Learning the Craft of Living

Dear Friend,

Peace and all good!

I was very grateful for some time away last week and the chance to be with family back in St. Paul, Minnesota. A big part of the visit was dedicated to a memorial service for my cousin, Molly, who was a woman truly alive and joy-filled right up to the end which was last year, when she took her last loving breath after a lengthy journey dealing with cancer. Among the cards and mementos she left behind, there were these words on card which was probably a favorite  bookmark: “The most visible creators are those artists whose medium is life itself…They are artists of being alive.”

The Gospel spirituality flowing from the life and teaching of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi puts a very strong emphasis on the creative dimension of our lives. Not surprisingly, my cousin Molly was a big fan of St. Francis and gave a lot of her time to support community art fairs and local artists in the Twin Cities. (For a time, she ran a small business repairing wicker furniture and was known around town as the “Wicker Wizard”!)

In this week’s Gospel Jesus invites us into a relationship which is meant to be a life-giving and creative source for each of our lives: Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. In the second reading from Ephesians, St. Paul puts it this way: Be imitators of God, as beloved children… This is an art project that requires sacrifice and at times calls us to work with some rather difficult “raw material”, including the experience of illness and loss. As we learn the craft of living, the bread of life can draw us more deeply into the beauty of life.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor