Description:

Franciscan Heritage Series, Volume 4

This book establishes a much-needed bridge connecting the best of contemporary scholarship on the Wisdom traditions of the Old Testament, the Gospel of John and the vernacular tradition of the theology of St. Francis, expressed in his writings and portrayed in the San Damiano crucifix. Accompanied by a CD-Rom presentation of images, the text correlates a central image-text of community formation with Johannine insights into the mysteries of creation, incarnation, glory and ministry. Practitioners of the Franciscan Gospel life, gazing upon the cross with informed minds and open hearts, might become transformed into the image of the Godhead itself and thus enable others to read and to become the true glory of the love of God and neighbor in our twenty-first century.

This is the fourth volume in a series initiated by the Commission on the Retrieval of the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition (CFIT). The series will, over time, encompass topics such as Christian Anthropology, Ecclesiology, Scriptural Themes, Evangelization, History, the Natural Sciences, the Arts and other areas of contemporary concern.

Embedded in this vision and communicated in the Intellectual Tradition are implications for the world of politics, social relations, family life and daily human existence. Can we speak in the midst of our own social and ecclesial location a language of God-with-us, of life, of social witness, a language of the intellect that will help us do what is ours to do in this Christian Catholic Franciscan way of Gospel Life?