A Call to Deep Faith: Reflecting Inwardly, Loving Outwardly

Living the Franciscan Blessing

The Franciscan Blessing is more than a prayer; it’s a spiritual invitation to go deeper in our faith, to both reflect on our inner lives and respond outwardly to a world in need. In a time when it’s easy to settle for superficial spirituality, this blessing encourages us to take a long, loving look inward, while extending that same love and compassion outward. It calls us to embrace discomfort, righteous anger, tears, and even what might seem like foolishness, all for the sake of living out a genuine, transformative faith.

As believers, we often strive for outward acts of faith—serving others, advocating for justice, participating in church life—but we can easily lose sight of the need for ongoing inner transformation. The Franciscan Blessing calls us back to that balance: to examine ourselves with humility and honesty and to allow that self-awareness to drive our compassionate action toward a hurting world. When we live from a place of both inward reflection and outward love, we can become agents of change in our own lives and in the world around us.

Discomfort: An Opportunity for Inner Growth

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart."

This first line of the blessing speaks to something many of us would rather avoid—discomfort. It’s a natural human tendency to seek comfort, to want quick fixes and easy solutions. But in our spiritual lives, comfort can be a hindrance to growth. When we accept easy answers or cling to half-truths, we limit ourselves, keeping our faith shallow and unchallenged. This prayer invites us to embrace discomfort not as a punishment but as a doorway to deeper understanding and greater spiritual maturity.

Discomfort has a way of revealing what’s beneath the surface. It asks us to look at the areas of our lives where we’ve been avoiding deeper engagement. Are we content with knowing God on a surface level, or do we long to truly know Him in the depths of our hearts? Are we satisfied with relationships that remain shallow, or are we willing to cultivate real, vulnerable connections with others? Discomfort pushes us to ask these hard questions, and in doing so, it invites us into greater intimacy with God and with one another.

But discomfort isn’t something to be faced alone. As a church, we are called to create a community where it’s safe to wrestle with hard questions, where discomfort can be shared and processed together. When we’re willing to sit with the tension of not having all the answers, we grow in our understanding of God’s grace and truth. And as we look inward, we’re better equipped to extend patience and grace to others who are also navigating their own spiritual journeys.

Anger: A Heart that Burns for Justice

"May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace."

Anger often gets a bad reputation in Christian circles, where it’s associated with sin or a lack of control. But the Bible shows us another side of anger—righteous anger. Jesus Himself demonstrated it when He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple, driven by a zeal for God’s justice. This part of the blessing invites us to consider whether we’ve allowed ourselves to feel that kind of holy anger. Have we become numb to the injustice in the world? Have we turned a blind eye to oppression, simply because it feels too overwhelming or uncomfortable to confront?

Before we can work for justice outwardly, we must first look inwardly. Are there ways in which we’ve been complicit in systems of injustice, perhaps through our silence or inaction? Are there areas where we’ve ignored the suffering of others because it doesn’t directly affect us? It’s important to approach these questions with humility, recognizing that none of us are perfect and that we all have room to grow.

When we allow ourselves to feel the weight of injustice—not out of guilt, but out of love—we are moved to act. Righteous anger isn’t about lashing out or tearing others down; it’s about channeling our frustration into positive action. When we look inward first, we act not from a place of self-righteousness, but from a heart that seeks to bring God’s justice into the world. And that kind of anger doesn’t just seek to fix what’s broken; it seeks to restore, to heal, and to bring about true peace.

Tears: The Transformative Power of Compassion

"May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy."

Tears are often viewed as a sign of weakness, but in God’s kingdom, they are a powerful force for transformation. This line of the blessing calls us to have hearts that are tender enough to break for the pain and suffering of others. But before we can weep for the world, we must first allow God to soften our own hearts. Are we willing to look at the places where we’ve become callous or indifferent to the suffering around us? Have we avoided confronting the pain of others because it feels too overwhelming?

The blessing of tears is not meant to burden us with sorrow, but to open our hearts to the compassion of Christ. When we allow ourselves to truly see the pain of those around us—the hunger, the rejection, the suffering—it changes us. It moves us from a place of passive sympathy to active compassion. Tears are the beginning of transformation, both for ourselves and for those we seek to serve.

But compassion doesn’t end with tears. It’s not enough to feel empathy for those who are hurting; we are called to reach out, to extend a hand of comfort and hope. When we allow our hearts to break for the suffering of others, we are empowered to step into their pain, offering the love and healing that God has poured into us. As a church, we can be a refuge for the hurting, a place where tears are welcomed and where we work together to turn sorrow into joy.

Holy Foolishness: The Courage to Believe

"And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."

There’s something beautifully paradoxical about the idea of holy foolishness. The world often equates faith with naivety, and daring to believe in transformation can seem foolish when faced with the enormity of the world’s problems. But God’s wisdom often looks like foolishness to the world. This blessing encourages us to embrace that kind of bold, courageous faith—the kind that believes God can do the impossible, both in our lives and in the world around us.

But before we can step out in holy foolishness, we must first look inward. Do we believe that God can change us? Are we willing to trust that He is working in us, even when we don’t see immediate results? This kind of faith requires humility, the acknowledgment that we are limited, but that God’s power is limitless. When we begin to believe in the transformative work God is doing within us, we are empowered to believe that He can work through us in the world.

Holy foolishness is not about grand gestures or big, flashy actions. It’s about taking small steps of faith, trusting that God can use even our seemingly insignificant efforts to make a difference. When we live with that kind of faith, we are free to take risks for the sake of the gospel, to step into places of brokenness and bring God’s light. And as a church, we can encourage one another to embrace this kind of bold, yet humble, faith—one that dares to believe that change is possible, even when the world says otherwise.

A Compassionate Call to Deep Faith

The Franciscan Blessing offers us a framework for living a deep and compassionate faith. It calls us first to look inward, to examine the places where we’ve settled for less than what God desires for us. It invites us to sit with discomfort, to confront the ways we’ve contributed to injustice, to allow our hearts to break for the suffering of others, and to believe that God can use us to make a difference.

But this blessing doesn’t stop at inward reflection. It calls us outward, into a world that desperately needs the love and compassion of Christ. When we take the time to examine our hearts, we are better equipped to respond to the needs of others—not with judgment or condemnation, but with grace, empathy, and hope. As a church, we can be a community that embodies both inward humility and outward compassion, reflecting the love of Christ in all that we do.

May we embrace this blessing as an invitation to go deeper in our faith. May we be willing to sit with discomfort, to feel righteous anger at injustice, to shed tears for the suffering, and to have the courage to believe that God can use us to bring about change. And as we journey together, may we be a people who reflect the heart of Christ, both in our own lives and in the world around us.

Amen.