty.

This escape, this mastery of his human frailty, is what justifies the claim to true and perfect joy.  In that moment, in that acceptance of tribulation, in that decision to drink the cup that God has placed in front of him, he has truly succeeded in his desire to emulate the decision Christ made in the Garden of Gethsemane that leads to the entire Passion that follows.

This is the reason that he can label his position one of True and Perfect Joy.  It is true and perfect precisely because it is a genuine and authentic rejection of worldly position in favor of a true and perfect orientation to Jesus.  If I could accomplish that at some point in my life, I could also claim the same kind of joy.

In other words, it is the fulfillment of this gospel passage.  To embrace True and Perfect Joy is to find peace.   And, as the gospel passage indicates, peace is found in Jesus. 

It becomes a completed circle.  To share in the tribulations of Jesus is to be in Jesus in the most perfect way possible, which is to be in peace, which is to experience True and Perfect Joy, which is to overcome the tribulations of the world.

Its why, in the end, there is not a conflict between the world being opposed to Jesus and the joy that a mother feels when a child is born into the world.  The tribulation that comes from a world in opposition is the tribulation that allows a child to fully experience the Cross of Jesus and thus to experience true and perfect joy, which is the basis and the hope of the mother’s perfect joy at the moment of the child’s birth in the first place.   

In the last reflection, I noted that 28 of 31 verses in chapter 14 in my bible were in red, indicating Jesus was speaking and teaching the entire chapter.  This made it hard to enter the scene because there was little description of the setting where this teaching was taking place.

In chapter fifteen, every word of the chapter is in red.  Jesus is teaching the entire time.  This pattern continues for the two chapters that follow as well.  As John moves from the Last Supper to the Passion, he locates four full chapters of Jesus teaching in the interim.  Jesus is giving last instructions to his disciples because He knows what is coming even if they do not.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that all the words are red, Jesus does give us an image that we can focus on and visualize in this chapter.  At the beginning, as an introduction to His subject matter, He starts by talking about vines and branches and pruning and bearing fruit. 

If you were to open up your internet search engine and enter the words “grape vine images,” you would literally get hundreds of pictures of what grape vines look like.  Many of those images will show you vines sagging under the burden of gorgeous green or purple fruit.  Search “grape vine pruning” and you will get hundreds more illustrations telling you how grape vines are trained and pruned. 

Twenty years ago, before I knew anything about St. Francis, I planted a quarter acre vineyard behind my house.  It has not been cared for lately, but there are still vines growing in it.  Someday I hope to have a life simple enough that I will have time to care for that vineyard.  In the meantime, if I want to see well cared for grape vines, I can drive thirty minutes from my house into southern Michigan and go on a winery tour.  Chances are you can do the same just about no matter where you are. 

If you instead walk at the fringes of an open space in the countryside near you and know what to look for, you can probably find grapes growing wild near where you live.  If you found those wild vines in the spring and monitored them over the summer and fall, you would find that they barely set any fruit at all, and that the fruit they do set is small and sickly compared to what you get at the grocery store.  Those vines are never pruned and they spend all their effort creating and sustaining new wood from year to year.  They direct none of their energy toward the production of fruit.     

As Franciscans, we understand that the Creation we dwell in has much to teach us about the God who loved us into being.  As Jesus talks about vines at the beginning of this chapter, He is capitalizing on this truth.  The difference between a pruned, productive vine and the unproductive vines growing wild in the countryside informs the message that Jesus is conveying. 

Read the chapter a couple times.  Then take a little time to ponder and investigate the nature and process of growing grapes.  Take what you learn about grape vine culture and reread the chapter, looking to see how your new knowledge of Creation enhances the spiritual message of Jesus. 

See if you gain any extra insight as you pray over the verse that has captured your attention.

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John Chapter 15, verses 1, 2 and 5:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  I am the vine: you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit: apart from me you can do nothing.”

I have already emphasized repetition in several previous chapters.  When the same words are repeated over and over again in a short space, it’s a sure sign of the importance of the message Jesus is conveying.  At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus uses the word “remain” eight times in four verses.   He also uses a version of the phrase “bear fruit” seven times in the first eight verses. 

The instruction from Jesus to us to “remain in Him” is one that we should easily assimilate as Franciscans.  Paragraph four of our rule, which is the introduction to the Way of Life we have promised to live, is clearly full of this idea.

The rule of life of the Secular Franciscans is this:  to observe the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by following the example of Saint Francis of Assisi, who made Christ the inspiration and the center of his life with God and people.  

