Kimberly Marooney:
Angel Inspired Saints

A Special Excerpt from My Angel Connection

(Chapter 3: Angel Inspired Saints and Masters)

     Rich spiritual development occurred during the middle ages. In the darkness of mass consciousness, many saints and masters emerged to illumine humanity with their experiences and teachings. We can identify them by their determination and courage to reach through false concepts and into direct communion with the Almighty. Their life stories show the way and inspire us to make this journey. The energy and wisdom in their writings connect us directly to what Moses called the cosmic ocean of thought or cosmic consciousness and serve to elevate human consciousness.
     This chapter includes a few of the most influential earth angels in this lineage. (For this extract we selected to share Saint Francis.)

Saint Francis of Assisi

    c. 1181 – 1226

Love wholly and not partially.
God does not have parts but is
present totally everywhere.
(In the same way,) God does
not want only part of you…
Give all of yourself and God
will give you all of Himself.

    ~ Saint Anthony of Padua,
        an early follower of Saint Francis

    I wish I could list the many saints who come before us in our lineage. Of them, Saint Francis of Assisi has been most influential. A mystic, lover and beloved, his example of giving everything to God encouraged me to do the same. In Angel Blessings, the image on the Angel of Music card is of Saint Francis incorporating his wisdom and essence.     

    Like Jesus who was his inspiration, Francis was a rebel and broke away from Italian traditions and beliefs of the time. Guided by the gospel, visions and experiences, Francis and his followers lived in ruined churches while they rebuilt them in a simple and challenging life of deprivation. In 1206, Francis and his followers made the journey to Rome to ask Pope Innocent III for permission to found a new religious order, the Order of the Friars Minor, later known as the Franciscans.

    From youth, Francis was free-spirited and subjected himself to extremes. The passions of his soul guided him into days of intense fasting, prayer and meditation in chapels, in caves, and on mountainsides. Francis became intimately connected with the earth during these times, resulting in many miraculous stories with wild animals.

    Two years before his death, Francis was preparing for Michaelmas on September 29th with a forty-day fast. One of his followers joined Francis and later recorded the experience. Around the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, 1224, Francis had a powerful visitation that Saint Bonaventure described:

    “His unquenchable fire of love for the good Jesus was fanned into such a blaze of flames that many waters could not quench so powerful a love. While Francis was praying on the mountainside, he saw a Seraph with six fiery and shining wings descend from the height of heaven. And when in swift flight the Seraph reached the spot in the air near the man of God, there appeared between the wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended in the form of a cross and fastened to the cross.”

     When the vision ended, Francis was left with a “marvelous ardor” in his heart and markings of the stigmata on his body. Francis experienced the unimaginable love of God that holds nothing back.

    Francis, we thank you for opening this doorway into eternal love so that we can follow with practices that are less extreme and gentler on the body. Giving everything does not mean living in deprivation. Rather it means holding back nothing of ourselves from God in prayer and in life. The rewards are experiences of the personal presence of God and Divine Love that are beyond imagining.

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