Every year, the Catholic Media Association hosts its annual awards ceremony, where it recognizes the best and the brightest in religious publishing. It is always an honor to be among the winners. 

That is why we were pleased when this past June, St. Anthony Messenger received second place for Magazine of the Year in the national general-interest category. 

Two of our staff members also took home awards for their writing. Editorial Director Christopher Heffron won second place for his essay “One Nation, Under God,” which appeared in the June 2023 issue. Our managing editor, Daniel Imwalle, also was recognized, receiving a third-place award for his October 2023 editorial, “Ethics in the Age of AI.” 

We have also been blessed with the arrival of Franciscan Media’s new president and publisher, Deacon Matthew Halbach, PhD. Regarding his new role, Deacon Matt says: “At the risk of sounding unprofessional, I have to say that I am unabashedly giddy about beginning this adventure at Franciscan Media! This company is Spirit-led and deeply rooted in St. Francis’ mission to rebuild the Church, which includes renewing the lives and spirits of individuals, families, and communities. Who wouldn’t be excited to be a part of such a wonderful adventure?” 

Most of all, we are grateful for all of you, our readers. You are our most important blessing of all. 

This author shows how you can use this well-known prayer as a guide to inner healing and loving yourself. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; 
Where there is injury, pardon; 
Where there is doubt, faith; 
Where there is despair, hope; 
Where there is darkness, light; 
And where there is sadness, joy. 
O Divine Master, 
Grant that I may not so much seek 
To be consoled, as to console; 
To be understood, as to understand; 
To be loved, as to love; 
For it is in giving that we receive, 
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. 
Amen. 

The Prayer of St. Francis may be one of the best-known prayers even among those who rarely pray or even don’t believe. It is often read in Twelve Step meetings. The hymn version found its way into the Broadway musical Come from Away. It is rightly viewed as a road map for spiritual growth and for how we should treat one another. 

As I read this prayer, though, I also experience it as a road map for learning how to treat myself. All world religions have in their sacred texts or doctrines the idea that we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. While we hear much about how to love our neighbor, we hear less about how to learn to love ourselves. The Prayer of St. Francis can be a guide. 

Most of us on our spiritual and psychological journeys are confronted by significant inner spiritual and psychological struggles. We may even reach a point where, in one way or another, we consider giving up. 

The goal of living St. Francis’ prayer is given to us in the first line: “Make me an instrument of your peace.” To be an agent of peace, we need to first find inner peace or what the 12 Steppers refer to as serenity. When we consider whether we are at peace, many of us encounter inner chaos instead. The prayer notes that chaos then points the direction to peace. 

‘Where there is hatred, let me sow love’ 

Many of us may recoil from the thought that we might hate ourselves, since hate is such a strong word. Yet how often do you judge yourself? How often do you give yourself credit for something? Most of us judge ourselves, frequently with harshness. That judging voice can be subtle, yet it is there and we listen to it. 

I tolerate things I say to myself when I might be indignant if someone else says those things. We also tend to speak to ourselves much differently than we do to others. If I ask, “How do you talk to someone you love?” you might answer, “With gentleness and respect.” Yet how often do you speak to yourself with harshness and disrespect? I don’t usually call others stupid but I use that word when talking to myself. The Prayer of St. Francis asks us to speak to ourselves the way we try to speak to others. The prayer invites us to heal from self-hatred. 

‘Where there is injury, pardon’ 

When I’ve done workshops in the past, I would ask, “How many of you harbor a resentment against someone?” I, of course, would raise my own hand. Amazingly, some would not raise their hands. Perhaps they didn’t want to admit this oh-so-human tendency to resent. 

I believe resentments are the spiritual equivalent of cancer. Left untreated, they spread and poison our entire spiritual world. Perhaps you have known people who always seem angry and bitter; often the culprit is resentment. 

Some years ago, a friend gently suggested an exercise for me. He told me to picture myself on a shore or dock watching a ship approaching. As the ship neared, I realized I knew people on this ship, for the suggestion was to see all whom I was harboring a resentment. I decided to write down the names of those getting off the ship, thinking I’d see two or three people, but I stopped writing after filling two columns on a legal pad. And there were still people getting off the ship! I was able to let go of some resentments immediately, while others I had to work at. 

