Casey Cole, OFM

Maybe what the world needs is more Franciscans. More people to live with the radical love of Saint Francis, to leave everything behind and “rebuild” the Church with humility and joy. In consecrated vowed life, cloistered contemplative life, and even in married secular life, the Franciscan charism has found a home in hundreds of thousands of people over the years. Maybe now is time for another rebirth of that charism. If  we are to be followers and imitators of Saint Francis, then the thing we need above all is the humility to know that people do not need us: They need Jesus.

We can never know who or what God is going to use to teach us something new. If we truly want to build up the kingdom of God, we must have the eyes and ears of that kingdom, and the humility to accept that we do not always have the answer. If what we do allows us to do that, we might be well on our way to a vocation. 

— from the book Called: What Happens After Saying Yes to God

In its fullness, prayer is an encounter with God that transforms the way we see and interact with the world. As so many saints have suggested, it is like a bright light that reveals what we otherwise do not see.

With a life in Jesus as our foundation, God’s call to us and our ultimate purpose in life tend to look very different. Thinking less about the decisions themselves and more about the life those decisions effect, we realize that what matters most to God is ultimately not what we choose but the amount of love that those decisions create in our lives; where we go to school, what we do for a living, and our familial life matters to God only to the extent that what we choose enables us to live as Christ-like as we can.

Against the values of the world, Jesus gave up his power in heaven to live as a poor outcast on earth. Loving his people as a shepherd loves his sheep, he led with mercy over judgment, justice over greed, reconciliation over exclusion, and humble service over heavy demands. He associated with the weak and the lowly while criticizing the rich and haughty, announcing a kingdom turned upside down in which the last shall be first and the first shall be last. In his final act of humility, he laid down his life so that others might live, telling his disciples to do the same.

It may sound simplistic, but it is one of the most important things that has ever happened to my prayer life: Just show up. Even if prayer is nothing more than a box to be checked off in our day, checking that box off is better than not doing it.