To Contemplate Is To Be United To God Alone

Eight days after the first two companions, Brother Bernard and Brother Peter, were received into the Order, Brother Giles was received by Francis at the Portiuncula. He was a fellow Assisian, a man full of faith and devotion to whom the Lord had given a singular grace. On his knees, and with great devotion and reverence, he begged Francis to receive him into their family. And the saint, pleased with what he saw and the words he heard, received him gladly. Then these first four brothers experienced an extraordinary spiritual joy.

Years later St. Francis said of Brother Giles that he more than any other person had arrived at the perfection of contemplative prayer. And Brother Giles himself used to say, "The contamplative life is to leave behind all earthly things for the love of God, to seek only the things of heaven, to pray without tiring, to read often and with concentration, to praise God continually with hymns and canticles. To contemplate is to be separated from all and to be united to God alone."

The Mirror of Perfection - 85