Inner Healing the Franciscan Way: A Holy Re-Ordering of the Soul($16.67Value)

Description

For those who feel broken, lost, or spiritually depleted, Inner Healing the Franciscan Way offers a roadmap to rediscovering God’s presence and finding restoration and healing.   At some point, we all experience loss or disappointment―when our best efforts and carefully laid plans simply fall apart. As we struggle to put the pieces back together through sheer willpower, the intense loneliness can be crushing. Fortunately, there is another path―the healing and empowering force of the Franciscan Way of life.  Through the lens of her difficult journey through divorce and professional upheaval, Wendy Murray explores the surprising road to spiritual rehabilitation she discovered through Saint Francis of Assisi and his timeless principles of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These monastic virtues, often misunderstood in today’s world, hold the power to refashion every aspect of our lives―physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual―under a new and holy re-ordering that brings us into health and wholeness. Blending memoir, theology, and practical wisdom, this book is a lifeline for anyone who feels they are sinking under the weight of hopelessness. Inner Healing the Franciscan Way is an invitation to discover that a shattered life isn't the end of your story, although it may feel that way. It is the beginning of a new story. This is a book for those who dare to believe there is hope, even and especially when life falls apart.  "Wendy Murray is well qualified to contextualize the “way” of St. Francis for Christians today. Her earlier volumes on St. Francis and St. Claire are insightful and engaging. With this volume she expresses the heart and mind of the great saint to aid us in our Christian living today. The volume is in three parts beginning with the life of Francis himself, then his vows and finally virtues. I was led smoothly from life to vows but was grabbed by the insights of “simplicity” as a virtue to cultivate. This is going to be my new “special gift” to give to relatives and new friends.” --  Scott W. Sunquist , President, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and author of several books, including, The Shape of Christian History: Continuity and Diversity in the Global Church.  "Wendy Murray blends a lucid understanding of history, theology, and Scripture with threads of a compelling personal narrative to form a book that is as captivating as it is enriching." --  Jeff Crosby , author of The Language of the Soul  and  World of Wonders   "Wendy Murray, in this insightful book, demonstrates how St. Francis conquered his own struggles, and in doing so influenced her own journey towards inner peace. Wendy shares a concise portrait of St. Francis, a historical figure, and demonstrates how  Inner Healing the Franciscan Way  can infuse into our souls a clear and holy path during our own personal sorrows and victories of the spirit. This is a book that matches the wisdom of St. Francis with a contemporary writer’s personal revelations, and how such a combination can add to any reader’s search for solace.  Wendy writes “Yours is the destiny of the seed.” Her book is a seed easily planted in the rich soil in all of our lives." --  Christopher DeVinck , author of Things That Matter Most: Essays on Home, Friendship, and Love  and The Power of the Powerless: A Brother's Legacy of Love.   "In Inner Healing the Franciscan Way , Wendy Murray insightfully notes the masculine (Francis of Assisi) and feminine dimensions (Clare of Assisi) of the Franciscan vision of life and how they found her after a painful period in her life. Along the way, she notes how the three traditional vows and some specific virtues orient a person to a life worth living. This wonderful book highlights the perennial, practical wisdom of thirteenth century Franciscan spirituality that helps re-order the soul in the twenty-first century." --  Albert Haase, OFM , author of The Persistent God: A Guide to Deepening Prayer   "In  Inner Healingthe Franciscan Way,  Wendy Murray shares a life-changing discovery: you don’t have to be a vowed religious―or even Catholic―to appreciate the sheltering constraints of poverty, chastity, and obedience, or to recognize the uplifting power of humility, charity, simplicity, and wisdom. As she explores each Franciscan vow and virtue, Murray unpacks the thirteenth-century wisdom that met her in a place of despair and set her on a path of healing. Contemporary seekers battered by life and bereft of consolation may draw hope and guidance from this inspiring witness to the transformative practice of Franciscan spirituality." --  Christine Marie Eberle , author of  Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home.   "This is a wonderful book of insights for all of us seeking to walk the Franciscan Way. Murray offers us guidelines drawn from the vows and virtues professed by Francis and Clare that will start us down healthy spiritual paths. An accessibly written guide for all