Maximizing on a winter break Assisi experience, UW Whitewater travelers to Europe and other members of the Catholic Student Coalition invited the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity on February 16, 2009 to reflect on Franciscan Spirituality.
Here are words and phrases that the students themselves offered to describe this way of relating to God:
- charity
- serenity
- peace, working in our every day lives to achieve peace
- focuses on loving nature like St. Francis
- religious acts in prayer, a lifestyle
- contemplative prayer
- selfless devotion to God
- respect for all
The following day and over two hundred miles further north, UW Stout (Menomonee, WI) Catholic Campus Ministry students wanted to know about the topic ‘inner peace’ from a Franciscan perspective. The Franciscan Sisters Vocation Team again responded to the invitation sent by one of the students whom they were blessed to meet at Lifest 2008 (Oshkosh, WI).
The Thursday evening session will be framed in the context of prayer beginning with a quote from St. Bonaventure’s The Soul’s Journey to God: “This is the peace proclaimed and given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ and preached again and again by St. Francis.” St. Francis’ own prayer of enlightenment, The Prayer Before the Crucifix, and other media enhance the theme.
