Eager to Love

The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi

Richard Rohr

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781473604025
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Francis of Assisi is one of the most beloved of all saints. Both traditional and entirely revolutionary, he was a paradox. He was at once down to earth and reaching toward heaven, grounded in the rich history of the Church while moving toward a new understanding of the world beyond.Richard Rohr, himself a Franciscan friar, draws on Scripture, insights from psychology, and literary and artistic references, to weave together an understanding of the tradition as first practiced by St Francis. Rohr shows how his own innovative theology is firmly grounded in the life and teaching of this great saint and provides a perspective on how his alternative path to the divine can deepen and enrich our spiritual lives.

CHAPTER ONE

What Do We Mean by “Mysticism”?

As with lovers,

When it’s right, you can’t say

Who is kissing whom.¹

—GREGORY ORR

THE MOST UNFORTUNATE THING ABOUT the concept of mysticism is that the word itself has become mystified—and relegated to a “misty” and distant realm that implies it is only available to a very few. For me, the word simply means experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge or even church knowledge.²

Most of organized religion, without meaning to, has actually discouraged us from taking the mystical path by telling us almost exclusively to trust outer authority, Scripture, tradition, or various kinds of experts (what I call the “containers”)—instead of telling us the value and importance of inner experience itself (which is the “content”). In fact, most of us were strongly warned against ever trusting ourselves. Roman Catholics were told to trust the church hierarchy first and last, while mainline Protestants were often warned that inner experience was dangerous, unscriptural, or even unnecessary.

Both were ways of discouraging actual experience of God and often created passive (and often passive aggressive) people and, more sadly, a lot of people who concluded that there was no God to be experienced. We were taught to mistrust our own souls—and thus the Holy Spirit! Contrast that with Jesus’s common phrase, “Go in peace, your faith has made you whole!” He said this to people who had made no dogmatic affirmations, did not think he was “God,” did not pass any moral checklist, and often did not belong to the “correct” group! They were simply people who trustfully affirmed, with open hearts, the grace of their own hungry experience—in that moment—and that God could care about it!

Pentecostals and charismatics are a significant modern-era exception to this avoidance of experience, and I believe their “baptism in the Spirit” is a true and valid example of initial mystical encounter. The only things they lack, which often keep them from mature mysticism, are solid theology, some developmental psychology, and some social concerns to keep their feet in this incarnate world. Without these, their authentic but ego-inflating experience has often led to superficial and conservative theology and even right-wing politics. But the core value and truth of experience is still there, right beneath the surface.³

The irony in all of these attempts to over-rely on externals is that people end up relying upon their own experience anyway! We all—by necessity—see everything through the lens of our own temperament, early conditioning, brain function, role and place in society, education, our personal needs, and our unique cultural biases and assumptions. Yes, our experiences are indeed easy to misinterpret, as we universalize from our “moment” to an expectation that everybody must have the same kind of “moment.” That only gives us the excuse to mistrust such narcissism in people even more. Or, more commonly, people assume that their experience is 100 percent from God with no filters developed that would clear away their own agenda and their own ego. They forget Paul’s reminder which was meant to keep us humble: “We know imperfectly and we prophesy imperfectly” (1 Corinthians 13:9).

To help us escape from this trap, the formerly rare ministry of spiritual direction is being rediscovered and revalued in our time, especially among the laity. It is a proven way to hold personal experience accountable to Scripture, common sense, reason, frankly some good psychology, and the Tradition (I use uppercase-T Tradition to refer to the constantly recurring “Perennial Tradition,” and lowercase-t tradition to refer to the common “we have always done it this way”). All together this might be the best way to hear and trust “God’s will.” We have much to thank the Jesuits for in this regard, although there are now other excellent schools of spiritual direction available too.

I think you will find that Franciscan mysticism, in particular, is a trustworthy and simple—though not necessarily easy—path precisely because it refuses to be mystified by doctrinal abstractions, moralism, or false asceticism (although some Franciscans have gone this route). Franciscanism is truly a sidewalk spirituality for the streets of the world, a path highly possible and attractive for all would-be seekers. You don’t need to be celibate, isolated from others, more highly educated, or in any way superior to your neighbor—as many Secular Franciscans have shown us. In fact, those kinds of paths might well get in the way of the experience itself. A celibate hermit can have a totally dualistic mind⁴ and live a tortured inner life—and thus torture others too. A busy journalist or housewife with a non-dual heart and mind can enlighten other individuals, their family, and all they touch, without talking “religiously” at all. Think Nelson Mandela, Mary Oliver, or Wendell Berry.