If we emulate Francis and make Christ the inspiration and center of our lives, then we are living out the instruction of Jesus given here.  We are “remaining in Him.”  In the reflection on chapter thirteen, we talked about how “remaining in Him” helps us to “love as He loved.”  Here, by the same commitment to using Jesus as our inspiration, perhaps we can learn something about how to make our lives “bear fruit.”

At first, I was feeling a little apprehensive about going back to this paragraph of the rule so quickly.  I just used it two chapters ago.  I thought, “Isn’t there somewhere else to pull from that will also make the same point?”  Of course there is.  But then I thought that perhaps this paragraph is important enough that it’s a good idea to emphasize it again.  As it says itself, “the rule is this.”  This one sentence is the summary of all that will come after it. 

As always, as Franciscans, it’s still all about our original purpose for embarking on this journey through the gospel of John.  It still comes down to going from gospel to life and life to gospel in a prayerful manner so that we can take the inspiration that comes from “remaining in Christ” and use it as the means by which we can “be fruitful” in our lives with God and His people.

That will remain the basis of what we do and who we are no matter what sources I cite and no matter what quotations I pull from those sources.

I think, perhaps, that it is a good idea to emphasize the versatility of this paragraph again even though I used it such a short time ago.  If Jesus uses repetition in the gospels to underscore His most important messages, I should not feel bad about doing the same.    

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That said, one of those other sources that emphasizes the importance of “remaining in Jesus” is the Prologue to the Rule.  Paragraph four, as the introduction and summary of the Way of Life of a Secular Franciscan, is itself an echo of the Prologue, which is in turn an overall introduction to the entire Rule.  (As a reminder, the Prologue contains the direct words of Francis as expressed in the Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.)

Chapter one, entitled Concerning Those Who Do Penance, starts like this:

All who love the Lord with their whole heart, with their whole soul and mind, with all their strength and love their neighbors as themselves and hate their bodies with their vices and sins, and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and produce worthy fruits of penance:

Begin by recalling that Penance in the Franciscan charism is not primarily about restitution.  As Franciscans, we understand that restitution without conversion is meaningless, so we choose to emphasize conversion first.  Penance becomes for us a forward looking, positive and optimistic experience.  It will ultimately lead us to joy.  For Francis, a brother or sister of Penance is a person pursuing the conversion that turns one away from the world and toward God. 

In this passage, Francis is describing the characteristics of this person of Penance.  The reason a penitent hates his body with it vices and sins is because the body tends to worldly concern, which tends to turn our faces away from God.  In other words, the body indulged will inhibit our ability to “remain in Jesus.” 

The other phrases are neatly echoed in paragraph four of the Rule.  Those “who love the Lord with their whole heart” are those who “make Christ the inspiration of their lives” and thus are also those who “remain in Jesus.”  Those who “love their neighbors as themselves” are those who “make Christ the center of their lives with God and His people,” another manifestation of “remaining in Jesus.”  Those who “receive the Body and Blood” are those who invite Christ to dwell within, which is an expression of the other side of the word “remain” from the gospel passage, the side where Jesus “remains in us.”

All of this remaining then leads to “bearing fruit” as Jesus describes in the gospel.  The penitent, as a natural result of his conversion, can’t help but express that conversion and his burgeoning closeness with Christ as he moves through the world.  “Producing worthy fruits of penance” are the words Francis uses to describe the manifestation of the presence of Christ in our lives that comes from a life properly oriented and well lived. 

The penitent, by turning toward God, invites God to apply his pruning shears.  God responds by lovingly caring for the branch that is me.  Christ is the Vine.  As a person of Penance residing in Christ, I am a branch firmly attached to that Vine.  When I allow it, God prunes away the vices and sins of my body so that my attachment to the Vine remains healthy and robust.  The Vine nourishes me and enables me to bear fruit.

If I were to be separated from the vine, I would wither and be able to do nothing, just as the gospel quote says.

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The next step for the Franciscan is then to embrace the link between Penance and minority.  We look to occupy that position of minority because we understand that a position of minority is a position oriented toward God.  If we look for worldly gain, if we embrace worldly power, if we seek superiority, then we are rejecting our status as penitents in so much as our face will inevitably be turned away from God by those ambitions.  When we reject that status, we are in fact rejecting our ability to “reside in Jesus” and therefore our ability to “bear fruit.”

In the sources, there is a story about St. Francis and St. Dominic being the guests of Cardinal Hugolino.  This story appears in at least four different places (another manifestation of repetition reinforcing importance).  I am taking my quotes from chapter 49 of The Assisi Compilation.