The solution to resentments is forgiveness. I am not expected to like anyone on my list; I am simply releasing them and regaining the power I had been giving to them. As others have written, the person who benefits most from forgiving is the one who forgives. 

‘Where there is doubt, faith’ 

I have struggled with spiritual doubts most of my life, starting at 5 years old when I tried to figure out why a loving God had let my two sisters die. Many years later, I still don’t have a clear answer. Along the way, I have judged myself for having these doubts. Ironically, the path to faith for some of us may lead through doubts. 

A doubt can be viewed simply as an acknowledgment that I don’t know all there is to know within the domain of spirit. For some of us, facing a doubt can open the door to another experience of faith. The doubt stands in opposition to the dangerous assumption that I know all there is to know about God. For example, I grew up believing that I could only find God in church. When I questioned that, it opened the door to a richer experience of God in places such as Yosemite or the Guadalupe Mountains or in the presence of a painting by Van Gogh or Edward Hopper. 

‘Where there is despair, hope’ 

You may have known someone who wanted to give up, even literally. You may have reached out to that person, offering solutions or at least giving the gift of listening. When we are with someone in despair, we want more than anything to help them find hope. I long believed that my main purpose in my years as a psychotherapist was not to help people find answers and solutions but to help them find hope. I didn’t always succeed in those efforts. 

How easy it is to fall into discouragement and even despair! Have you ever felt like God wasn’t listening to you? That any solutions you might attempt were doomed to failure? That prayer is a waste of time? All these thoughts are on the edge of despair. 

Have I ever felt despair? Absolutely! I am, after all, a recovering addict, and despair is a way of life for addicts. Thankfully, I was able to be open to the gift of hope. But first I had to accept that my own efforts at hope had failed. Thus, when we are in the depths of despair, we need to be open to the possibility of hope and to whatever action grows out of that hope. 

‘Where there is darkness, light’ 

Light is a powerful spiritual theme. It represents enlightenment. It represents wisdom. It represents serenity. Inner darkness can refer to depression. It can refer to sinfulness. It can refer to that within us that needs to be redeemed. To find our own inner light, we must often first walk through the darkness. 

Psychiatrist Carl Jung referred to the Shadow as a powerful part of our psyches, consisting of all those qualities we deny. It is the lust, the violence, the controlling—the qualities we fear and avoid. In my own Shadow journey, in addition to addiction, I have found rigidity and harshness amid the darkness. We are called to shed light on that darkness, to redeem it not through denial but through acceptance. In time, I came to see that the rigidity I denied offered a degree of self-discipline that I otherwise lacked. And hidden within the darkness of addiction was the light of sobriety. 

Have you ever heard loved ones putting themselves down? We want to cry out, “If only you could see yourself as I do!” We want to shed the light of love on their own time of darkness. Yet when we are in need of that same loving light, we instead slip into self-judgment and avoidance of our own inner darkness. 

As we take this inner journey of healing, we are better prepared to live out the second half of the Prayer of St. Francis, which gives further guidance for dealing with others. But in its own way, it challenges us not to be dependent upon others in meeting some of our spiritual and psychological needs. 

‘To be consoled, as to console’ 

Most addicts I know, including myself, would reach outside ourselves for consolation. I often turned to the great god alcohol for the illusion of consolation. Others can turn to drugs or sexual encounters or the gambling table for the short-term illusion of consolation. 

It becomes important to learn where and how to find consolation in a healthy manner. Thus, I may need to learn how to pray and meditate. Introvert and stoic that I am, I have had to learn the power of sharing my pain. To be able to console others, I need to know how to find consolation. 

‘To be understood, as to understand’ 

The key to understanding may have to do with an absence of judgment and a degree of acceptance. If I can develop a degree of understanding of myself, then my blind spots will be less likely to interfere with my wish to understand someone else. I do not know how other people think or feel; I can only approximate their situation by awareness and understanding of my own. 

To be understanding also involves a capacity to listen. Again, my capacity to listen to others may be compromised if I am unwilling or unable to listen to myself. My own internal avoidance blocks me from hearing others. 

