“Don’t put me on a pedestal.”June 23, 2025

I recently returned from the Ursuline Pilgrimage to Italy, and I still feel wrapped in the presence of Angela Merici and Francis of Assisi.

As I journeyed through the regions they once called home, I noticed how often Angela and Francis were placed on pedestals. It's understandable—when we love Jesus, Angela, and Francis, there’s a natural desire to elevate them, to revere them.

But shortly after I returned home, during a time of meditation, I heard a quiet voice within mesay: “Don’t put me on a pedestal.” The words echoed again and again.

Angela and Francis, like the early Christians, understood that true elevation was not about human praise or admiration. The kind of elevation they desired was one that revealed Jesus as the bearer of truth.

Jesus consistently used every opportunity to speak of his Father’s love. He spoke of their deep oneness: “The Father and I are one” [John 10:30] …Then he said: “You are in me, and I am in you” [John 14:20]. He was revealing something deeper: that we are all from the same source. There is no hierarchy in the kingdom of God. We are, each of us, standing equal in the eyes of God.

Many in his time were looking for a Messiah who would free them from external oppression—someone powerful, someone to place on a pedestal. But Jesus came to free people from a deeper kind of bondage: the oppression of seeing themselves as unworthy, unlovable.

For those who truly listened, it was as though scales fell from their eyes and the armor around their hearts began to drop.

Angela and Francis each emerged from their own profound conversions—from transformative spiritual experiences that allowed them to see with new eyes.

When Francis removed his clothing and returned it to his father, he wasn’t merely rejecting wealth. He was shedding the constraints of an old identity, stepping bravely into a new way of seeing himself—as part of all creation, interconnected and beloved by God.

Angela, too, was given visions in which she saw heaven and glimpsed a world where each of us is deeply loved. She knew in her heart the call to live and teach a spirituality grounded in understanding: “As above, so below.” Heaven is truly here on earth. Her vision was not for a cloistered life but one rooted in everyday experience—among women who worked, served, and lived their faith in the world.

The early Christians—those who had known Jesus and those who believed through hearing—understood the radical truth he taught. They chose the cross as their symbol, not to glorify suffering, but to remind themselves that divine love transcends worldly expectations. Through prayer and community, they laid down the constraints of their humanity and began to see the divine—not just in Jesus, but in one another.

Sister Mary Eileen Boyle