Monk Manual collaboration with CFRs fosters sensitivity to God's voice

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) -- In Eucharistic adoration, one of Cassie Clark's go-to prayer tools is a prayer journal. Instead of being blank, however, each two-page spread prompts her to acknowledge, relate and receive, and respond to how she feels, in prayer.

The 48-year-old sees the process as a way of "talking to Jesus" about her life, with the good and the bad.

"That journal has been such a beautiful resource, and a kind of step-by-step, especially for someone who is new to Catholicism," said Clark, who lives in a Minneapolis suburb and joined the Catholic Church at Easter in 2024.

The journal, "Mysteries and Medicines," was created in collaboration between the planning and journaling tool Monk Manual and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a religious order widely known by their Latin-based religious initials "CFR." It shares its name with an album released in October by Brother Isaiah, a friar and popular Catholic musician.

The journal is part of a small collection of resources from the collaboration, which also includes a CFR-branded Monk Manual, a 90-day planner and journal system to help users focus on meaning and fulfillment in their life. Monk Manual's founder, Steven Lawson, is Catholic and drew inspiration from the intentionality and purpose inherent in the monastic tradition.

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal is a men's religious community founded by eight Capuchin friars in 1987. While the CFRs are known especially for their work with the poor in the Bronx and other parts of New York, they also have friaries in California, New Jersey and New Mexico, as well as in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Honduras and Nicaragua. Their website states their charism, which begins: "In imitation of St. Francis of Assisi, we seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, as a prophetic witness that life is a pilgrimage to the Father, of faith, hope, and love of God and neighbor, made possible by the Holy Spirit."

In the CFR's "Poco a Poco Podcast," Father Mark-Mary Ames, the friars' communications director and the community's director of priestly studies, described the resources in the Monk Manual-CFR collaboration as connected to "the Franciscan spirituality of the pilgrimage."

The "Mysteries and Medicines" journal is designed to help people learn how to pray, Father Mark-Mary said. Its ARR method -- acknowledge, relate and receive, respond -- include prayer prompts including: "What do I feel?" "Why do I feel this way?" "Do you feel the Lord saying anything to you?" and an invitation to make a resolution with the Lord Jesus.

This way of praying falls into a broader system of prayer that flows from self-knowledge to self-acceptance to self-possession to self-gift, he said. Father Mark-Mary explained he expects the prayer journal to help the user with self-acknowledgement, self-acceptance and self-gift, and the Monk Manual to help with self-possession.

"These are tools for the journey," he said. "These are resources to help us intentionally live; intentionally go about life; to make the first things first; and to live in a way that's healthy and holy and integrated. And also to develop this self-awareness muscle, this prayer muscle; develop this capacity to be aware of what's going on in my own life, but even more foundationally, what's the Lord doing, what's the Lord saying. And I believe these resources are going to help us live the type of life which will allow us to do both."

"Mysteries and Medicines" was born, in part, from Lawson's friendships with the friars, he said. What began with just a CFR-branded Monk Manual (although the CRFs are not monks, Lawson noted) grew into a journal based on the CFR approach to spiritual direction.

"The idea was that you could take this model and create some sort of a physical tool that would make it easier for people to go into prayer time, or designate time for reflection, and not just do something in their heads, but really process it on paper, which takes it to the next level," Lawson said. "In a very real sense, it's making this already proven spiritual technique ... a little more accessible, and even taking it a little more deeper."

It is Lawson's hope that the Monk Manual and prayer journal, used together, could foster "a virtuous cycle of growth" for the user, and "bear and produce, ultimately, more fruit in that individual's life."

Father Mark-Mary, who is also known for chart-topping podcast The Rosary in a Year, emphasized that the collaboration is not about creating products, but rather tools that "could be exceedingly useful."

"Especially in a world of dissipation, this helps to bring us back to collect us, to live an integrated life, an intentional life and to be aware of what God's asking me to do, what I need to be doing in a healthy way," he said.

For Clark, "Mysteries and Medicines" has helped her better recognize her feelings and bring them to God.

"I'm coming into awareness of how I'm doing in my heart," she said. "It gives me the tools to sit with emotions and then to be able to go a little bit beyond that, to go deeper and ... towards what maybe Jesus is trying to show me or tell me or ask me, which is what I want. I want that sensitivity to his voice."