At times, being out of touch with my need to intervene in some creative way has interfered with my capacity to listen. I recall one woman who came in and briefly told me of her dilemma. I immediately spun into an “explanation” of her problem and what I was sure to be the solution. My own unheard need to be “helpful” blocked my ability to listen. To her credit, she gently raised her hand and said, “Will you please be quiet and just listen to me?” She was right. Because I was listening to my own need to be “helpful,” I was not listening to her. 

‘To be loved, as to love’ 

Again, we sometimes depend upon others to give us a sense of value, all the while avoiding the challenge of learning to love ourselves. We tell ourselves: “If only someone loved me. That would make me lovable.” That desperate need in fact gets in the way of loving relationships, since it gives rise to neediness and dependence. If I learn to love myself, then I am in a better place to give and receive love in a healthy manner. 

‘And it is in dying that we are born’ 

The last line of St. Francis’ prayer presents us with one of the paradoxes of the spiritual journey. There are certain inner themes to which we must die if we are to grow. We must die to our self-judgment. We must die to our perfectionism. We must die to our need for control. We must even die to our need to have all the spiritual answers. 

Many of us seek what is called a “spiritual awakening.” Perhaps we can embrace the Prayer of St. Francis as a doorway to that awakening. 

What do cookies have to do with Franciscan spirituality? When St. Francis was on his deathbed, a seemingly simple treat brought by his good friend Lady Jacoba lifted his spirits and soothed his suffering. Their friendship exemplifies the importance of accompaniment on the path of faith. 

I was 4 years old when Grandma came to live with us. As her youngest grandchild and the only one not yet in school, I may have gotten the best of this situation, since she and I spent the days together while my siblings were at school and our parents worked. We often watched The Jack LaLanne Show together, doing only a small fraction of the exercises, but then insisting we had both worked up an appetite that only home-baked cookies could satisfy. We tended to this task with great care and attention. 

I helped her by finding the butter and eggs in the refrigerator, cautiously carrying each ingredient to the counter. She slowly read out the amounts of each ingredient, and I learned to deliberately select the right measuring spoon to add the correct amount of vanilla extract and the right measuring cup to measure out the correct amount of flour. We took turns stirring the dough and then rolling it into small balls before placing them on the cookie sheet. She let me lick the spoon while we stood by the small oven window and watched the cookies spread as they baked. Grandma took over when they were done and shooed me away so she could open the hot oven door and slide the fragile cookies off the sheet to cool. 

I cherish those memories of baking cookies with my grandma, but it was almost 50 years later that I came to understand what she had really shared with me. My epiphany came while writing about another cookie baker, Lady Jacoba. 

The Wisdom of Lay Franciscans 

Lady Jacoba—affectionately known as “Brother Jacoba” from one of Thomas of Celano’s accounts of Francis—is a favorite among Franciscans. Say her name to any member of the Franciscan family and they will likely smile and knowingly mention almond cookies. We all love cookies, don’t we? But we may be overlooking the real significance of this laywoman if we let our focus remain just on the cookies themselves. 

The stories of laity in the Franciscan tradition are less well-known and reflected on than stories of Francis or Clare. In fact, laypeople are often overlooked when we talk about the Franciscan tradition in general and Franciscan spirituality in particular. As someone who has spent most of my academic career studying Franciscan laity, I have come to understand that laypeople—like me and many of you—necessarily experience Franciscan spirituality differently than vowed members of the tradition. And yet we don’t look at the lives of the people who forged this path with the same kind of depth and seriousness as we bring to studying and reflecting on the lives of Francis and Clare, or the thought of major intellectual figures, such as Bonaventure, Scotus, and Anthony of Padua. 

What if we considered the lives of early laypeople who lived according to the spirituality modeled by Francis and Clare and who had opportunities to interact with and even influence them in both small and significant ways? 

Funding the Franciscans, Forming a Friendship 

Take Lady Jacoba, for example. Is there more to her contribution to Franciscan spirituality than the cookies? From early sources, it is clear that Francis enjoyed the delicious almondy taste of the cookies Jacoba baked for him. So don’t fear! This isn’t a revisionist effort to edit out the cookies from the Franciscan tradition. But cookies were just a tangible piece of evidence of a close friendship that grew into a deep spiritual relationship sown in grief and faith. 

Jacoba first met Francis in Rome around 1212, shortly after she was widowed. Still a young woman of about 23 years old, she inherited substantial wealth and power when her husband died a violent death. With that wealth and power, she inherited significant responsibilities to administer a vast estate. Such authority and entitlement were not completely unknown to women at the time, but neither were they at all common. More common was her charge over two young sons and the expectation that she would remarry. 

