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Session II

Session II

Lady Poverty, Kenosis, and the Joy of Sister Death

Opening Prayer

(5 minutes)

Read slowly:

“Nothing,
therefore,
belongs to you,
so that the One
who gives Himself
totally to you
may receive
you totally.”

— Francis of Assisi, Letter to the Entire Order

Sit quietly for a minute.

Personal Reflection

Take a few minutes to write:

  • What is something I have spent much of my life trying to acquire, protect, or hold onto?
  • Write whatever comes to mind. Do not edit; just notice.

Introduction:

Francis and Lady Poverty

(15 minutes)

Saint Francis valued poverty in a way that seems almost incomprehensible to many modern people. Most of us spend our lives building, not just safety and security, but also a reputation, a sense of accomplishment. Like the builders of the Tower of Babel, we want to “make a name for ourselves.” We may not build giant towers that reach toward heaven and put our name on them. But what if that’s mostly because we can’t afford to? What if we live from the same kind of impulse, and just manifest that same desire in smaller ways that are within our reach?

A current expression people use to reassure those who are being challenged by life is, “You’ve got this.” We encourage each other to believe that we are in control, and nothing can take us down. But this is fantasy. Death is a constant reminder that we are not ultimately in control, and that eventually we will be taken down. Medical personnel sometimes have to fight families who will not accept this reality, and want to continue inflicting treatment on someone whose time has come. Their loved ones long to “put far away the evil day” (Amos 6:3), but it will not be put off indefinitely. Sister Death will come, and mercifully bring an end to struggle and pain.

Saint Francis lived in a way that was hard on his body, and he did come to regret it. But this was not because he feared death. He regretted it because it seemed ungrateful. “Brother Ass” had been a gift, given to carry him through life, and more gratitude might have made him easier on it, might have helped him treat it with more respect. But while Francis suffered greatly in body, mind, and spirit late in his life, he didn’t face death with dread. The reason is simple: he was a man in love.

At the beginning of his conversion, Francis fell hard for “Lady Poverty” and embraced her with a full heart. Not because he enjoyed suffering. Not because he despised material things. Not because deprivation is holy in itself.

Rather, poverty became for Francis a way of freedom, a way of belonging more completely to God. Francis understood that our ultimate refuge is in Christ’s own heart, the “cleft in the rock” described in the Song of Songs, where the dove, the Beloved, takes shelter. It’s the place of complete safety and peace, of total acceptance and freedom from anxiety and shame.
Francis knew that we cannot enter into that holy space dragging all our entitlements and attachments with us. These become shackles that weigh us down and limit our freedom to move, until we are paralyzed with dread at the prospect of losing the very things that keep us stuck.

Francis understood the danger. The son of a wealthy merchant, he voluntarily stepped away from privilege, status, comfort, and control. He embraced a life that placed him among the least and the lowest. He gave his heart to Lady Poverty and remained faithful to her throughout his life.

Yet poverty was never the goal; poverty was the path. The deeper reality beneath Francis’ life was what the Christian tradition calls kenosis.

Wondering

  • What are the “entitlements and attachments” that most give you a sense of security, identity, or control? How do they help you, and how might they also limit your freedom or deepen your anxiety about loss?
  • What would it mean, concretely, for you to take refuge in God rather than in your own competence, control, or achievements at this stage of your life?
  • What might God be inviting you to let go of now so that you can live—and eventually die—with greater freedom and peace?

Reflections

(10 minutes)

Kenosis is a Greek word meaning “self-emptying.” Saint Paul describes it in the great hymn of Philippians:

“Christ Jesus…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross…”

When we hear this passage, we naturally think of Good Friday. But Christ’s self-emptying began long before the cross. It began with Incarnation. With Christmas. With God choosing to become one of us.

Francis created the first Nativity scene and invited the people to come experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the stable, not because he was sentimental. It was because he was overwhelmed by the thought of the Creator of the universe becoming a tiny infant: dependent, poor, unable to speak, needing to be held, needing everything.

Can you imagine the humility it would take for one of us to voluntarily revert to that state? In fact, isn’t that one of the things we fear most about ageing? Francis called the people to the manger because he wanted them to see that this is what God is like—not temporarily, not as a time out from omnipotence, but all the time. Giving, not clinging. Vulnerable, not entitled. God’s own, all powerful self is willingly poured out into creation, into humanity, into relationship with us.

This is why Francis was so moved by the Nativity, and why Franciscan spirituality has such an incarnational focus: God’s choice to become one with us, one of us, is the ultimate demonstration of kenosis. God’s commitment to us is total: God embraced the entire human experience, even to the point of a death that would give us the word excruciating—literally, “from the cross.”

God entered vulnerability, limitation, suffering. Not because suffering was good in itself, but because love desired union, and that’s where we are. Francis, wanting to follow Jesus in everything, voluntarily embraced vulnerability. He moved towards the poor, towards the sick, towards the outsider. Towards circumstances that exposed him to suffering and limitation.