I will try to summarize the Franciscan mystical path to the Divine in specific ways here, and I will distinguish them from other paths so you can better appreciate the uniqueness of Francis’s genius. He cut to the essentials and avoided what had been, and continues to be, a preoccupation with nonessentials. Even Thomas Aquinas said that the actual precepts Jesus taught were “very few.” Each of the possible diversions I will name must have been a “temptation to him,” just as they were to the young Buddha. In the Franciscan worldview, separation from the world is the monastic temptation, asceticism is the temptation of the desert fathers and mothers, moralism or celibacy is the Catholic temptation, intellectualizing is the seminary temptation, privatized piety and inerrant belief is the Protestant temptation, and the most common temptation for all of us is to use belonging to the right group and practicing its proper rituals as a substitute for any personal or life-changing encounter with the Divine.

How Francis managed to avoid all of these common temptations, and also steer through them, is at the heart of his spiritual genius. Further, he was able to do all of this while also belonging to groups that he loved. He knew that some kind of base camp is the only testing ground for actual faith, hope, or charity. We need living communities to keep us accountable, growing, and honest. Francis was not a modern individualist.

I don’t know that we Franciscans have always followed him very well in avoiding these temptations. And, of course, not everyone in these groups I’ve just mentioned surrendered to these temptations. I point out these diversionary paths to help us clarify the essential issue, and not to criticize anyone—monks, Protestants, or academics. These characterizations help us see how Francis eventually maneuvered his way through all of these nonessentials, largely by intuition and the Holy Spirit. Much of his genius was that he did this by trusting his own inner experience, the very thing Catholics were normally discouraged from doing. Remember what he said in his “Testament”: “There was no one to tell me what I should do.”⁵

THE INFINITE IN THE FINITE

Francis knew that if you can accept that the finite manifests the infinite, and that the physical is the doorway to the spiritual (which is the foundational principle we call “incarnation”), then all you need is right here and right now—in this world. This is the way to that! Heaven includes earth. Time opens you up to the timeless, space opens you up to spacelessness, if you only take them for the clear doorways that they are. There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments—and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it. You really cannot get any better or more simple than that, in terms of a spiritual vision.

The realization that the concrete opens you up to the universal might be the only fully trustworthy or possible path anyway, because that is how sensate humans normally operate. Abstract ideology will not get you very far, and much common religion is ideology more than any real encounter with Presence. But we all must start with our anecdotal experience, and then build from there. What else can we do? Good spiritual teachers tell you how to build from there! Wise people, Scripture, and Tradition tell you what of your experience is worth looking at and what is perhaps a detour or a dead end. When religion becomes mere ideology (or even mere theology!), it starts with universal theories and the rubber never hits the road again. As Pope Francis says, people all over the world are rejecting this ideological (top down) form of religion—and they should because this is not the path of Christ himself.

By taking the mystery of the Incarnation absolutely seriously, and gradually extending it to its logical conclusions, the seeming limitations of space and time are once and for all overcome in Francis. The Christ Mystery refuses to be vague or abstract, and is always concrete and specific. When we stay with these daily apparitions, we see that everything is a revelation of the divine—from rocks to rocket ships. There are henceforth no blind spots in the divine disclosure, in our own eyes, or in our rearview mirrors. Our only blindness is our own lack of fascination, humility, curiosity, awe, and willingness to be allured forward.⁶

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU ARE

Franciscan spirituality emphasizes a real equivalence and mutuality between the one who sees and what can be seen. There is a symbiosis between the mind and heart of the seer—and to what they will then pay attention. Francis had a unique ability to call others—animals, planets and elements—“brother” and “sister” because he himself was a little brother. He granted other beings and things mutuality, subjectivity, “personhood,” and dignity because he first honored his own dignity as a son of God. (Although it could be the other way around too!) The world of things was a transparent two-way mirror for him, which some of us would call a fully “sacramental” universe.⁷

All being can correctly and rightly be spoken of with “one voice” (univocity), as John Duns Scotus will later put it (see chapter thirteen). What I am you also are, and so is the world. Creation is one giant symphony of mutual sympathy. Or, as Augustine loved to say, “In the end there will only be Christ loving himself.”

To get to this 3-D vision, I must know that I am, at least in part, the very thing I am seeking. In fact that is what makes me seek it!⁸ But most do not know this good news yet. God cannot be found “out there” until God is first found “in here,” within ourselves, as Augustine had profoundly expressed in his Confessions in many ways. Then we can almost naturally see God in others and in all of creation too. What you seek is what you are. The search for God and the search for our True Self are finally the same search.⁹ Francis’s all-night prayer, “Who are you, O God, and who am I?” is probably a perfect prayer, because it is the most honest prayer we can offer.