But Jacoba did not live according to common expectations. She never remarried, nor did she pass on the legal rights to the vast estate to her sons when they reached adulthood. Instead, with the demands of these responsibilities and with the emotional strain from the death of her husband, Jacoba turned to an unconventional source of solace: a beggar who preached the Gospel, Francis of Assisi. 

Their friendship grew over shared meals (with cookies, no doubt) and conversations that went unrecorded. But one can imagine the compassion that grew between a grieving young widow and a simple man of faith. 

Witnessing the care with which Francis and his companions lived among the other homeless of Rome, Jacoba gave them the hospice that was on the outskirts of the city (where today the church of San Francesco a Ripa stands). In that place, Jacoba, Francis, and his companions together cared for people who were ill and dying. They washed and fed these people who go unnamed in historical sources but who were the catalyst for Jacoba’s spiritual transformation and Francis’ ongoing conversion. 

‘Mere Women’s Work’ 

Out of her abundant wealth, Jacoba funded and supported these efforts of caregiving. But it was out of her personal grieving that she bathed and fed the dying and the homeless alongside Francis and his companions. It’s easy to overlook this tender caregiving since the sources give us only the bare legal details of property being handed over. It is also easy to ignore the gritty details of caregiving, but this presence and care Jacoba offered with Francis were anything but comfortable. 

The particulars of bathing, holding, and feeding the sick or the particulars of faithfully burying the dead after having prepared their bodies with reverence—these are all details that went unrecorded as mere women’s work. So it is notable that this was women’s work that Jacoba and Francis shared as they cared for the sick and dying unhoused people of Rome. 

When I started reflecting on this story with seriousness about 15 years ago, I came to realize a deeper meaning of the almond cookies in the story of Francis and Jacoba. I had just begun volunteering as a hospice caregiver in San Francisco, the California city named after the saint. At first, I had busied myself with tasks that had to be done. Keeping busy helped calm my nerves and insecurities. 

After some weeks and months, I became more able to be present and notice the kinds of gestures and gifts that offered real comfort to people facing their life’s end as well as their family and friends. 

They were all quite modest and never expensive. For one woman it was the smell of coffee. For another it was the gentle laughter of her granddaughter. I realized for Francis it was Jacoba’s presence and the smell of the almond cookies that likely brought him comfort as he neared his death. It was never just about the cookies; it was about their relationship. 

This close spiritual friendship with a laywoman was one that buoyed Francis throughout his life as a friar, and most obviously at the end of his life. 

Lifelong Friends 

What kind of effect did this have on Francis? We can’t be certain, but from several accounts of his death in 1226, we know that he wanted Jacoba to be with him as he neared the end of his life. They had forged a close and special friendship during the early months of her widowhood, when her grief was raw. Like many people living through grief, Jacoba had found serving others helped soothe her inner pain. Through caring for others in their illnesses or at the end of their lives, she nurtured compassion alongside Francis. 

Although this presence they shared with others was born from grief, it was also laced with tender joy. After all, there were those cookies that she had baked and that he had grown so fond of. So, in late September of 1226 when she sensed a need to be with her dear friend, she left Rome with her retinue of staff and brought with her all the things she had become accustomed to use when caring for the sick and the dying: a pillow, a tunic, and all the ingredients to make the almond cookies Francis had loved. It didn’t matter that he was unable to see her due to blindness, nor did it matter that he was unable to eat anything as he neared death. He was able to sense her presence through her voice and her touch; he sensed her presence through the scent of crushed almonds. 

Jacoba’s presence offered the kind of comfort a close spiritual companion can offer in both life and death. Because it was only women’s work and was therefore commonly overlooked in recorded sources, we can forget that she would have helped the other companions—the friars—prepare Francis’ body for burial, since the items she had brought from Rome included a shroud, candles, and incense, the items needed for caring for the dead. It is said that she covered all the expenses for the funeral. 

