Francis of Assisi was called “the second Christ” because his life was so totally given over to expressing the life of Jesus. What can we learn from this man devoted like no other? “As Saint Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ,” wrote Chesterton. Wow. Just let that sink in. Francis didn’t fall in love with church; he fell in love with Jesus. “His religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair.

Who even remembers him for that? If people know him now it’s only as the statue in the garden of the friar with the birds and bunnies. He’s been made a cartoon by the religious fog, just as it happened to Jesus. Which brings us back to something essential for loving Jesus, for making your faith more like a love affair — you are going to have to break with the religious. If you want Jesus, you’re going to have to end the relationship with the religious glaze.

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