Clare too, in the Rule she wrote for her sisters describes the purpose of their life as being ‘to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

So they wanted their followers to shape their lives by the pattern of the gospel, and were inspired by the gospel stories of Jesus’ own disciples.

In their prayer too they were intensely Christ-centred. Thomas of Celano, an early biographer of Francis, wrote:

'The brothers who lived with him know that daily, constantly, talk of Jesus was always on his lips, ... He was always with Jesus: Jesus in his heart, Jesus in his mouth, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, he bore Jesus always in his whole body'. (Thomas of Celano, Life of Saint Francis, 115)

And Clare’s writings are intoxicated with the love of Christ. She wrote to Agnes, a princess who had founded a Franciscan community in Prague:

‘... love Him totally Who gave Himself totally for Your love. His beauty the sun and moon admire; and of his gifts there is no limit in abundance, preciousness and magnitude.’ (Third letter to Agnes of Prague, 15b – 16) So Franciscan spirituality is marked by a strong focus on Jesus Christ, and in particular on four aspects of his life and work - creation, incarnation, passion, and eucharist.

At the heart of his love for creation was an even greater love for its creator. He saw creation as a gift of God, and as a means of knowing God. In some forms of spirituality our eyes are closed to shut out any distraction from the created world; in Franciscan spirituality our eyes are open wide to see everything which God has made, and to give thanks for everything.

Bonaventure, Francis’ official biographer, wrote: ‘Francis sought occasion to love God in everything ... In everything beautiful, he saw him who is beauty itself, and he followed his Beloved everywhere by his likeness imprinted on creation; of all creation he made a ladder by which he might mount up and embrace Him who is all-desirable.’ (Bonaventure, Major Life of St Francis, IX:1 - Habig) One of the outcomes of this love for the creator and the creation was a strong sense that everything created was brother and sister to him. God was father to and of all, and so everything and everyone was a sister or brother to Francis. This is why in the Canticle he refers to the Sun, Wind and Fire as brother, and the Moon and stars, Water, and Earth, as sister.

It is many ways a very modern attitude. The respect and love we feel for those of our own family is extended to the whole of creation. This attitude leads many Franciscans today to a deep commitment to care for the earth.

‘O how holy and how loving, gratifying, humbling, peace-giving, sweet, worthy of love, and above all things, desirable: to have such a Brother and such a Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ...’ (First Version of the Letter to the Faithful, 1:13) Francis wanted to make this self-giving of God vivid and real, and so he created the first Christmas crib. At a small town called Greccio, in December 1223, he asked a man named John to prepare a manger, with hay, an ox and an ass. Then Francis came with his brothers and the local people to celebrate Christmas with great rejoicing, and Francis sang the gospel and preached powerfully ‘on the nativity of the poor King’.

But as with creation, his was not a sentimental attitude. Francis and Clare never forgot that the incarnation was costly. Francis focussed in his reflections on the self-emptying of Christ in obedience to the Father, and so saw Christ in the crib as an icon of obedience and humility. For him a key passage was Philippians 2:5 – 8.

Clare focussed on the generosity and poverty of Christ; how he gave up all that he had, and came to be part of a poor family, vulnerable to the vagaries of politics and economics. For her a key biblical passage was 2 Corinthians 8:9. The desire to be like Christ in his poverty is a large part of the motivation behind the Franciscan emphasis on poverty. It is not about a hatred of the material, or a glorification of deprivation, but stems from a desire to draw closer to Christ, and to follow in his footsteps.

In her teaching on prayer, Clare encouraged her sisters to gaze on Christ as on a mirror. And at the very centre of prayer she placed the passion of Christ. She wrote: ‘In the depths of this mirror, contemplate the ineffable charity which led Him to suffer on the wood of the Cross and die thereon the most shameful kind of death.’ (Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague, 23)

Clare used in her own prayer a special Office of the Passion which Francis had composed. He took scripture verses, mainly from the psalms, to create an additional psalm for each of the day’s prayer services, which focussed on the passion of Christ. As Francis and Clare, and their brothers and sisters used this in their daily prayer, they entered more and more deeply into the mystery of the cross, which is the mystery at the heart of the Christian faith.

And they were moved by compassion for Christ in his suffering, often weeping as they prayed, or when they remembered the crucifixion. Three of Francis’ early brothers recorded that from the time that the figure on the crucifix at San Damiano spoke to him, ‘his heart was wounded and it melted when remembering the Lord’s passion. While he lived, he always carried the wounds of the Lord Jesus in his heart.’ (Legend of the Three Companions, V)

Towards the end of his life Francis came to carry these wounds in his body also. In 1224 he spent a prolonged period of retreat on Mount La Verna, in Tuscany, meditating especially on the passion of Christ. In his prayer he saw a six winged seraph, beautiful and glorious, but nailed to a cross; and as he watched, the marks of the nails and the spear which he had seen in the seraph began to appear in his own body. These stigmata, as they are called, remained until his death two years later. His early biographers saw them as a sign of his intense identification with the crucified Christ.