A light bulb went on for me as I began to realize Jacoba’s place in Francis’ life. This insight was more personal, but, no surprise, it’s about cookies. Thinking back to baking cookies with my grandma, I remembered one time in particular when I walked into her room and found her crying. My 4-year-old self wasn’t used to seeing adults cry, so I asked her what was wrong. “Grandpa has gone to heaven, and I miss him,” she said. We ended up talking about God and Jesus. I asked, “What happens after death?” and listened intently as she shared some of her beliefs. 

I found it all compelling but had a couple of burning questions. “Are there cookies in heaven? Would Grandpa want some cookies?” She chuckled a bit as she answered honestly, “I’m not sure heaven has cookies, but we can make some and share them here!” So, we went to the kitchen and baked a batch of snickerdoodles. When they were done, we put all of them on a plate for the family, except for one, which we left behind on a saucer. 

It was for Grandpa, just in case he wanted one.

Lady Jacoba’s Almond Cookies

Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar (or less)
• 2 eggs, divided
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups white or whole wheat flour
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1 cup ground almonds (add finely chopped pieces to the batter and coarser, bigger pieces on top)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar until creamy.

Separate one egg. Save the egg white in a small bowl to use for dipping the balls of dough to get almonds to stick on top before baking. Add the yolk and the other egg to the creamy butter mix along with all the other wet ingredients. Beat until well mixed.

Stir flour, salt, and baking soda together in a separate bowl. Then incrementally add to the wet mix. Work the dough until it holds together and can be formed into balls. If the dough is too thin, add more wheat flour.

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. Dip the top half in egg white and roll in almonds. Place on a lightly greased cooking tray and gently flatten with a spoon or your hand.

Bake 14–16 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.

Cool one minute on cookie sheet before removing from tray. Cool completely and store in an airtight container. The cookies should be consumed within a week or frozen for later use.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

There weren’t ecologists in the Middle Ages, at least by our modern understanding of environmentalism. But St. Francis changed all that with a new vision of creation as a reflection of God’s love and the Incarnation. 

Francis of Assisi is an example of a religious person in the Christian tradition who stood rightly in creation. Francis was probably one of the first deep ecologists in the tradition without ever trying to be one. Deep ecology was a movement that arose in the 1970s in response to the environmental crisis. It highlighted the fact that we humans stand in the web of life and not above or beyond it. 

The birth of Francis’ “ecological self” began in the beautiful province of Umbria, with its breathtaking panorama of valleys and mountains. He was born into a merchant class family and received a basic education in reading and writing in the local church school of Assisi. Since he had not been trained as an intellectual in his youth, he never absorbed the Christian Neoplatonic attitude toward creation that occupied the discussions of students at the University of Paris. Neoplatonism was a hierarchical way of viewing God and the world and passed into the Middle Ages through the writings of Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius, among others. The Neoplatonic ladder of ascent presented a movement away from—and rising above—natural, sensible things as if they were inferior and, in some sense, not truly real. 

Francis came from a base of popular and lay experience. His family was part of the rising merchant class in Assisi. His father was a cloth merchant and owned a shop in Assisi where Francis worked for some time. Francis was not only familiar with the daily business of buying and trading cloth, but he came into contact with many different types of people who worked with their hands and valued the material things of the earth. The idea of transcending this world to contemplate true reality, like the Neoplatonists, would have been foreign to Francis’ thinking. Rather, he regarded earthly life as possessing ideal, positive potential as God’s creation. 

A Seismic Shift 

Although some might see a dualism in St. Francis, who spoke of “hatred of the body,” such a view would be erroneous, for Francis saw material reality, including the body, as good. In his Fifth Admonition, for example, he said: “Consider, O human being, in what great excellence the Lord God has placed you, for he created and formed you to the image of his beloved Son according to the body and to his likeness according to the Spirit.” This is hardly the insight of one who thinks matter is evil. His disdain for the body focused on attitudes or behaviors that led to broken relationships and prevented the goodness of the body from shining out. We might assume, however, that his liberal youth influenced his view of the body as well. 

His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, tells us that as a young man, Francis was a libertine, a spendthrift, and rather vain. He loved fine parties, foolish talk, and the esteem of others. The young Francis probably had little care or concern for the world of nature, as the center of his attention seemed to be himself. The direction of his life began to change, however, when Francis’ desire for the glory of knighthood was thwarted. He was wounded in battle, and, while convalescing in a soldiers hospital, he began to ponder the meaning of his life. This period marked the beginning of Francis’ conversion. Thomas of Celano writes that around this time, “The beauty of the fields, the delight of the vineyards, and whatever else was beautiful to see could offer him no delight at all.” 

