St. Francis of Assisi left his wealth behind for a different way of living. This is particularly poignant to me because he established the order of the Franciscans, the namesake of San Francisco. I too left a life that promised wealth and security to move to San Francisco and follow my passions.

Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that have received–only what you have given.

I’ve always loved this passage:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

And I came across this new one today, which the last two funerals I’ve gone to have been helping me take to heart. It’s been a process coming back to my joy:

It is the devil’s greatest triumph when he can deprive us of the joy of the Spirit. He carries fine dust with him in little boxes and scatters it through the cracks in our conscience in order to dim the soul’s pure impulses and its luster. But the joy that fills the heart of the spiritual person destroys the deadly poison of the serpent. But if any are gloomy and think that they are abandoned in their sorrow, gloominess will continuously tear at them or else they will waste away in empty diversions. When gloominess takes root, evil grows. If it is not dissolved by tears, permanent damage is done.