REMAIN IN LOVE

A heart transformed by this realization of oneness knows that only love “in here” can spot and enjoy love “out there.” Fear, constriction, and resentment are seen by spiritual teachers to be an inherent blindness that must be overcome. Those emotions cannot get you anywhere, certainly not anywhere good. Thus all mystics are positive people—or they are not mystics! Their spiritual warfare is precisely the work of recognizing and then handing over all of their inner negativity and fear to God. The great paradox here is that such a victory is a total gift from God and yet somehow you must want it very much (Philippians 2:12–13).

The central practice in Franciscan mysticism, therefore, is that we must remain in love, which is why it is a commandment as such (John 15:9), in fact, the commandment of Jesus. Only when we are eager to love can we see love and goodness in the world around us. We must ourselves remain in peace, and then we will see and find peace over there. Remain in beauty, and we will honor beauty everywhere. This concept of remaining or abiding (John 15:4–5) moves all religion out of any esoteric realms of doctrinal outer space where it has for too long been lost. There is no secret moral command for knowing or pleasing God, or what some call “salvation,” beyond becoming a loving person in mind, heart, body, and soul yourself. Then you will see what you need to see. This teaching is so central that we made it the title of this book: we all must be very eager to love—every day.

ONE SACRED WORLD

In Franciscan mysticism, there is no distinction between sacred and profane. All of the world is sacred, as I said previously. In other words, you can pray always, and everything that happens is potentially sacred if you allow it to be. Our job as humans is to make admiration of others and adoration of God fully conscious and deliberate. It is the very purpose of life. As the French friar Eloi Leclerc beautifully put into the mouth of Francis, “If we but knew how to adore, we could travel through the world with the tranquility of the great rivers.”¹⁰

For those who have learned how to see—and adore—everything is “spiritual,” which ironically and eventually leads to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer courageously called “religionless Christianity.” (Don’t be scared by that!) By that he meant many people, even in his time of the 1930s, were moving beyond the scaffolding of religion to the underlying and deeper Christian experience itself. Once we can accept that God is in all situations, and can and will use even bad situations for good, then everything becomes an occasion for good and an occasion for God, and is thus at the heart of religion. The Center is everywhere.

God’s plan is so perfect that even sin, tragedy, and painful deaths are used to bring us to divine union. God wisely makes the problem itself part of the solution. It is all a matter of learning how to see rightly, fully, and therefore truthfully. Recently, I watched a family-made video of a dear teenage daughter’s last moments dying from cancer, as she lovingly said good-bye to them, and the family was ecstatic with tears and joy, through profound faith in eternal life and love. Such a fully human love is probably going to do more long-lasting good for that family than years of formal religious education. I know that to be true from many personal experiences. That is “religionless Christianity,” which ironically might be the most religious of all.

PARADOXES AT THE EDGES

Franciscan spirituality boldly puts a big exclamation point behind Jesus’s words that “The last will be first and the first will be last!” and Paul’s “When I am weak I am strong!” Upside-downness is at the heart of our message, always prompting us to look more deeply and broadly. This opens up our eyes to recognize God’s self-giving at the far edges where most of us cannot or will not see God, such as other religions, any who are defined as outsider or sinner, and even to the far edge of our seeing, toward those who are against us—our so-called enemies. In fact, truth, love, and beauty are most beautifully found at the lowest, weakest, and most concrete possible levels, like in a frog, a fugitive, or what others might call a freak. You have to accept God’s divine freedom to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Eager to Love
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraph
• Preface: Something Old and Something New
• Chapter One: What Do We Mean by “Mysticism”?
• Chapter Two: A Happy Run Downward: The Inner Authority of Those Who Have Suffered
• Chapter Three: Living on the Edge of the Inside: Simplicity and Justice
• Chapter Four: Home Base: Nature and the Road
• Chapter Five: Contemplation: A Different Way of Knowing
• Chapter Six: An Alternative Orthodoxy: Paying Attention to Different Things
• Chapter Seven: The Franciscan Genius: The Integration of the Negative
• Chapter Eight: Lightness of Heart and Firmness of Foot: The Integration of Feminine and Masculine
• Chapter Nine: The Legacy of Clare: Living the Life at Depth
• Chapter Ten: Entering the World of Another: Francis and the Sultan of Egypt
• Chapter Eleven: Bonaventure: To Yield to Love Is to Return to the Source
• Chapter Twelve: John Duns Scotus: Anything but a Dunce
• Chapter Thirteen: Francis: A Natural Spiritual Genius
• Appendix I: A Dynamic Unity between Jesus of Nazareth and the Cosmic Christ
• Appendix II: Is God a Person? The Franciscan View of the Nature of the Divine
• Appendix III: How Are Things “Caused”?
• Afterword
• Notes
• About the Author
• Also by Richard Rohr