He did it because he knew he would find Jesus there, waiting for him and for every one of us when we are vulnerable, when we suffer, when we grieve, when we’re alone. There is no place we can go where Jesus hasn’t been. And when we move deeply into our poverty through kenosis, we will fall into the embrace of the One who loves us more than we can ask, imagine, or even desire.

 

Wondering

  • Where do I most resist limitation?
  • What vulnerabilities do I try hardest to avoid?
  • What might Christ be inviting me to embrace rather than escape?

(10 minutes)

Kenosis is not the destination; it is the path. God did not become human just to suffer. God’s purpose was not pain, but union with humanity.

The Scottish friar and theologian John Duns Scotus, who lived in the generation after Francis, poses an interesting question: Why did God become human? Many of us were taught an answer that emphasises sin, our fallen state, our brokenness: God came to “fix” us.

While there is certainly truth in that, and plenty of scriptural support for it, Duns Scotus takes us in another direction: What if God became human, not because of sin, but out of a desire to be close to us? In other words, what if Incarnation wasn’t a plan God had to fall back on because we messed up the original plan, but God’s purpose all along?

Duns Scotus taught that Christ would have come even if humanity had never sinned. Because God’s desire is not just to fix what is broken but, more deeply, to share life with us.

If this is true, then it changes things. It means that God’s reaching out to us is not driven by wrath, by disappointment, necessity or even obligation, but by delight. Christ was willing both to enter and leave this world in a state of utter helplessness because that is right where we live—even if, when things go well, we can almost make ourselves believe otherwise.

This changes how we understand both poverty and suffering. Neither has value in itself. Their value lies in the love they make possible. The purpose of self-emptying is to create space for a greater fullness. The purpose of surrender is deeper union.
The purpose of poverty is freedom for love.

wondering

  • What assumptions about God—or about yourself—might you need to let go of in order to believe that God desires communion with you, not just to “rescue” and “improve” you?
  • What are you being asked to surrender, release, or empty yourself of, and how might that create space for greater union with God or others?
  • When you think about poverty, weakness, or helplessness in your own life, do you experience them primarily as obstacles to God’s work or as places where God can draw near?
  • Can you recall a time when a limitation, loss, or vulnerability became an unexpected doorway into deeper relationship, freedom, or love?

(10 minutes)

“Therefore, God also highly exalted him…” (Philippians 2:9). The kenosis hymn in Philippians does not end with the cross; it continues with exaltation. God highly exalted Christ, and Christ told us that those who humble themselves will be exalted. The cross and the glory belong together.

Francis understood this mystery, which is why the wounds of Christ threw him into a state of awe. Most of us, when we have wounds, want to hide them until they heal. And if the wounds leave scars, we may be careful to cover them up. With Jesus’ scars, a natural response would be to see them as ugly reminders of the injustice and suffering he went through for us.

But in common with other medieval mystics, Francis was drawn to Christ’s wounds. He saw them as illustrating a story of incarnation and kenosis, of suffering, yes, but also of the love that led him to it. God’s power to redefine the ugliest things meant that, in being crucified, Jesus is not disfigured but glorified. The wounds of Christ are terrible but beautiful, because they reveal the heart of God.

Francis wanted to experience both the suffering and the love. But there was more. About two years before the end of his life. Francis was a deeply conflicted man. He was weakened, in pain, nearly blind. The order he’d founded seemed to be in disarray, seemed to have lost its way. Francis had given up most things, and what was left he’d had taken away. It’s no surprise that he was wondering if his life had been pleasing to God.

And then it came: the imposition of Christ’s own wounds in his flesh. This was God’s answer: a visible declaration that Francis had become profoundly conformed to Christ. The marks were God’s affirmation that Francis’ life was indeed pleasing, and his poverty would give him a share in the glory of Christ.

It’s important to remember that the stigmata, however glorious, still hurt. They were real wounds. But they were also places of grace, signs that Francis’ poverty was holy. They were a divine endorsement: “Well done, good and faithful one.”

Could our wounds be saying the same?

Wondering

  • What wounds do I carry?
  • Which of those wounds have become places of grace?
  • What might it mean that our wounds can become holy rather than shameful?

Reflective Action

(10 minutes)

Complete the sentence:
This week I will practise holy poverty by letting go of…

Hold this intention before God.

Sit quietly for a moment.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
You emptied yourself in love,
not for suffering’s sake,
but for union.
Teach us the freedom of holy poverty.
Help us loosen our grip
on everything we cannot keep.
Transform our wounds into places of grace.
Transform our losses into passages of life.
And when our own Sister Death finally comes,
may she find us already practised in trust,
already practised in surrender,
already practised in love.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Final wondering

  • If Christ were to speak over my life as he spoke over Francis’, what might he be inviting me to believe about myself today?

  • Sister Death

Introduction

Five Franciscan Study Reflections on Death, Dying, and Trust in God

Session III

Living Toward Death: Daily Kenosis and the many Transitus Experiences

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