“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Often attributed to John Lennon, this quote from American journalist Allen Saunders speaks to me especially this week of April 21, 2025, as I write this piece. In recent months, since November 20, 2024, when the Canonization of Carlo Acutis was announced to take place during the Jubilee of Teens on April 27, 2025, many people have been making plans.

Authors and their editors have been finalizing texts, and publishers have been selling books and booklets on the young soon-to-be saint. Liturgists have been preparing prayers, liturgical settings, and environments for services and celebrations. The faithful have made travel arrangements and have paid for tickets for plane fare, train fare, bus fare, lodging. For many this involved significant saving and planning to redirect hard-earned money to experience a once-in-a lifetime event: the canonization of the first millennial saint.

But life—and death—happen while we’re busy making plans.

The world woke up on Easter Monday to the news that Pope Francis had died. With his passing, a new celebration started, one filled with the mixed emotions of grief and gratitude, both sown with faith in new life with Christ and in time, resurrection.

Given that the proclamation of sanctity requires papal authority, the canonization of Carlo Acutis has been suspended.

What do we do with this suspended time?

I have been reflecting on real presence for many years: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, yes, and my own capacity to truly be present in situations that are unsettling or unexpected. I admit that I sometimes expect things to go a certain way and when they don’t, I can brood or feel disappointment. Sometimes I can get flustered and even angry if I have put a lot of planning into the preparations of a task or event that ends up going in ways other than I expected. If I cling too tightly to those expectations, I can lose sight of the hope that might be found in what transpires. 

In reading about the life and faith of Carlo Acutis in recent months, I have naturally been impressed with the faith of this young man. But I have also noticed the faith of those around him, especially his nanny, Beata Sperczynska, when he was a young boy. In reading about Beata in Courtney Mares’ book, Blessed Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers, the brief passage on Beata points to the profound effect of being deeply present with her faith and with those around her.

According to Mares, Carlo was just three when Beata came to work for the family as his nanny. Having traveled from her native Poland to work in Milan, she brought with her prayer cards and a fervent hope in Christ’s love. She was the first to teach little Carlo in the Catholic faith, showing him that it is a faith of relationship and presence. She took him with her to Mass and also taught him to drop in churches as they passed by and say “hi to Jesus.” To me this brief anecdote relates a possible influence on Carlo and explains how he came to be so social and interactive in his faith as a youth, showing up to greet strangers and offer them food or clothing that they needed, for example. 

Did Beata expect little Carlo to become a saint? Not likely. But there was great hope that he might discover faith through these small acts of devotion and relationality that she brought into his life when she was his nanny. This was not so much an expectation that he would take on her Catholic faith as much as her own buoyant hope in Christ that could not be suppressed. 

This hope spilled over onto Carlo who in turn shared it with so many through his short life and now as many more flock to Assisi to pray near his body. 

There could be a tendency now to wait in expectation of the announcement of a new canonization date after a new pontiff is elected by the Cardinals. But I wonder if while waiting in expectation, we could miss the opportunity to spread the hope faith gives us that Carlo and before him, Beata, showed in their presence with others. Perhaps that’s the invitation of this time: show up and be really present with all we encounter. That is a faith that gives me hope.

It is an experience that could make us vulnerable, which is why much of the time most people run away from this closeness and disregard or trivialize this way of being with judgment. But when the realities of life hit, and you have lost everything, what is left is the stunning beauty of our relationships with one another, with this world, and with our God. 

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Living ‘The Canticle of the Creatures‘”
by Darleen Pryds, PhD

Francis’ experience with loss illustrates a path to deeper relationships, including with God. 

Be honest with yourself: How do you act when you’re sick or in pain? How would you feel if you lost everything? It is commonplace to grouse and complain. Equally common is to feel anxiety and fear. Some people become demanding of those around them, while others retreat into themselves, refusing help from anyone with an “I’m OK” attitude. 

So, what would you do if, after experiencing years of chronic pain and diminishing eyesight, you found yourself depleted of all strength in a dank room surrounded by mice scurrying around? Francis of Assisi responded in a most particular way: He sang and wrote, “Praise to you, my Lord, with all your creatures.” 

St. Francis reached out to all that surrounded him and felt comfort in the beauty of nature. He took special notice of each element of the world and reached out to praise God. Was this some form of spiritual bypassing? Overlooking and ignoring a difficult part of life and jumping to something pleasant? Or was this something more profound? 

