This is the 5th installment of Fr. William Hugo OFM Cap.'s articles about Franciscan Prayer. To view all the articles, you can start here.

In the last Update on Franciscan prayer, I examined Francis and Clare’s gaze at the self-emptying life of God visible in the enormous act of creation. We saw the four steps of prayer outlined by Clare (gaze, consider or meditate, contemplate, and imitate) as they are visible in the actions and prayers of Francis.

Francis and Clare also gazed a lot at Jesus. A lot! Perhaps the important word to consider in understanding this focus is Incarnation. This is the theological word we use to refer to the Word of God (the 2nd person in the Trinity) becoming human. Many people mistakenly think Incarnation refers specifically to Jesus’ birth, i.e., Christmas.

Incarnation includes Jesus’ birth, but properly refers to Jesus’ entire human and historical existence, in other words, from conception (Annunciation) to death. No one moment is more important than another, though some moments are more dramatic for Francis, powerfully disclosing what God is like. How does this fit into Franciscan prayer?

The Incarnation as a whole and in each of its moments becomes the event at which Francis and Clare most commonly gaze. When they move from gazing to considering, again they experience a selfless God. To be precise, they are overcome by considering that a God they imagine to be powerful, great, glorious, and able to do everything and anything in the superlative, actually takes on our human nature that seems so utterly constrained by littleness and limits.

I am accustomed to describing this insight as God jumping off the tallest pedestal to live on the floor with his creatures. However, if one stays with the gazing and considering of Francis and Clare, one sees God in Jesus
leaping off time after time after time, until one realizes that the eternal God is eternally leaping to the floor. Then, perhaps the best metaphor for God is someone standing on the floor next to the pedestal that we humans put there, but which God never climbs. He’s too busy emptying himself on the floor.

The baby Jesus and the crucified Christ are but moments on this continuum of salvation. However, for Franciscans, these two moments most dramatically disclose God’s selfless vulnerability, littleness, humility, poverty, and minority. This is why we see so many works of art depicting Francis with the crucified or the baby Jesus.

Well, I’ve run out of space to discuss how this gaze-consideration-contemplation led Francis and Clare to the desire of imitation. Remember, Franciscan prayer by Clare’s definition changes our lives. That’s for the
next installment.

In the last Update on Franciscan prayer,we explored God’s passionate desire as a starting point for prayer. Francis and Clare started there, and they are now revered among the church’s greatest mystics. How did they do it?

To use Clare’s four-fold method, they began by gazing at God’s life. Very visible in Francis’ writings is his view of God creating. Perhaps at first blush, Francis’ focus seems a sentimental consideration of the various creatures. A deeper analysis uncovers Francis’ piercing stare at a God who can’t stand to hold everything in. So, Francis’ God bursts into an enormous act of creation.

Now Francis is going beyond a gaze to a meditation, or a consideration, to use Clare’s terminology. As Francis begins to consider this aspect of creation, he comes to know a selfless God who has no interest in holding anything back. God is not so big that he reserves what he has to himself. This God shares everything, including his existence. Francis senses the feelings displayed on this stage; God and his creation are tight!

Also notice that Francis’ consideration shows little concentration on the hierarchy of these creatures. Of course we can find those passages in his writings that ooze amazement at the human creature that is destined to be in the image and likeness of God. But instead of exploring all the different levels of creatures like Thomas Aquinas might, Francis intuits that all creatures are brothers and sisters, a metaphor that focuses on creaturely equality. Like human brothers and sisters, all creatures come from the same source.

Once we can appreciate this movement in Francis’ prayer, we begin to experience what was described in earlier Updates on Franciscan prayer: when you gaze and meditate upon God, you also learn about yourself and others. In this case, that all creatures are brothers and sisters. Actually, many of Francis’ surviving prayers seem to reflect Clare’s third stage of prayer, contemplation, during which the person praying basks in her relationship with God discovered during the gazing and considering stages. So, Francis left behind prayers that are nothing more than exclamatory names and adjectives for God.

If while reading this you feel even a twinge of desire to do something new or different because of this prayer experience, then you already have experienced the beginning of Clare’s 4th stage of prayer, imitation. Being in contact with this selfless, unassuming and small God typically leads us to desire to be the same.

Francis and Clare will gaze on more. So, stay tuned for future Updates.

I've been meaning to continue this Series of articles written by Fr. William Hugo OFM Cap. (formator, Franciscan scholar, friar, and a good friend). But with the many visitors we've had since Christmas I haven't had a chance to write as much as I'd like. My apologies to those who've been interested in this series on Franciscan Prayer.


Many people approach me with the question, “What should I do to pray?” The question might suggest that they think prayer starts with them. Instead, I imagine Francis and Clare of Assisi starting with God, and, in particular, with God’s desire. Since it is obvious that we can desire all kinds of things that lead us away from God, it is important to examine our desire. But when we start by considering God’s desire, I find that questions about our desire fall into place.

When Francis and Clare gaze at God, they see big desire. First, God expresses so much desire that the result is creation. God wants to share himself by creating others. But then, for reasons we might describe as sin or limitation, creation becomes separated from God, and God absolutely hates that! Ever since the breach between God and creatures, God has desired to heal it, and every moment of God’s existence is filled with God’s work to accomplish this. Now that’s desire!

