Description
We will meet the real Francis of Assisi. Our purpose won’t be to dismantle the birdbath Francis (that’s the one we know best – and he’s gentle, after all!), but to uncover the real man and saint behind the popular legends. Who was he? What did he really do that was unusual and important? Most of all, we will focus and then practice how Francis cared for creatures (human, animal, and even inanimate) with particular carefulness.
We will explore Francis’ extraordinary carefulness and gentleness in detail, and how these qualities might just be the most important and abandoned Christian virtues today.
We will talk about how we might apply gentleness in our lives. I will have some suggestions, and I hope to hear some from you, as well.
We will conclude with a few thoughts on holy foolishness, as essential to living the Gospel in the world today – and relevant if and when we decide to really take up this challenge to live gently.
What is the Cost?
This retreat is $60 per person.
About the Presenter
Jon M. Sweeney is an award-winning author, “one of my favorite contemporary spiritual writers,” according to Father James Martin, SJ. He’s been interviewed in print by a range of publications from the Dallas Morning News to The Irish Catholic, and on television by CBS Saturday Morning and other programs. His 2012 history, The Pope Who Quit, was optioned by HBO. He’s also the author of thirty+ other books including The Complete Francis of Assisi; Inventing Hell, with a foreword by Richard Rohr; Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life and Practices, forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press; and The Pope’s Cat series for children. His coauthored volumes (with Mark Burrows) of Meister Eckhart poems, including Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, have been translated and published in many other languages, and are bestsellers in their genre.
Jon speaks regularly at literary and religious conferences. He is a Catholic, married to a rabbi, and their interfaith marriage has been profiled in national media. He writes regularly for America: The Jesuit Review in the US and The Tablet in the UK. He is active on social media (Twitter @jonmsweeney; Facebook jonmsweeney), the publisher at Paraclete Press in Massachusetts, and lives in Milwaukee with his wife and daughters.