Simple. Prayer is about God and our relationship to God. I Delio
Life can be unpredictable, but one thing is certain, God is with us, within us and surrounds us with infinite love. We move toward God because God has first moved toward us: This is the Franciscan path of prayer.
THE POETRY OF EARTH
Saint Francis recognized God’s work in creation and loved it. He was foremost a follower of Jesus, but in him there was no tension between loving God and loving all creatures of God. Rather, Francis reveled in the sun, gazed upon the stars, danced with the air, was drawn to the fire, marveled at water and loved the earth. He recognized the beauty of God in creation and loved God all the more for the abundance of this gift. He celebrated the beauty and interdependence of creation through poetry and called it “good.” And good it is. —
from Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth
by Ilia Delio, Keith Douglass Warner, and Pamela Wood
PRAYER:
Loving God, you have captured our hearts and opened to us the treasures of Heaven in all of creation. May God and all creatures of God always be our treasure and delight. May we celebrate beauty and creation always and call it “good”. Amen
“the incomparable treasure hidden in the field of the world and of the human heart” (Clare of Assisi, Third Letter to Agnes of Prague)
A Different Approach – from Ilia Delio, OSF
Francis of Assisi, attained the heights of contemplation through a penetrating vision of creation. With a basic education in reading and writing, Francis came to prayer from a popular and lay experience. He looked on the material world—not for what it is but for how it is: God’s creation.
For Francis and Clare of Assisi their relationship with God was based on faith that God became human in Jesus Christ ~ the incarnation. For them their relationship with God was an intimate one; they wanted to follow Jesus as closely as they could. Prayer in the Franciscan tradition is not about attaining something new, it is discovering what is already in us.
The journey of prayer for Franciscans is the discovery of God at the center of our lives. God exists inherently within the very seed of our identity. Franciscans pray to open up the image of God in which we are created, the God within all of creation and the God who loves us unconditionally.
Life can be unpredictable, but one thing is certain, God is with us, within us and surrounds us with infinite love. We move toward God because God has first moved toward us: This is the Franciscan path of prayer.