Perhaps you are wondering why I refer to God’s desire rather than God’s will. I’m fairly convinced that, when most people hear God’s will, they begin to wonder what concrete things God wants them to do. This often seems to be about what’s in God’s head. Francis and Clare seem to focus less on what God wants done and more on whom God wants. God wants his creation back. This spiritual intuition is more concerned with God’s heart than his head. It’s full of passion that seems akin to sexual passion. Well, it should, and that is why I prefer to talk of God’s desire over his will.

The relationship of two people in love is never simply about scant looks back and forth. That is more akin to infatuation. A love relationship begins when people interact on a personal level, and the responses of one grow out of the actions of the other. Our relationship with God is similar. It’s about passion for a person, and it begins with God’s behavior of creating us and then a host of other actions to which we get to respond. Our choices become clearer once we’ve experienced God’s desire.

The next article on Franciscan prayer will focus on how Francis and Clare increasingly understand God as they experience his desire. How does God express it? What is God like? What is he willing to do to be successful in passionate pursuit of us?

(William Hugo is Director of Postulancy and teaches Franciscan spirituality and history. He authored Studying the Life of Francis of Assisi: A Beginner’s Workbook, Franciscan Press, 1996.)

Previous articles can be found here.

Fr. Bill Hugo OFM Cap. continues his series on Franciscan Prayer.

When you discover God, you discover others and yourself.

Like all communication, prayer is not a one-way street. In prayer, we are not the only ones talking; God also talks. Both God and we both speak and listen. In Franciscan prayer, there is also a third group sitting on the stage of prayer: the rest of creation. Creation also listens and talks. This is because we are sisters and brothers with all creation; all have our origin in the same Father-Creator.

Since prayer is such a family affair, when we learn about God in prayerful conversation,we also learn about our sister and brother creatures. And when we learn about God, our brothers, and our sisters, we can’t help but learn about ourselves. Consider these examples:

• When we learn that God created us out of His intense desire, we learn that we did not earn our existence.
• If God creates all creatures out of equal desire, than no creature is more important than the other.
• Since God created all creatures, we are in relationship with all creatures through a common source.
• The respect God shows me is the respect he shows all creatures. So, I have cause to respect other creatures as I myself hope to be respected.
• If the God who creates me is humble, how can I possibly think of myself as haughty.

Since conversation with God will ultimately lead us to examine ourselves, prayer requires honesty and humility. The story of Francis unexpectedly meeting a leper forcefully illustrates this. Francis was understandably petrified of lepers. But their existence bothered him. Most of us ask “Why me?” when confronted by difficulty. When Francis saw a leper, he asked “Why them?”

As Francis’ deepening prayer was leading him to realize that the leper and he came from the same creator, Francis could no longer tolerate their separation. When Francis learned about God in prayer, he learned about the leper. When he learned about the leper, he learned about himself. So, in this story, Francis would finally embrace the leper. They were brothers and sisters. They were the same. His prayer had changed is life!

read Part 1

(William Hugo is the Provincial Director of Formation as well as director of Postulancy at St. Conrad Friary in Milwaukee, WI. He lectures on Franciscan spirituality and history and has an M.A. in Franciscan Studies from St. Bonaventure University in Western New York. He authored Studying the Life of Francis of Assisi: A Beginner’s Workbook, Franciscan Press, 1996.)

*Artwork on page 1 by Michael Gaffney, O.F.M. Capuchin.

For those not familiar with the Capuchin Franciscans, especially for those considering a religious vocation, one must wonder: "What makes them different than others?" In my provincial vocations newsletter Vocations Update, Fr. William Hugo OFM Cap. publishes a series of articles explaining the grand topic of Franciscan Prayer.

This first issue focuses on the pattern of Franciscan prayer. The assumption that this pattern comes from Francis of Assisi is only half true. Certainly his experience, recorded in numerous medieval legends, tells the story of Francis’ prayer in action. But, oddly, his writings do not systematize his pattern of prayer. Instead, it is Clare of Assisi, Francis’ partner in defining the Franciscan way of life, who gives us the four-part Franciscan approach to prayer in her second letter to Agnes of Prague: to gaze, to consider, to contemplate, and to imitate (20-21).

Francis and Clare sought a gospel way of life that would be different from that of monks. Yet, in fact, Clare’s prayer method included three steps that characterized monastic prayer before the Franciscan period, though she used her distinctive words. To gaze was akin to the monastic reading of Christ’s life from a gospel or a different scripture to get the story. Clare’s term to consider was much like the monastic meaning of meditation, i.e., imagining that one is on the scene of the scripture with all its smells, sounds, sights, tastes, feelings and movements. This second step was the work of imagination. Clare’s idea of contemplation even used the word of many monastic methods. It was the prayer of being with God and all the intimacies of conversation and presence after sharing the biblical experience through meditation.

However, Franciscan prayer stands out as different when Clare lists her fourth component as imitation. Monks typically did not include anything like imitation in their definitions or descriptions of prayer. By
highlighting imitation of Christ and God who is our partner in prayer, Franciscans clearly announce that prayer changes their lives. The goal does not end in union with God during prayer, but a transformation of
life brought about through the influence of prayer. Thus, Franciscan prayer and life become closely intertwined. Fashioning your own prayer according to this four-fold pattern, spending 5-10 minutes on each
step, can be a great way to deepen your prayer.

Future Updates will look at other characteristics of Franciscan prayer. But for now, a good way to begin an appreciation of the Franciscan style of prayer is to ask how your own prayer changes the rest of your life.

(William Hugo is Director of Postulancy and teaches Franciscan spirituality and history. He authored Studying the Life of Francis of Assisi: A Beginner’s Workbook, Franciscan Press, 1996.)