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Francis and Jesus
"You are about to be led on a wonderful journey with both Jesus and Francis, by a Franciscan brother of mine and a fellow New Mexican, Fr. Murray Bodo, who has earned the right to speak about both of them," writes noted author Richard Rohr, O.F.M., in the foreword.
Following up on The Journey and the Dream , Murray Bodo offers a maturing of his own friar's spirituality in this dramatic storytelling of Francis' close connection and relationship with Jesus. Here we see a multi-dimensional, yet internal Francis as the ultimate disciple of Francis as sufferer, in the wilderness, as itinerant, as misunderstood, in prayer, as teacher, as lover and protector of the poor, in authority while subject to God's authority, in community, as healer, as wounded.
The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via
Following up on The Journey and the Dream , Murray Bodo offers a maturing of his own friar's spirituality in this dramatic storytelling of Francis' close connection and relationship with Jesus. Here we see a multi-dimensional, yet internal Francis as the ultimate disciple of Francis as sufferer, in the wilderness, as itinerant, as misunderstood, in prayer, as teacher, as lover and protector of the poor, in authority while subject to God's authority, in community, as healer, as wounded.
The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2013
About the author
Murray Bodo
78 books25 followers"Those are the two magnetic poles of my life: books and the Franciscan Priesthood. The glue that holds them together is Saint Francis of Assisi himself. From the time I was thirteen years old and read Sophie Jewett's God's Troubadour, The Story of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis has been a major inspiration of my life. I became a Franciscan in 1955; I've written about him, prayed for his intercession, studied him, taught his life and spirituality and for the last 34 years led pilgrimages to Assisi " - Murray Bodo
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 14, 2024
Was Saint Francis bipolar? Folks who reject the amorality of the world outright like us sometimes end up that way!
I don't think so. It's just that some accounts - like the Fioretti - point in that direction.
We will probably never know. He was just too ingenuous to be real.
Father Bodo’s a placid old guy who’s considerably longer in the tooth than I, but who knocks the socks right off my paltry reviews altogether with his straight-to-the-point perspicuity ‘n wisdom.
He’s like the spit ‘n polish CO whose Orderly Room the young hillbilly buck private - in my current go-to retro comic relief reading, No Time for Sergeants - is detailed by his Sarge to make spotless...
Well, all the Sergeant’s got to say to the squeamish young hillbilly recruit, is: “Let’s just say the CO likes it clean enough to cut his heart in... get my drift, PRIVATE?”
So yes, Father, I’ll try to keep it straight and clean for you...
Father Bodo is an old-school guy.
When you address folks who’ve lived through the hardships and privations of the WWII era, you talk with Respect.
For you’re dealing with a member of the Greatest Generation.
They were brought up hardy as heck and - no kidding - tough as nails. My own generation was, as I’ve said before, the Hippie Generation, and I was one of ‘em - who Remained a slack-jowled dreamer.
But Father Bodo, like Prometheus, inured himself to his rocky isolation young. He was right. And my own learning was vastly slower.
While Father Bodo was already committed to celibacy, I was still a babe in arms - and remained so well into my twenties.
The tough ones mature much faster. And me? I never grew up.
I was like Francis, though the saint himself took to celibacy as a duck to water.
Not me. And so I remained conflicted.
Father Bodo wasn’t really a ‘Francis’ Franciscan in many ways, cause he’s always been strictly sensible and has kept to himself, unlike the gregarious saint.
The good Father is a model priest - gentle, discrete and modest.
But Francis was a walking contradiction like me. And warring opposites create an open kind of natural humanity. Bipolar, maybe?
Ugly and grating to many cynics nowadays, maybe, but we’re sticking to it!
Cause it’s our Selves.
Having said that, Father Bodo’s creative acumen (vide his reputation as a widely-printed and very good poet), when it is combined with his innate good sense, as it is here, produces a deeply insightful and wonderfully moving account of St Francis’ fractured, human life.
Other, more frustrated men of self-imposed discipline, though, naturally seek victims. For when a man’s heart has no natural goodness, he will create victims out of all of us unfortunate undisciplined ones.
That’s why there are so many of us. We are Hegel’s natural underling slaves to the world’s self-proclaimed masters. So too, Francis and Lucky (from Waiting for Godot).
And like Francis, our only refuge can be in a broken humility. Nothing wrong with that.
Now, most of us try to make, by long training, our dreams fit into reality...
But Francis, myself and Lucky always tried to make reality fit our dream! T.S. Eliot’s Higher Dream.
Classic cart before the horse syndrome, I know, but we have been too long at this humble game - and much too far gone now - to ever change.
You see, the two of us always wanted to listen to the still, silent voice within, instead of the blaring public loudspeaker outside of us (like Fox News or CNN, maybe?).
So we chose peaceful solitude. And thus found “the only wisdom... the wisdom of humility.”
For on our bad days when we grab the stick by the wrong end - like our restlessly unsatisfied Masters - we could start to seek our OWN victims.
And so risk eternal perdition.
So it all boils down to choosing your own purificatory Purgatory. For like Prometheus, all we humans are chained to a rock.
There are some of us who choose a rock of quiet, accepting discipline; and those who choose a rock of eternal humility.
