Franciscan Prayer and the Heart

By Bret Thoman, SFO

 

                          “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 8). Saint Francis was ever convinced that prayer must begin with the purity of heart. If the mind is cluttered with so many things of the world, then the heart is not open for prayer to allow God’s grace to take hold. “Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants.” (Matthew 13) For Francis, true prayer takes place in the proper context and relationship of the body, mind, and heart– and all three must be pure together to allow for true contemplation.

             Francis believed that the body must be kept pure in order not to keep God’s grace away. In his Earlier Rule of 1221, he says:

And let us hate our body with its vices and sins, because by living according to the flesh, the devil wishes to take away from us the love of Jesus Christ and eternal life and to lose himself in hell with everyone else. Because, by our own fault, we are disgusting, miserable and opposed to good, yet prompt and inclined to evil, for, as the Lord says in the Gospel: From the heart proceed and come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, false witness, blasphemy, foolishness. All these evils come from within, from a person’s heart, and these are what defile a person.

 

To ‘hate our body’ may seem severe coming from a saint who is mostly known to us as the brother of all creation. However, when Francis spoke negatively about the body, he meant more aptly, the flesh. This understanding is taken directly from the Bible; in Gal 5, 16-17, Paul says “I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other…”; further Paul says in verses 19-23: “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness… In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Cf. also Eph 4, 22-24; Romans 8, 1-13). Thus, Francis and his early followers, wished to live in the Spirit by subduing the body, or flesh, which they recognized as housing sin. They were not punishing their bodies because they believed them evil; rather they were trying to discipline and purify the senses, atone for sin, and win grace for others.

             With a purified body, Francis could then turn to the mind. The mind, mens, could sometimes be associated with the heart; however, the mind should be considered that rational part of the psyche that has volition or will. It is what we control, have power over, and can direct.  Francis says in Chapter XXII of his Earlier Rule,

Therefore, all my brothers, let us be very much on our guard that, under the guise of some reward or assistance, we do not lose or take our mind away from God. But, in the holy love which is God, I beg all my brothers, both the ministers and the others, after overcoming every impediment and putting aside every care and anxiety, to serve, love, honor and adore the Lord God with a clean heart and a pure mind in whatever way they are best able to do so, for that is what He wants above all else.

 

Here Francis is telling his Brothers to direct the mind towards God; it is up to the person, through his own powers, to put aside those things that block us from God and consciously turn to our Creator. Thus, the Christian experience is not passive, but is active requiring the person to conform his will to that of God.

             Here one can draw on the medieval monastic writings of Guigo II, who described the four-fold ladder of ascent to God through listening to the Sacred Scriptures. His method of lectio divina involved the four stages of lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. The Christian should use his own will and powers in the second and third stages of meditatio and oratio. Here one quite consciously should direct his forces and energies towards God, eliminating all distractions and those things which block the conscious contact with God. Francis was quite aware of the Benedictine monastic experience and perhaps draws on their spirituality which had existed for some eight centuries prior to his conversion.

             Through a purified body and a mind conformed to God, we can now open our hearts to allow God to penetrate the soul. Here the heart should be considered the centermost part of our being, the animus. The heart could be considered also the togetherness of the mind and body. With a pure and chaste body, a mind directed to God, and a heart open is the context allowing contemplation with God.

What is contemplation? If we look at the etymological root of the word contemplation, we see the Latin word cum (with or in) and templus (temple). Thus, contemplation can be defined as being in the temple, with God where he lives. It is being together and alone with God, our Creator and Maker. However, the meeting-place with God is not ‘out there’ somewhere; rather, it is going deep within our own hearts and finding God there in total surrender, poverty, and purity. It is in our own human heart where we find God.

             Thus, the human heart is central to the experience of finding God. However, the heart must be purified to see God; one cluttered with anxiety, worries, lusts, resentment will not see God. Instead, the person will most likely take his distractions into the prayer experience, and perhaps wonder why God seems so distant and disinterested: spiritual desolation. A person with a pure body, pure mind, and pure heart will not only see God in contemplation, but will maintain that vision throughout one’s conscious hours and have the gift to see as God sees.