1.What is spirituality?
The aim of these reflections is to offer some understanding of the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi. It is obvious that one saint differs from another as, for example, in the New Testament the personalities and styles of Saint Peter and Saint Paul differ markedly. We could say that they had different spiritualities. What then does the word spirituality mean? Spirituality is the way a person is attracted to the Lord and how he or she develops this attraction into a discipline of life. In St Paul it is clear that the dominant influence in his life was the vision he had on the Damascus Road. As he set out with his soldiers to persecute the Christians, the Lord appeared to him and said: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? [Acts 9:4].
Paul was overwhelmed by the thought that the Lord identifies himself with every Christian. To strike a Christian is to strike Christ. In his preaching and thinking Paul often came back to this thought. He developed a theology or spirituality based on his experience of Christians being the body of Christ and he said in 1 Corinthians 12:27: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Was there an experience in Francis' life that shaped how he thought of the Lord? There certainly was as is evident when we read his Testament. Before he died the incident he recalled as shaping his life was his meeting with a leper. He described this incident not long before he died and in the following meditation we will see how this incident affected Francis.