During their discussions, the Cardinal makes this proposal to the two saints:

“In the early Church, the Church’s shepherds were poor, and men of charity, not on fire with greed.  Why don’t we make bishops and prelates of your brothers who excel in teaching and example.”

The text is humorous in the way it describes the attempts of Francis and Dominic to defer to each other.  In the end, in response to the deference of Francis, Dominic answers first.  Francis then gives his answer:

“My lord, my brothers are called lesser precisely so they will not presume to become greater.  They have been called this to teach them to stay down to earth, and to follow the footprints of Christ’s humility, which in the end will exalt them above others in the sight of saints.  If you want them to bear fruit in the Church of God, keep them in the status in which they were called and hold them to it.  Bring them back down to ground level even against their will.  Never allow them to rise to become prelates.”

The embrace of minority is rooted in the example of Christ.  Jesus did not come to us as a secular ruler.  Nor did He come to us as High Priest.  He came to us as a common man born in a manger, the son of a carpenter, hailing from Galilee, a backwater held in low regard by the people of worldly power in His time.  In His life, He never had a roof over His head or a bed to sleep on that He could rightfully call His own.  These are the footprints of Christ’s humility that Francis is referencing.

Francis understood that the power of the example would be lost if the minority embraced by Jesus was set aside.  Jesus triumphed from His position of humility and minority.  Francis intends for his brothers to triumph the same way.  Those in power will have his brothers as an example to follow, but the example will not be compromised, lest it be lost.  Those in power will have to find the righteous way by reference to this example if they can, just as Francis himself did by rejecting his earthly station in order to follow the example of Jesus, who chose to die on a Cross rather than to fight to gain worldly power as His followers might have wished and expected.

As always, Francis chooses to follow literally his understanding of the poverty of Christ.

What is the result of this choice by Francis?

As the passage indicates, the result is the ability to “bear fruit.”  His followers, by locating themselves in minority and thereby in Penance, maintain their ability to “remain in Jesus.”  They remain branches firmly connected to the Vine.  As they imitate the humility of Christ, they abandon the need to shape themselves and thus allow God to prune them into the shape He wishes them to wear.

The pruning of God then brings forth the “worthy fruits of penance” that Francis speaks of in the Exhortation/Prologue to the Rule.

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The link between being minor and the ability to “reside” in Christ is reinforced dramatically in the introduction to a work called “Of the Tribulations of the Order of Lesser Brothers.”  Understand that while this work is included in the source materials, it is not without controversy.  The author, Angelo Clareno, often found himself on the outskirts of the Franciscan mainstream, mostly because he felt that mainstream did not adhere to Francis’ instructions on minority and poverty closely enough.  (The discussion on the controversies can be found in the introduction to this work in the source materials if you wish to investigate it more thoroughly.)

Clareno presents the following in the context of Jesus instructing Francis:

Therefore the congregation of your brotherhood will be called the religion of lesser ones, so that from the name they might understand that above all they are to be truly humble of heart; since humility is the cloak of My honor and praise, and anyone passing from this life with this habit will find the gates of My kingdom open.

I asked My Father to grant me in this last hour a little poor people, humble, and meek, and mild, who would be like Me in all things, in poverty and humility, and who would be content to have only me; I would come to rest and remain in this people, just as My Father rests and remains in Me:  and this people would rest and remain in Me just as I remain in the Father and rest in His Spirit.  My father gave you to Me, along with those who with their whole heart and with unfeigned faith and perfect charity cling to Me through you; and I will guide and nourish them, and they shall be sons to Me, and I shall be a father to them.

I don’t know how controversial this passage is.  It does not seem so to me.  The link between being minor (“lesser ones”) and “remaining in Christ” rings true to me.  The position of minority and humility that is repeated here again seems to gain importance by the repetition. 

Clareno uses the word nourishment here, which we have used above in the context of the Vine nourishing the healthy branches connected to it so that they might “bear fruit.”

He also provides an echo to the Exhortation/Prologue to the Rule with the words “with their whole heart.”  That echo infers the tie-in to the Franciscan concept of Penance as part of the logic that links all of this together.

I came upon this passage because the text of John chapter 15 is quoted directly here and included in the Index to the source materials.  I pondered whether or not to include it because of the controversy associated with the author.

In the end, I chose to share it because there is something about the boldness of it that spoke to me.  I don’t understand Clareno to be suggesting that he somehow has firsthand knowledge of a conversation between Jesus and Francis.  I am not aware of this being lifted from something earlier in the source material. 

On one hand, I do not think that I would be comfortable placing words in the mouth of Jesus as Clareno has here.  The words Jesus has spoken in the gospel are enough for me.  I often feel inadequate in my attempts to contemplate them, let alone to move beyond that and somehow add to them.