“The Canticle of Creatures,” composed by Francis of Assisi, is having a moment, as the saying goes—or really a year—as we celebrate the 800th anniversary of its composition this year. Composed in increments between 1225 and 1226, in the last year of Francis’ life, the canticle begins most famously by turning to the natural world as reason to praise God, before then turning to peacemakers and finally to death, all as reminders to us to give praise to our God. And he does so in a most intimate way, calling each element brother or sister: “Praise to you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Brother Sun.” Sister Moon and the Stars, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and, finally, Sister Death are all named. 

For many years, I had overlooked the complexity of these words and images. I admit that I have read them to be like all the nice families on TV—perhaps like The Brady Bunch of classic American TV—families who experience foibles and mishaps, but always make up by the end of the day. The wish for a happy ending is strong, but the reality of lived experience is usually more complex. 

So is that sibling relationship. 

When Fire Is Your Brother 

I began to reconsider Francis’ understanding of sibling relationship with creation in January 2025 when the catastrophic fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, on opposite sides of Los Angeles, broke out and decimated lives. Of course, I have read about natural disasters many times: a devastating earthquake in Haiti, a hurricane named Helene that brought flooding in North Carolina, and more. I have watched video feeds from war-ravaged areas in Ukraine and Gaza. I have donated to causes and prayed for victims and recovery efforts. 

But these fires in Los Angeles tore through two areas where I have lived. “Brother Fire” destroyed the houses I had once called home as he destroyed many people’s homes, businesses and livelihoods, churches and temples, schools, and libraries, along with so many people’s plans and expectations. 

The relationship I have with those places has remained far more than mere thoughts or memories. Instead, I carry a visceral connection to people, and yes, also to trees, rocks, ocean, mountains, coyotes, and more. When I think of Altadena, I think of the families I lived with and can smell the pine trees that grew around the house where I lived—the house now reduced to rubble. 

When I remember my year of housesitting in Pacific Palisades, I think of the crazy clan of roommates and can smell the eggrolls we made. And I can see the view of the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun that I experienced doing homework on the back porch of the house that recently burned to the ground. The fires have been a cause to reconnect with people I lived with: to share stories, catch up on our lives, and, most of all, to be there to offer support. 

But seeing photos of both houses after the fires, I have cried often and felt deep, visceral sadness. How could a brother be so harsh as to bring such destruction to places and people I have loved? 

I had been reflecting on the canticle when the fires forced me to realize that I am more practiced in studying the canticle as a piece of poetry and keeping its words at a tender distance than I am in living into its invitation of a deeper relationship: of sensing the world around me as close as my siblings. 

What does this look like? Or more precisely, what does this feel like? 

Francis’ Experience of Loss 

The canticle was not composed in Francis’ youth, when he cheerfully embraced and cherished flowers and water, fire, and the moon. The canticle was stirring in his soul for many years—quite possibly after hearing the effusive praise of creation in the words of Daniel 3:56–57; 62–68; 75–81—but it is the labor of a spiritually mature Francis. He did not compose the song, or at least it was not written down, until he was able to let go completely of all that was separating him from true intimacy with God. This closeness with the Divine came through years of letting go, not just of material things, but of deeper personal attachments: his expectations and assumptions of how things should be, his privilege of social standing even within his order, and his control over his own body. 

Francis’ conversion of faith had grown deeper as he aged and experienced both voluntary and involuntary loss. In 1220, when he relinquished leadership of his order, he did so sensing that he did not have the capacity to lead the growing fraternity of brothers. He had cultivated enough self-knowledge and self-awareness that he “retired” from leadership, thus allowing the movement to develop with different leadership. 

If you have retired from work or let go of a project or way of life that is dear to you, you know that this letting go is not easy. We know from Francis’ episodes of anger and frustration with his brothers that he struggled with really letting go. We can often overlook how Francis could be so angry and petulant with his brothers when he disagreed with their behavior and when the order developed in ways he had not foreseen or wanted. 

It can be more pleasant to consider the young, carefree “flower child” Francis in Franco Zeffirelli’s film Brother Sun, Sister Moon than the more complex Francis of his final years. But these tensions and conflicts he bore—both with his fellow friars and within himself—are also part of his life. After eruptions of anger, Francis would stop and regroup and let it all go, sensing the importance of the relationship over his expectations. This, too, is part of a sibling relationship. 

