{"id":4706,"date":"2014-11-13T09:28:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T15:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2026-02-26T13:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:49:17","slug":"franciscan-bookshelf-following-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2014\/11\/13\/franciscan-bookshelf-following-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"Franciscan Bookshelf: “Following Francis”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By day, K.P.–a good friend of Sister Julia\u2019s–reads, writes, and has conversations about literature for a living. By night, she devours theology, sits silently with God, and pursues her calling as a lay order Franciscan through affiliation with FSPA. Each month she will share a favorite selection from her \u201cFranciscan Bookshelf.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Like most of the books on my Franciscan Bookshelf, I don\u2019t know exactly how I came across \u201cFollowing Francis: The Franciscan Way for Everyone,\u201d Susan Pitchford\u2019s readable but rigorous introduction to the practice of lay Franciscan spirituality, but it is now one of my most dog-eared, deeply-cherished books about faith. Perhaps this is somewhat owing to the way Pitchford\u2019s story resonates with me, particularly: an academic sociologist who describes herself as \u201cscratch[ing] and claw[ing]\u201d her way back to Christianity, Pitchford wrestles throughout the book with how to reconcile her secular vocation with the countercultural demands of her faith, in chapters that detail the aspects of her Rule, including \u201cPrayer,\u201d \u201cPenitence,\u201d \u201cLove,\u201d and \u201cSimplicity.\u201d Now fully immersed in the Anglican\u00a0Third Order<\/a>, Pitchford weaves her own (often endearingly clumsy) introduction to the Franciscan way into powerful narratives about the value of simplicity and prayer, the need for radical love, and the pursuit of meaningful work using the life of St. Francis as a guide. Pitchford\u2019s introduction to the \u201cWay\u201d is\u2014by turns\u2014difficult, beautiful, accessible, and nourishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo credit: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Following-Francis-The-Franciscan-Everyone\/dp\/0819222356<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the topic of \u201cSelf-Denial,\u201d Pitchford is particularly insightful.\u00a0Building on Kathleen Norris\u2019s insight in \u201cThe Cloister Walk<\/a>\u201d that \u201cthe saints are those who have been willing to go through life without anesthesia,\u201d Pitchford examines the many ways in which we have become accustomed to \u201canesthetizing\u201d ourselves in modern Western culture: drugs, alcohol, greasy food, cigarettes, to be sure, but also music, movies, shopping, television. By rightly recognizing that the practice of self-denial is often counter-intuitive\u2014if not seemingly irrelevant\u2014to lay religious, Pitchford gently encourages those interested in such a discipline to meaningfully<\/em> cultivate time and attention for the entertainments which bring us profound pleasure rather than transforming them into background noise. (As she puts it, \u201cI figure if the music is good, it deserves my full attention; if not, it deserves to be turned off.\u201d) Far from lamenting the deprivations of a good life, Pitchford humbly suggests a different version of it: a life filled with the kind of joy and peace that only gratified silence and cultivated attention can bring. And, of course, the occasional<\/em>, profoundly-felt chocolate bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing Francis\u201d also speaks to the challenges lay religious face in coordinating the disciplines of their spiritual life with the demands of their secular one. In chapters on \u201cHumility,\u201d \u201cStudy,\u201d and \u201cWork,\u201d Pitchford addresses the intersection of meekness and practicing obedience in the context of meaningful employment. The modern workplace is often both competitive and self-aggrandizing, which can feel at odds to those called to lifestyles of solitude, humility, and voluntary simplicity. And yet, Pitchford reminds us, the reconciling of the two can produce powerful opportunities to witness and minister. She (rather comically) describes her search for meaningful ministry as an experience of discouraged unemployment, where everything she understands to be a \u201clegitimate calling\u201d is ultimately closed off to her. Yet she neglects to recognize that, all along, she has continued to write, teach, research, and touch lives. As she describes her realization, \u201cPrayer, teaching, and writing: could this be a life that would be genuinely pleasing to God?\u201d I think those of us called to a more contemplative life can agree that it sometimes feels … indulgent? Irrelevant? I myself have struggled deeply with my vocation as a professor: shouldn\u2019t I be out feeding the homeless? Couldn\u2019t I dedicate my hours to something more meaningful than reading and writing? Yet God has responded, again and again\u2014through spiritual directors, through prayer, through books like Pitchford\u2019s\u2014by reminding me that a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth and knowledge, and to fostering truth and knowledge in other, more resistant minds, is a vocation in and of itself. Not a better<\/em> or worse<\/em> vocation, but simply the shape of my specific and particular call at this moment in my life. And thus I find helpful and comforting Pitchford\u2019s emphasis on the need for self-reflection in order to understand secular vocations in discerning terms, to recognize the limits of our knowing:<\/p>\n

… I think humans have a natural apophatic tendency\u2014an intuitive sense of the limits of knowledge\u2014and serious study can bring it to the surface. Apophatic theology claims that God is so far beyond human experience and understanding that all positive assertions about God\u2019s essence are inevitably misleading, distorting, and potentially idolatrous. Instead of making statements about what God\u00a0<\/em>is (the thrust of \u201ccataphatic\u201d theology), apophatic theology emphasizes all that God is <\/em>not: God is not limited (\u201cinfinite\u201d), not subject to death and decay (\u201cimmortal\u201d), beyond all description (\u201cineffable\u201d). Because God so transcends our capacity to know him, apophatic theology stresses <\/em>unknowing: we can do nothing but bow in silent awe before the mystery we cannot begin to comprehend. I confess I\u2019m more at home in the cataphatic tradition, with heavy doses of analogy (\u201cGod is <\/em>like a king,\u201d \u201cChrist is <\/em>like a bridegroom\u201d). Yet there\u2019s that undeniable tendency for each little summit I reach to open up new vistas of my ignorance. This makes sense, because it\u2019s only when we push ourselves to the limits of our knowledge that we get a feel for what those limits are<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I feel grateful every day to do meaningful work that pushes me, again and again, to the limits of my knowledge. May Pitchford\u2019s work speak to you as it has to me: a grounded narrative of the transformations that the Franciscan way can bring to your life, work, and prayer.<\/p>\n

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Franciscan Bookshelf: “Following Francis”<\/a><\/blockquote>