On the other hand, they do feel authentic.  I can see Jesus saying these things to Francis.  They all seem to fit precisely and neatly within my overall understanding of the Franciscan charism.

The text is supportive of the discussion on the verses of John that I am reflecting on.  But in the end, I just wanted you to be exposed to it so that you knew it was there and could react to it on your own terms.  

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There is one portion of the verses that I have mostly ignored so far.  There has been lots of discussion about “residing in Jesus,” vines and branches, “bearing fruit” and pruning.  But there has been little about the clause at the end that says: “apart from me you can do nothing.”

In the introduction, I talked about the wild and unpruned grape vines that might be growing near you.  These vines, I think, speak to this clause.  They represent those who do not embrace Penance.  They are the people who do not “remain in Jesus” and are therefore unable to bear any fruit. 

I bought a house on a lake a couple years ago that was not well cared for.  In the back of the house there was a large tree.  At the base of the tree there was a grape vine that must have been growing in that spot for decades.  The trunk of the vine was bigger around than my thigh.  Its branches extended in every direction, including up into the tree thirty or forty feet.  The vine used the tree as a trellis and had grown so far out of control that it was hard to tell where the vine and the tree started and ended.

It took so much energy for the vine to support all that wood that it had not flowered at all.  There was no fruit of any kind growing on it.

Before my face was turned toward God in penance and conversion and minority, before I set about trying to “remain in Jesus” as this gospel chapter and the Rule call me to, this is what my life was like.  I had so many worldly things going on that I could not provide proper energy to any of them.  All of these different directions drained me, and I did nothing well.  In short, I produced lots of wood going in a myriad of directions and little if any “worthy fruits of penance.”

Apart from God, I was able to do nothing.

Even today, nearly ten years after beginning my Franciscan formation and seven years after my profession, I am still fighting to contain that overgrown and wild vine.  There are still tendrils from that time that I am supporting.  There is still temptation to grow new shoots in new directions that has to be resisted.  My life is nowhere near as simple as I would have it be.  My face is not turned unceasingly toward God.  I am still in need of that ongoing conversion that will allow God access to do the true pruning that needs to be done in my life, the pruning I cannot accomplish on my own.    

Francis, I think, would understand exactly what I am talking about here.  I think it’s the reason why he told Cardinal Hugolino “no” when he wanted to make his brothers prelates.  He knew that if they were allowed this worldly honor, they would soon be like branches of a vine that had grown wildly out of control and become unfruitful.

Here is one more repetition.  This one comes from the conclusion of Chapter 8 of the Little Flowers of St Francis.  It has already been cited at least twice in these reflections.  Francis confirms here the idea that everything we have comes from God, which is a necessary corollary of the idea that “apart from me you can do nothing.”      

And now, brother, listen to the conclusion. Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to his friends, is the grace of overcoming oneself, and accepting willingly, out of love for Christ, all suffering, injury, discomfort and contempt; for in all other gifts of God we cannot glory, seeing they proceed not from ourselves but from God, according to the words of the Apostle, `What hast thou that thou hast not received from God? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?’ But in the cross of tribulation and affliction we may glory, because, as the Apostle says again, `I will not glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Amen.”

If and when we do “bear fruit,” we do it not because of our own efforts, but because the goodness and grace and gifts of God have been worked through us.    

That is only possible when we embrace Penance and turn our faces to God.  It is only possible when we embrace minority and set aside worldly concerns in favor of the inspiration that comes from going from life to gospel and gospel to life.   It’s only possible when we “remain in Jesus” and allow God the Gardener to prune us as branches attached to the Vine that nourishes us through His gospel teaching.

In the end, I cut that grape vine out of the tree in the backyard of that house I bought.  I took all that extra wood and made of pile of it.  And then I burned that pile just like Jesus says in verse six of this chapter.  I then had the tree itself pruned, and it looks great today.  It frames nicely the view from the rear of the house out to the lake and the woods beyond.

I had not thought of that task recently, not until I started reflecting on these gospel verses.  But I am glad to have recalled it, because it is an example of how attentiveness to and caring for Creation can lead us to insights into the teachings that Jesus presents to us throughout the gospels.

But for the recollection to bear fruit, I had to be in a position of minority, humility and Penance with my face turned toward God. When I was cutting that overgrown vine out of that tree, I did not connect it to the gospels in the moment. It was only during this contemplation, when I was firmly oriented on Christ, that the full lesson of my action within Creation came clear.

Only when my inner eye was firmly focused on Jesus could I make the connection and learn the lesson that Jesus intended for me from the moment I started to prune.