"Do-Gooders" or Holiness?

One of my favorite stories on St. Francis of Asisi’s life is when in the middle of one night, one of his Franciscan brothers kept groaning that he was dying. Francis and the others gathered around the poor brother’s bed and asked him what he was dying from. The poor brother answered “From hunger.”

Without much ado, Francis ordered the brother to be scourged and executed, for he had been an embarassment to the order.

Just kidding…. Just want to know if you are really paying attention.


By: Indra

Without much ado, Francis then ordered food to be prepared at the big dining table, and all brothers, including the dying one, dine together in the midst of the night.

I was so astounded by this gesture by St. Francis. Here he was, a man whose whole life was about fasting and mortification. He was put into this situation, and he showed great love in dealing with this brother. He understood that the brother had reached his limit in fasting, and in order for the brother not to feel ashamed or isolated from others, he ordered all congregation to dine together in the middle of the night.

I like this story because it shows how St. Francis really understood the true meaning of fasting and mortification. Fasting is not just about depriving ourselves of something good, but it is also gaining something even better, that is, the love of God. We are denying ourselves so that we become possessed by God. Yes, I do mean it, we become possessed by God.

The word “possessed” often has a negative conotation because it is usually used when someone is being influenced by evil spirit. However, actually the meaning is neutral, “we are possessed by God” means that we are becoming possessions of God. Aren’t we actually God’s possession? If only we let Him posess us so that it is he who lives in us!

We often feel that Christian life is “boring”. Probably, the reason why it is boring is because we focuses too much in fulfilling the moral conduct of Christian life and not holiness. Holiness means being possessed by God. Holiness means that his will becomes our will, and we go wherever the Spirit goes. No one can guess where it goes and so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (cf. Jn. 3:8). Moral conduct should be the fruit of holiness and not vice versa.

That is why the notion that Christian life is boring is untenable. Christian life is never boring if our focus is right. If we limit our Christian life as being “do-gooders”, then, yes, life will be boring and we would put too much pressure on ourselves trying to live up to our own standard. If we limit our praying life with formal prayers, how sad it would be! Imagine if I treat every person in my life formally as if we are in business function, how lonely and boring my life would be!

However, Christian life is about holiness, it is about giving ourselves to God and being possessed by his Spirit. When we are possessed by Him, then Christian life is never boring because our God is never boring. His love is new every day and no one can understand his ways. His ways is always above our ways. Imagine if his ways actually become our ways!

The conduct of St. Francis above is an example. Who can actually predict beforehand that it would be the way St. Francis handled the situation? Maybe not even Francis Himself. Maybe that is why Jesus teaches us not to worry about tomorrow, to trust fully to God who loves us so much, and to take it as it comes, for this life of being vulnerable makes us open and be faithful to the ways of God who is unpredictable and always new every day.

God bless you all,
Adrianus Indra Setiadi

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