The rich man’s fault was not that he was greedy or selfish, but that he was blind, not seeing the poor and the struggling, not giving life to those who have none, not giving them a new future.
When we pray let us attend to God with trust, with confidence. Knowing that God is our Father. And if we must ask, ask for the Spirit that binds us all as one.
As Franciscans, we learn to “pray without ceasing,” to maintain a continuous, conscious connection with God throughout the day.
“Go and do likewise.”
“May the Lord give you peace.” We are minstrels of the Lord, singing joy into joyless hearts. We listen to the voice of the Lord; we discern His life-giving Word; we go forth to be imitations of what is coming—the reign of God’s peace with abiding justice for all.
In confessing Jesus’ identity, Peter confessed his own. The Lord wanted nothing less from Peter than perfect conformity with Himself: “Another will bind you (as they did Me) and take you where you would not go.”
For Francis, the Eucharist is the primary way in which he sees Christ’s continuing Incarnation in the world, the complete self-emptying of Christ.
“Fear and honor, praise and consecrate, thank and adore the omnipotent Lord God in the Trinity and in the Unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, creator of all things.” (From the Earlier Rule)
When we walk by the Spirit we will be kind and good, we grow gentle and faithful. We experience incomparable peace, a joy the world cannot give.
The receiving and giving among the friends of Jesus creates a unity that becomes a message to the non-unified world, a world that lives by taking and holding.