The search for meaning in his life led Francis to withdraw from his circle of friends and to search out abandoned places in order to pray. One day, he wandered into the dilapidated San Damiano Church on the outskirts of Assisi. Upon entering the church he saw a large Byzantine cross of the crucified and risen Christ. While praying before the cross, he heard the words, “Francis, go rebuild my house; as you see, it is all being destroyed.” “From that time on,” Thomas writes, “compassion for the crucified [Christ] was impressed into his holy soul.” 

Where the Word Dwells Deepest 

In this early stage of his conversion, we might say that Francis was “grasped” by the overwhelming love of God, a love that “seized” him in the core of his being. According to Bonaventure’s account, Francis’ “soul melted at the sight, and the memory of Christ’s passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart.” His experience of God’s love turned him in a new direction. The search for meaning, purpose, and openness to God—as the love of God penetrated his soul—changed Francis’ life forever and marked the beginning of his impact on history. 

The life of Francis shows us that right relationship in creation is not easy. He heard the words spoken by the crucified Christ—“go rebuild my house”—and took them literally. He began to rebuild San Damiano stone by stone. But as he reflected on these words, he came to understand a deeper meaning of them in his life. His devotion to Mary, the mother of God, led him to realize that the “house of God” is, first, the human person. The Word dwells in human flesh, not in stone buildings. 

As the Word dwells in the human person, so, too, the same Word dwells in creation. The word who is made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ is the same word through whom all things are made. The Incarnation of God opened up the eyes of Francis to the inner truth of creation as the very place where God is revealed—or concealed—when humans fail to see God humbly pres-ent in the magnificent diversity of creation. 

^{Text by Keith Douglass Warner, OFM, Ilia Delio, OSF, and Pamela Wood} 

But when I entered the building with its soaring ceiling of knotty pine beams, windowed walls imbuing the air with dreamy light, and the grille placed behind the altar, I was awash in a sense of peace that is home. Within a few minutes, I already began to plan when I could return there. 

‘A Lightness Overtook Me’ 

From the back of the church, the nuns in black and white robes filed in, taking their assigned places with Psalters on the other side of the grille. While as Benedictines they welcome all as Christ, this separation creates physical and spiritual protection for them during worship when others from outside their community attend. I’d never seen a grille before, and I was absolutely fascinated, as it held a beauty I had not anticipated. A grid of thin metal lines adorned with curved glass and copper crosses, it is a barrier, both delicate and strong, firmly held in place as a solid, clear boundary, and yet, it has an openness, an airiness. Breezes, shadows, light, scents of incense and lilies: All of it can pass through easily, back and forth. It is neither a wall nor a screen; tall candles burn on top. It’s a way to turn to their inner world freely, while still seeing the outside world fully. 

Other visitors arrived, sitting on the chairs near me: a few single women and clusters of bearded workers in jeans and sweatshirts. When vespers began, the nuns’ ethereal chanting floated through the grille, the Latin cadences entering and filling our hearts. A lightness overtook me as I imitated the faithful, bowing deeply when they bowed. The timeless service, the maternal beauty of blending voices—it was everything. The chants that have been sung over 1,500 years refreshed our wearied spirits. 

Creating Our Personal Grille 

The vespers whispered within us, and the healing potency of that grille hummed within me for days. The nuns of Regina Laudis model the safeguarding of our connection to God. I began to wonder: Can we take this image and apply it to our own lives? This “inner grille” will look different for each of us. How can we follow their example and create a boundary with our chaotic world? Maybe if we spend time reflecting on what our prayer lives need, then put it solidly into place, we can create our own personal grille to protect our relationship with God. 

The nuns embrace the motto ora et labora (prayer and work), the flow of it. Returning to chant throughout the day allows them to embody their charism of “caring for all things as if they are vessels of the altar.” After exiting the enclosure, the nuns begin their work once again in cloistered life at the abbey, making prize-winning yogurt and cheeses, tending to their herds of cows and sheep, laboring within their orchards and gardens. 

