A Vocation Journey: meeting St Francis Again

St Martins-in-the-Field, London

In the previous post,  A Vocation Journey: meeting Br John-Francis I recalled how I had made contact with Br John-Francis, one of the members of the Society of St Francis’ vocations team. Br John-Francis had invited me to attend a Vocations Day held at St Martins-in-the-Field.

Despite  feelings of ambivalence there was stronger feeling of wanting to know more about Francis and these Franciscans I had begun to learn about. So, on the Saturday morning I headed off to St Martins to join with others who were inquiring about vocations to Franciscan religious life in the Anglican and Catholic Church – the day was jointly hosted by members of both Franciscan communities.

When I arrived I met John-Francis and the other members of the Anglican and Catholic vocations teams. We began, of course, with some time of prayer. Then the brothers and sisters shared with us stories about St Francis and their lives as Franciscans.

As I listened to them share their stories and watched a video about St Francis a particular image jogged my memory. I saw the image of a man with birds surrounding him and my mind immediately went back to my visit to the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, AZ that my friend Wendy had taken me to. Suddenly shivers went up and down my spine. It was a very eerie feeling. Not long ago I didn’t really know about St Francis or Franciscans and suddenly with a few months I had meet St Francis one two occassions; once in Sedona and now in London.

Figurine of St Francis of Assisi, Sedona, AZ.

During the day we had opportunity to spend some time looking through St Martins. I discovered a bookshop in the lower part of the Church. They had a copy of Celebrating Common Prayer a version of the Society of St Francis’ Office Book. I had come from a Church background which did not use prayer books so I found navigating this one somewhat of a challenge. However, the directions and explanations of the various Offices in the book gave me enough information to be able to learn to navigate and use the book.

At the end of the day we finished with a service of prayer for discernment of vocations. As we were leaving a remember talking to one of the ladies that had come to inquire about being a sister. I’m not sure what happened to her or any of the others, or whether any of them joined the communities they were inquiring into. Indeed as we parted I still was left with feelings of ambivalence; a theme I want to take up in the next post – A Vocation Journey: feelings of ambivalence.