Managing our Money
We continue our series on exploring our seven spiritual disciplines. Each week, we have been allowing a ’spiritual hero’ to challenge us. For our spiritual discipline of ‘managing our money’, St Francis of Assisi was chosen to stretch us.
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone was born in 1182, Assisi, Italy, to a rich and noble family. His father, a cloth merchant, loved French style so called him ‘Francesco’. At the age of 20, he spent a year in gaol. Later at the age of 27, he goes on a pilgrimage and gives a beggar the shirt off his own back.
He believed he was called to ‘repair the church’ and renounced his father’s fortune. St Francis lived a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and cared for lepers. He was joined in time by other ‘friars’ and ‘daughters’ who also followed his Christ-like simplicity.
The Franciscans:
Some people looked down on their ‘unsafe and impracticable’ poverty, but the Pope recognised a Franciscans order for men and women. St Francis loved nature and poetry and wrote the ‘Canticle of the Sun’. ‘Sister Death’ embraced him in 1226.
He was made a patron of animals and environment, and called for laws to protect animals at Christmas. St Francis can encourage us to manage our money and all our resources.
“Because St. Francis sought first the Kingdom of God and his justice, many other things were added unto him”
November 6th, 2003 at 11:55 am
A challenge I’ve been pondering recently relating to money, posessions, weath ….
What would God think of us Westerners and the way we spend our money and accumulate wealth. In a world where people are starving, how can we justify spending $300 on a DVD player?
I know Jesus said the poor will always be with us, and that $300 will not solve the problem of world poverty, but it would make a life-changing difference to those who’s life it saves. And perhaps if enough of us viewed money this way, things would start to change?