One of the three cornerstones of our mission here at the Franciscan Spiritual Center is “community.” Love is of the essence of any community. I found this poem by Joyce Rupp that expresses very well how love enables us to be brother and sister to one another. Essence of Love Evidence everywhere in my history, I have been inspired, drawn, carried, assured, enticed, comforted, nudged. Now in this stage of our relationship you move in the depths of my being, blend in with the

There’s unrest in my heart as I take to the task of writing a blog about peace that is due on Valentine’s Day. Peace AND love in one post! Ironically, perhaps paradoxically, Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” is playing in the background at the coffee shop. I am not comfortably numb. How can I be comfortably numb when the saint of passionate peace, Francis of Assisi, is in my heart, as he is in the hearts of Franciscans all around the world, including here at the Franciscan Spir

Who was St. Francis of Assisi and why do we associate him with peacemaking? He lived in the 13th century in a small town in central Italy called Assisi. He spent his youth being the life of the party. He was popular and outgoing. He went off to war convinced he would come home as a highly esteemed proud knight. Instead he was captured and imprisoned for an entire year. He came back a changed man, recognizing violence was not the answer. He experienced a radical conver