Francis was sad and even disillusioned, leaving Rome after the approval of the Rule of 1223, a move that transformed his original, simple extraction of Gospel passages into a canonical legal document. So he found solace with the people of Greccio as he ventured back to Assisi. There, with the help of the townspeople, he recreated the Nativity scene to experience God in their midst. 

Then came the final years of physical decline and painful treatments, when again he turned outward to relationships. He called to his fellow friars and his longtime friend and fellow caregiver, Lady Jacoba, to be with him as he died. For some of us these periods of our lives when we experience loss of any kind can be a time of reluctance and even depression, but for Francis, the final year of his life opened him up to deeper consolation and more profound faith as he was able to become more present with the beauty of the world around him and thereby his faith in Christ. 

Here’s the simple (but not necessarily easy) truth of the Franciscan way: Letting go of attachments opens space for deeper awareness and visceral sense of the beauty all around us. This letting go is not a superficial acceptance of life’s events. Instead, it’s a deep awareness and acceptance of all that is interconnected. 

Plum Village and Engaged Buddhism 

Such a capacity of presence, awareness, and acceptance comes with significant contemplative practice that can be found in other spiritual traditions such as the Plum Village tradition of Zen Buddhism. 

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022), the Zen Buddhist monk and scholar who founded the Plum Village Tradition of Engaged Buddhism and the related Order of Interbeing, was a great admirer of Francis of Assisi. Like Francis, Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately as “Thay,” or “Teacher”) practiced and taught a simple way of being that can be readily misunderstood and made into a simplistic caricature much like that of St. Francis. But for those of us who practice either spiritual path, we know that the simple path is not necessarily an easy one. 

Like Francis, Thich Nhat Hanh cultivated a spiritual practice of presence and awareness of interdependence through bitterly harsh experiences of war. Bearing witness to the grisly realities of violence in his homeland of Vietnam in the 1960s, Thich Nhat Hanh lived into a way of peace through self-awareness, knowing that if he let the violence that surrounded him enter his own way of being, his own capacity for inner peace would be destroyed and, with it, the possibility of peaceful resolution of any conflict, no matter how big or small. 

Knowing that suffering grows in the distancing between people, Thay noted common forms of suffering, such as judgment, denial, avoidance, and resistance. Cultivating the capacity to be present with what is—all that is—without judgment, denial, avoidance, or resistance lies at the heart of Thay’s teachings and practice. Knowing that denial and pushing away lead to suffering, Thich Nhat Han practiced and encouraged others to practice curiosity to understand others. This includes awareness of our own judgments that are obstacles to deep and real presence to what is. 

When one can let go of all the obstacles that tempt us—distractions, judgments, and any behavior that separates us from one another—we are able to cultivate and sustain relationships with one another and all of life that surrounds us. We sense the pain of another person, and we feel empathy. We see the beauty of a flower, and we feel delight. We find ourselves in relationships of interdependence or, as Thich Nhat Hanh often said, in “interbeing,” so our experiences are shared and not held at a distance. The relationships we maintain with one another and with our world become central to our being. 

We “inter-are,” according to Thay. 

Living the Canticle 

More than just thinking about the sibling connections Francis sang about in his canticle, I am now sensing these connections with the world around me on a deep, visceral level. This is what Francis was getting at: cultivating a rapport with this world that is not abstract or merely transactional, but instead experiencing the world viscerally without judgment or denial, without resistance or avoidance, as a brother and a sister with all the familiarity (and tension) implied in a family. 

It is an experience that could make us quite vulnerable, which is why much of the time most people run away from this closeness and disregard or trivialize this way of being with judgment. But when the realities of life hit, and you have lost everything, what is left is the stunning beauty of our relationships with one another, with this world, and with our God. This path of interdependence is care-filled, relational, and felt.

This is how we come to understand the real wisdom of Francis and begin to live the canticle. 

It was 20 years later that I stood in front of the church in awe. The grandeur and beauty of the church impressed me. But as my eyes moved upward to the dome, something else caught my attention. I saw movement around the dome so that it looked to me like a crown with dazzling jewels around it. I soon realized those jewels were people who had climbed to the top to take in the views of Rome. They were walking around and waving their arms: doing what tourists do. If I had been up there with them, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them all that much. I would have looked outward at the view of the city of Rome. But from the ground looking up, I saw all these people as if they were gems in a royal crown. 

That experience has stayed with me. I can be distracted by beautiful architecture and art and forget to notice all the people around me—these people who are the real jewels in our lives—both those people we know and the people who are strangers. I never knowingly met any of those people up on the dome that day, but they stood out to me as jewels…precious strangers.