But we are nevertheless somehow all bound for glory in the end.
I don't think so. It's just that some accounts - like the Fioretti - point in that direction.
We will probably never know. He was just too ingenuous to be real.
Father Bodo’s a placid old guy who’s considerably longer in the tooth than I, but who knocks the socks right off my paltry reviews altogether with his straight-to-the-point perspicuity ‘n wisdom.
He’s like the spit ‘n polish CO whose Orderly Room the young hillbilly buck private - in my current go-to retro comic relief reading, No Time for Sergeants - is detailed by his Sarge to make spotless...
Well, all the Sergeant’s got to say to the squeamish young hillbilly recruit, is: “Let’s just say the CO likes it clean enough to cut his heart in... get my drift, PRIVATE?”
So yes, Father, I’ll try to keep it straight and clean for you...
Father Bodo is an old-school guy.
When you address folks who’ve lived through the hardships and privations of the WWII era, you talk with Respect.
For you’re dealing with a member of the Greatest Generation.
They were brought up hardy as heck and - no kidding - tough as nails. My own generation was, as I’ve said before, the Hippie Generation, and I was one of ‘em - who Remained a slack-jowled dreamer.
But Father Bodo, like Prometheus, inured himself to his rocky isolation young. He was right. And my own learning was vastly slower.
While Father Bodo was already committed to celibacy, I was still a babe in arms - and remained so well into my twenties.
The tough ones mature much faster. And me? I never grew up.
I was like Francis, though the saint himself took to celibacy as a duck to water.
Not me. And so I remained conflicted.
Father Bodo wasn’t really a ‘Francis’ Franciscan in many ways, cause he’s always been strictly sensible and has kept to himself, unlike the gregarious saint.
The good Father is a model priest - gentle, discrete and modest.
But Francis was a walking contradiction like me. And warring opposites create an open kind of natural humanity. Bipolar, maybe?
Ugly and grating to many cynics nowadays, maybe, but we’re sticking to it!
Cause it’s our Selves.
Having said that, Father Bodo’s creative acumen (vide his reputation as a widely-printed and very good poet), when it is combined with his innate good sense, as it is here, produces a deeply insightful and wonderfully moving account of St Francis’ fractured, human life.
Other, more frustrated men of self-imposed discipline, though, naturally seek victims. For when a man’s heart has no natural goodness, he will create victims out of all of us unfortunate undisciplined ones.
That’s why there are so many of us. We are Hegel’s natural underling slaves to the world’s self-proclaimed masters. So too, Francis and Lucky (from Waiting for Godot).
And like Francis, our only refuge can be in a broken humility. Nothing wrong with that.
Now, most of us try to make, by long training, our dreams fit into reality...
But Francis, myself and Lucky always tried to make reality fit our dream! T.S. Eliot’s Higher Dream.
Classic cart before the horse syndrome, I know, but we have been too long at this humble game - and much too far gone now - to ever change.
You see, the two of us always wanted to listen to the still, silent voice within, instead of the blaring public loudspeaker outside of us (like Fox News or CNN, maybe?).
So we chose peaceful solitude. And thus found “the only wisdom... the wisdom of humility.”
For on our bad days when we grab the stick by the wrong end - like our restlessly unsatisfied Masters - we could start to seek our OWN victims.
And so risk eternal perdition.
So it all boils down to choosing your own purificatory Purgatory. For like Prometheus, all we humans are chained to a rock.
There are some of us who choose a rock of quiet, accepting discipline; and those who choose a rock of eternal humility.
But we are nevertheless somehow all bound for glory in the end.
March 28, 2017
I really like Murray Bodo and have read a number of his books, but I have to admit that this isn't one of my favorites. It essentially follows, nearly poetically, the life of Francis from his imprisonment in a Perugian dungeon to his death at Porziuncola and his growing connection to Christ during this relatively short span of time.
October 28, 2018
A Fine Biography
This book takes a spirituality approach to the life of St Francis. As we journey through this book, it becomes more obvious that this is more than an academic venture but a journey of love. Love for both St Franco and Jesus.
This book takes a spirituality approach to the life of St Francis. As we journey through this book, it becomes more obvious that this is more than an academic venture but a journey of love. Love for both St Franco and Jesus.
June 26, 2017
Excellent. The chapter on the Siege of Damietta was particularly relevant to today. It helped me to better understand where Christians and Muslims have common ground and have had for millennia. I cried at the end because I could feel how deeply Francis loved God and cared for all humans.
November 22, 2024
I enjoyed one of the author’s previous books on Saint Francis of Assisi. This was just as beautiful.
February 14, 2021
Murray Bodo writes a moving book about St Francis of Assisi. He tells in great detail how Francis struggled with his life at times. Father Bodo also shows how Francis became more like Jesus toward the end of his life. A great book to begin a study about one of the most favorite Saints.
December 25, 2022
This was a different perspective of St. Francis that I thoroughly enjoyed. Not only did it give some historical facts about his life, but it also brought to light the love, connection, and prayer that St. Francis gave everyday to our Lord. I really enjoyed the chapter about St.Francis visit to The Sultan during the crusades and the story about him receiving the stigmata. St. Francis is a saint that everyone can not only learn from but should follow in his footsteps.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews