Brother Richard

When we enter as fully as we can into the present moment, there is a deep peace awaiting us.

The peace from which all that is arises.

The peace of encounter with divine grace and love.

Resting in the breath, we are drawn even more deeply into the mystery of the moment, into the peace at its heart.

The very first thing we did when we were born was to breathe in.

The very last thing we will do before we leave this world will be to breathe out.

With each breath there is the potential of life and the potential of death.

St.

Francis knew this.

And so, to draw his canticle of the creatures to a close, he sings of sister death.

As he has done with every other being, he greets this being,

as one of our siblings.

She is sister death.

And so she is not to be something that brings fear, but rather a gift, a doorway, a beginning rather than an ending.

Be praised, my Lord, for sister bodily death, he says, from whom no one living can escape.

Woe to those who die in sin, but blessed are they who are found in your will, for the second death can do them no harm.

For Francis, the encounter with sister death

is an encounter of great intimacy with the very meaning of life.

A reminder that he shares with all of us that our life, however long it will be, and may it be long for you, will eventually have its ending.

The first breath inevitably leads to the last breath.