800 Years of St. Francis · Day 7 of 31 · Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Francis spent a lot of time in caves. Above Assisi, on the slopes of Mount Subasio, there are still places where he went to pray, now known as the Carceri, “the prisons,” though for him they were the opposite. He did this not because he was antisocial, but because he had learned something the rest of us mostly resist: the first response is almost never the best one.
Between what happens to us and what we do about it, there is a space. The quality of our lives, and the lives of everyone around us, is largely decided in that space. Francis enlarged it deliberately, and the cave was how he did it.
Here is the good news for a Wednesday. You do not need a cave. You need three breaths.
The first breath interrupts the reflex; something is happening here, and you stop. The second grounds you in this actual moment, not five minutes ago and not tomorrow. The third opens you to what this moment needs, rather than what you want to say.
This is the second movement of Sacred Noticing: the Pause. It is not suppression. It is permission, the room in which something wiser than your first instinct has time to arrive.
Francis understood the power of pausing to let grace arise from us, not our first response.
Notice today: Where, in the next few hours, could three breaths change what happens next?
The way opens as you walk it, one breath at a time.
Today at San Damiano: All are welcome at the bilingual Monthly Mass for Staff and Friends of San Damiano, 9:30 – 10:30 am. Details
Day 7 of 31 · 800 Years of St. Francis: A Daily October Companion · spiritualbreak.com
Reflection © 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS.
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