All Soul’s Day is a favorite day of mine precisely because the liturgies and prayers of this day remind me to be grateful for all the souls around me, both living and dead. Our lives are full of beauty to be sure. And that beauty is made all the more poignant by the people around us when we stop and appreciate the value of each soul around us. 

Today, All Souls Day, consider all the people who have entered your life in both brief and extended ways. This includes family, friends, and even strangers. How is your life made richer by each one of these people? How has your faith been affected by family, by friends? How have strangers deepened your faith? 

God has a way of hooking us. God hooked me through academic study. 

As a freshman in college, I was taking a Medieval History course when I was assigned The Little Flowers of St. Francis. I hated it. I found it overly sentimental and syrupy. I also longed for the kind of spiritual community the book showed me was possible. And that’s how God hooked me: by introducing me to something I rejected on the one hand, and found compelling on the other. It was the semester I left institutional Christianity and started to search for God.

I had a complicated relationship with institutional Christianity. As a kid, my family attended church the first Sunday of the month at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland. I liked going to church especially because of the large stained-glass window of Jesus holding a lamb. But I wasn’t so keen on Sunday school because I didn’t know many of the answers. Once when I was seven, I had just learned how to use a Table of Contents in school, and tried to apply that skill at Sunday School when the teacher challenged us in a race to find Psalm 23. I adeptly found the book of Psalms in the Table of Contents, flipped to the first page of the book, and eased over to Psalm 23. When she asked how I found it so quickly, I proudly announced I used the Table of Contents. I felt stung with embarrassment when she scolded me. She announced that I and all of us young Christians should be able to “just know” where the book of Psalms is in the Bible. For years growing up and for many years as a young adult I thought there needed to be a distance between what I learned at school and what I believed on Sunday.

But I just couldn’t let the subject of Franciscan spirituality (or God) go after glimpsing the spiritual community portrayed in The Little Flowers of St. Francis. I became fascinated by how people throughout history have come to experience God, directly in mystical encounters as well as in caring for one another, especially those on the margins. 

As a resolute agnostic by this time, it was all an academic pursuit for many years until I found myself in Rome researching a doctoral dissertation on a lay Franciscan who preached. The frenetic city and the long hours in the libraries took their toll. On lunch breaks and walks at the end of the day, I would duck into the churches of Rome to experience peace and quiet. What I saw moved me: people kneeling or sitting; eyes closed or gazing; reading or mumbling words…people praying. I began to yearn for that kind of faith.

On weekends I’d sometimes go to Assisi to get further away from the chaos of Rome. On one particular day in the crypt of the church of San Francesco I prayed for St. Francis’ intercession. “If anyone can do this, it’s you. Help me believe.”

It didn’t happen suddenly, but over days and months I returned to Christian faith. First through the Episcopal church and then to the Roman Catholic Church. Through it all my study of lay Franciscans and their complex faith lives have inspired me. I have found people in the Franciscan tradition who model for me fervent faith as lay people with different commitments and practices than vowed religious, but with no less devotion or conviction. 

I was teaching at a large state university when I saw a want ad for a professor of Spirituality at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. I knew the building well since my grandfather lived just a few blocks away. I applied for the position not wanting to hold on to the outcome…one never knows if there’s an inside candidate after all. But when I got the job it was a real homecoming: back to the place where I had grown up and into a place where I could fuse my faith and work. 

My research, teaching, and vocation are centered on this faith and on Franciscan spirituality. For me and for many who come to study at the Franciscan School of Theology (which is now in San Diego and affiliated with the University of San Diego), study enriches our faith. Study makes my own faith more meaningful. Study helps me make sense of my daily connections with the people and the natural world. And faith makes it all worthwhile.

While the liturgies vary, there is a common feature of the receptions that follow the Transitus: almond cookies. Francis’ trusted friend, generous benefactor, and faithful caregiver, Lady Jacoba, brought the saint’s favorite cookies when she came to visit him one last time on his deathbed. We enjoy the cookies, that’s for sure. But this year, perhaps we can pause and consider the significance of the cookies in the relationship between saint and friend; saint and benefactor; saint and caregiver. 

How we choose to commemorate this poignant transition in Francis’ life speaks volumes about our own faith. I invite you to read this article in the October 2024 issue of St. Anthony Messenger that takes us into the side of the Franciscan tradition that often gets overlooked: the relationship behind the cookies.