As the feast of the Portiuncula approaches each August 2, I find myself returning to the small chapel where Francis first gathered his brothers and where Clare stepped into the life of the Gospel. This year, I want to bring that memory home — not to Assisi, not to a congress hall, but to the cotidiano: the ordinary, unremarkable ground where most of us actually live our faith. What does a thirteenth‑century friar’s walk into a Sultan’s camp, or a papal gathering of religious leaders, have to...
Pietro di Bernardone was a prosperous cloth merchant in the Umbrian commune of Assisi. Proud of his commercial success, he traveled frequently to France in search of the finest textiles for his business. Like many merchants of the emerging merchant class, he trained his sons in the skills necessary for economic advancement: negotiation, accounting, and fluency in French. Despite his wealth, however, Pietro lacked one thing that money could not secure. He belonged to the minores, the merchant...
As a young man, I was introduced to the spiritual practice called the "examination of conscience." It is a good way to reflect on yourself and your life and improve it in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The examination calls us to consider the wrong we've done in thought, word, or deed. But it also calls us to consider our sins of omission, which is to say the good we could have done and didn't.
Back in 2011, I was listening to a friend complain about the plight of ethnic and racial...
This is the product of several lessons, conferences and retreats I have shared with the Friars, the Poor Clares, Secular Franciscans and Franciscan Sisters. En conjunto with them I have developed and reflected on these priorities that I hope to turn into a book for Franciscan/Clarian formation. Click on title to go to the file.
The USA marks 250 years on the Fourth of July this year, a milestone wrapped in flags, fireworks, and a familiar founding story. I confess I find myself uneasy with how easily "America" and "the USA" get treated as the same word, the same place, the same story. America is far older than 250 years. It carried peoples, nations, and ways of life long before 1776, and even before 1492. Nations come and go, and a nation's birthday is not the world's feast. Sitting with that distinction, I keep...
Spirituality is the human search for what gives life meaning and, at the same time, draws us beyond ourselves into the service of the common good. It is carried by the human spirit. our corazón, that deep unity of body and soul within one person. For Christians, this inner movement is never solitary or self-made: it is awakened, guided, and brought to fulfillment by the Holy Spirit, who conforms us to Christ, directs us toward the glory of the Father, and opens us to the healing of neighbor...
Clare of Assisi is often remembered as the devoted disciple of Francis—the “planticella” who flourished in his shadow. Yet this familiar portrayal risks obscuring a more historically and theologically significant reality: Clare as a figure who not only received the Franciscan charism, but actively shaped its spiritual and ecclesial expression.
Recent developments in historical and Franciscan studies, particularly the recovery and critical translation of medieval sources, have made it possible...
I am a Latino, a Franciscan and a spiritualogian. Most people know what a Franciscan is, but very few have heard the term spiritualogian. I coined the word about 24 years ago, around 2002, to distinguish theologians who specialize in spirituality from those working more broadly in spiritual theology. As I wrote in Beyond Piety, "Spiritualogians are scholars dedicated to the advancement of the academic discipline known as spirituality" (p. 3).
To be clear, spiritualogians are Christian...