Minute Meditations

Whenever we speak about love, we are speaking about relationship. Bonaventure wrote that love is the gravity of the soul; it is what pulls us toward God. We could also say that love is the glue of the universe; it is what constantly holds everything together even when things fall apart. It is simply impossible to think of love sitting on an island all alone. Love likes company. Love means going out to the other for the sake of the other.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

The simplest way to describe God’s poverty and humility is in terms of love. Love gives itself away—this is God’s poverty. Love turns toward the other so it can give itself to the other—this is God’s humility. In the Incarnation, God turns toward us through the Son/Word and gives himself to us as love.… The God whom Francis discovered is a God who shows himself to us in poor and humble fragile human flesh. This is a God who loves us so much as to be reckless in love; a God who throws it all away out of love and never tires of loving.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Francis of Assisi grasped something of the mystery of God and, in a particular way, the mystery of God’s humility. Although he was simple and not well educated, he had an insight into God that I can only say was profound. Francis did not study theology. He did not try to figure out what God is through reason. He simply spent long hours in prayer, often in caves, mountains or places of solitude, places where he could distance himself from the busy everyday world. Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of Francis, wrote: “Where the knowledge of teachers is outside, the passion of the lover entered.” What Thomas perceived is that love, not knowledge, allowed Francis to enter into the great mystery we call “God.” As he entered into this mystery he discovered two principle features of God—the overflowing goodness of God and the humility of God. That is why a Franciscan approach to God’s humility must begin with Francis. For he was so impressed by God’s humility that he spent his entire life striving to live humbly in imitation of God.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Too often our prayers are projections of our own needs and desires and we give God little room to enter into the conversation. Talking all the time to God without ever listening is like a phone conversation with constant static; it is deafening to God. Silence is a language God can speak without being constantly interrupted because God is a mystery of incomprehensible love, and love speaks for itself. If we could really be attentive to the mystery of God in our lives we would realize that God is both beyond our thoughts and imaginations (although these can bring us closer to God) and very near to us. God is a mystery of silence and intimacy. God is incomprehensible and ineffable, far beyond our wildest imaginations, yet nearer to each of us than we are to ourselves.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Did you ever have one of those days where the whole idea of God was just too much to think about? As if trying to “get a handle” on God was like trying to kiss the moon? If the mystics are right (and usually they are because they see things much differently than we do) then you were probably closer that day to God than any other day in your life. How is this possible, you ask? How can God be close to you (or you to God) when God seems so far away or not at all? Even better, how can God be close to you when you are totally confused? This is my answer to you: God is a mystery of humble love. It is a mystery that you cannot reason or try to figure out. You must simply live in the mystery. This is my hope for you—that you may live in the mystery of God’s humble love.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Francis went about the world following the footprints of Christ, not so he could look like Christ, but because they were the footprints of divine humility. He discovered that God descends in love to meet us where we are and he found God in the most unexpected forms: the disfigured flesh of a leper, the complaints of a brother, the radiance of the sun, in short, the cloister of the universe. The wisdom of Francis makes us realize that God loves us in our incomplete humanity even though we are always running away trying to rid ourselves of defects, wounds and brokenness. If we could only see that God is there in the cracks of our splintered human lives we would already be healed.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Francis of Assisi wanted to be a “brother minor” so that he could humbly bend down in solidarity with all living creatures of the earth. We, too, are called to bend low in love, to find the humble love of God in the simple ordinary and oftentimes broken hearts of the world. To do so, however, we must be free to bend low in love. In Christ, God has set us free. It is up to us as Christians to live in the freedom of God’s humble love. Only by living in the freedom of love can we help transform the world into the fullness of Christ. It is possible. Francis did it in his own way and in his own time. Now we, too, must do the same.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

To live in God’s humble love is to live in attentiveness, openness and relationship: attentiveness to the presence of God in the details of the fragile human person, openness to the ways God is both hidden and revealed in creation, and relationship to the God incarnated in our neighbors, family and community members. In each of these areas we are called to love in a spirit of compassion, forgiveness, tenderness and care. As God bends low to love us where we are, we must be open to welcome God in our lives, to embrace this God of humble love and to allow God to live in us in every way. Every breath of life must be the breath of God.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF

Through his life in Christ, Francis came to see that Christ cannot be limited to a single human person; rather, Christ encompasses the whole creation. Nowhere is this more evident than in his Canticle of the Creatures. By entering into the heart of Christ, Francis found Christ at the heart of the world. The life of Francis indicates to us that to be a Christian is to find Christ in every person and living creature, and to be in union with Christ is to experience God’s goodness throughout creation, not just in a church. Christ, the risen incarnate Word of God, encompasses the whole creation.

—from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective  by Ilia Delio, OSF