Francis and Clare marvelled at this great gift of God - a way in which Jesus becomes tangible to us. They saw in it too God’s humility. The God who created heaven and earth chose to come to his people as a poor child, as an executed criminal, and in the simple form of bread and wine, the staple foods of the day. Writing to all his followers, he said:

‘O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread!’

Clare too was overcome by this gift of God, and received the eucharist with tears and trembling, as well as with great devotion.

This devotion both Francis and Clare wanted to extend to the priests through whose ministry Christ was made present, and to the churches in which the eucharist was celebrated. Francis asked his brothers to treat with reverence, and to keep clean, the chalices, patens and altar cloths that were used in the Eucharist. In illness, which afflicted Clare for much of her life and kept her bedbound for some time, she was propped up in bed and spun thread to make altar linen, which she then sent to the churches round about Assisi.

This reverence they saw also as due to the words of God, by which the bread and wine were consecrated and made holy. The word of God in the bible made present Christ, the Word of God, and so Francis asked his brothers, whenever they found the written words of God not properly cared for, to gather them up and place them somewhere more fitting. This attitude of reverence for all God’s gifts - the creation in all its parts, Christ in his life and death, the sacraments in which Christ is still made present - permeated the spirituality of Francis and Clare, and gave it a particular warmth and attractiveness.

The San Damiano Crucifix, a detail from which forms the background to the home page of this website, has a special place in the hearts of Franciscans throughout the world.

This prayer is recorded in Francis’ Testament, dictated as he lay dying. It was certainly not a new prayer, but one which he had used many times during his life.

We adore you, most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here, and in all your churches throughout all the world; and we bless you, because, by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

The Absorbeat

Francis certainly used this prayer, and it is characteristic of his spirituality, but it is now thought to be of earlier medieval origin.

May the power of your love, Lord Christ, fiery and sweet as honey, so absorb our hearts as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven. Grant that we may be ready to die for love of your love, as you died for love of our love. Amen

Salutation of the Blessed Virgin

Francis had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her place in his writings demonstrates the centrality of the incarnation within his spirituality.

Hail, holy Lady, most holy Queen, Mary, Mother of God, ever Virgin; chosen by the most holy Father in heaven, consecrated by him, with his most holy beloved Son and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter: on you descended and in you still remains all the fullness of grace and every good. Hail, his Palace; hail, his Tabernacle; hail, his Robe, hail, his Handmaid; hail, his Mother; and hail, all holy Virtues, who, by the grace and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are poured into the hearts of the faithful. So that, faithless no longer, they may be made faithful servants of God through you.

Elsie Felicity, one of the founding members of the Community of St Clare, wrote in 1998, when she was already in her eighties, of how she prayed. She died in 2006.

My view of what is necessary has gradually changed. Many of the things I used to do because I thought I ought, I no longer feel guilty at omitting. Perhaps it would be truer to say I try not to feel guilty. I now feel free to look more carefully at, say, a way of prayer or a devotion and ask, ‘Does that really bring me closer to God now?’ I used to want to do something because someone else obviously found it a way towards God. Now I can’t afford to waste effort. ... For example, thirty, forty years ago I used to find much inspiration in that very Franciscan devotion “The Way of the Cross”. Now I would find it much more profitable to read the daily paper with compassion for the endless accounts of what people, other sons and daughters of God, are suffering at this moment. Well, that’s all right – any way of prayer is meant to be a help towards God. If it ceases to be that, I had better leave it to others.

Br Clark Berge SSF, of the Province of the Americas, wrote about trying to keep the balance of work, study and prayer.

Part of my attraction to the religious life was that I would have guaranteed time for prayer. What I have discovered is that I have to make a conscious decision to pray. I can’t remember ever rejecting God or prayer, but I vividly recall deferring prayer, saying I’d get to it later, for whatever reason. A few years ago I lost extra weight by choosing how much to eat and to get more exercise, although for most of my life I have resisted the advice of anyone who tried to influence what I ate or how much exercise I got. Discipline is a choice; I have to choose to develop a desire to pray or connect with God when I lose the thread of my prayer life. There have been times when I’ve fooled myself into thinking that the daily office and mass were a rich prayer life, but without an inner desire for God the rituals only cloak a growing emptiness. My prayer life seems to consist of discovering the same truths over and over again, asking God for help, over and over again.

Alison Francis, another sister of the Community of St Clare, reflects on the same quest for balance.