Yet that protected place remains a sanctuary of wholeness to which they repeatedly return. They don’t run back behind the grille in a panic, they stride evenly and with hope and purpose, because it is already formed, ready to receive them. Certainly, our lives are quite different from the nuns of Regina Laudis. But don’t we have their same longing to return, again and again, to the safe enclosure of God’s peace and grace? Perhaps we, too, can create more lightness, freedom, and beauty in our communication with God by setting a boundary, and not being quite so tangled up with the world.

Prayer of St. Benedict 

Almighty God,
give me wisdom to perceive you,
intelligence to understand you,
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate upon you,
and life to proclaim you,
through the power of the spirit of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. 

I was a creative child with an active imagination, as people would often say. I could weave a story out of anything and find ways to put myself into those stories. For instance, the backs of the couches in our basement became horses that I rode on adventures. Or I would sit in the parked car in our driveway and pretend to drive to various places near and far. (I’m a member of Gen X, and a lot of the things we did growing up weren’t exactly safe.) 

When I was younger, people thought my creativity was cute. As I grew up, it started to become a liability. When people said I had a great imagination, suddenly it didn’t seem to be a compliment. 

A Lost Art 

I thought about that old story the other day when I was cleaning out a storage closet in our basement. I came across the totes that contain each of my kid’s memorabilia. I started going through them and found items ranging from kindergarten through high school graduation. 

The artwork from their younger years was colorful and creative. Drawings of various creatures and scenes splashed across the paper. I noticed that over the years, though, the art became more subdued—less color, less creative expressions. It was as if I could watch them stifle their creativity to fit in and not stand out. 

Unfortunately, I think that’s true for a lot of us. We grow up, gain responsibilities, and lose track of our creative side. Taking time to be creative is seen as unproductive and a waste of valuable time that could be spent on something else. But what we fail to realize is that creativity is not all about coloring and playing, though those things would do all of us a lot of good right now. 

The Mother of All Inventions 

What we fail to realize is that creativity is at the heart of everything. At some point, someone had an idea that people might have thought seemed crazy—until they didn’t. We are surrounded by creativity in the words we read, the songs we sing, the different foods we eat. Each is the result of someone’s creativity. 

For instance, what if Donato Bramante hadn’t come up with the plans for the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican? And what would we do if Sergey Brin and Larry Page hadn’t come up with the idea of the Google search engine? And none of it would have happened if God hadn’t started it all with creation. So, call it what you want—imagination, creativity, ingenuity—but I think it could do us all well to reclaim it. 

Sidebar: Creatively Building God’s Kingdom

“The most regretful people on Earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time,” the poet Mary Oliver once wrote. Yet, as Susan points out on the previous page, creativity often takes a back seat to productivity, and we can lose touch with an outlet that once brought joy and healing into our lives. It’s a slippery slope toward a form of atrophy where our perception of the beauty of the world around us is slowly dulled. Fortunately, creativity, once tapped into, can have the opposite effect and spur on new ideas and ways of looking at the world.

St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast we celebrate this month, was a deeply creative person. Beyond the direct connection to artistic expression found in Francis’ “Canticle of the Creatures,” Francis was adept at thinking outside of the box. He had the ability to look around and see not a swamp in the valley below Assisi, but a sort of mini kingdom of God where he was called to serve. Francis’ creative mind allowed him the flexibility to see the lepers cast out of society as children of God, to understand that the growing Franciscan Order would only benefit from engaging with the laity, and to integrate ecology and spirituality so seamlessly.

The world needs this kind of imagination more than ever if we’re going to address major issues today, such as climate change, entrenched political divisions, and war. In a sense, the revolution of peace brought to us by Christ and reimagined throughout time by holy people such as Sts. Augustine, Francis of Assisi, and Teresa of Calcutta is now in our hands to continue.

To face the problems of our world today will take a collective effort and ingenuity, and not only in areas like health care or technology. The Church, for instance, must be innovative in how it reaches out to young people, divorced and remarried Catholics, and those in the LGBTQ+ community if it wants to retain members from these groups in the pews.

Pope Francis, it seems, has taken note. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the pope writes: “Jesus can also break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him, and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world” (11). To circle back on Mary

Oliver’s words, may we find the time to dig deep into our individual and collective creative wells, reclaim the power of imagination, and continue the revolution of peace. —Daniel Imwalle