By Thea Jarvis

There are those abroad in the world who attempt to crash the barriers, break the molds, tear down the restraints and scale the walls we have placed between ourselves and our God.

Franciscan Father Brennan Manning is one of those visionaries.

The silver-haired priest led St. John Neumann parish in Lilburn through a week of renewal for the second year in a row May 16-20 and attracted capacity crowds from all over the archdiocese.

Father Paul Reynolds, the Lilburn pastor who brought Father Manning back to his most "favorite parish in the whole country," characterized his guest as one who "creates an extraordinary impact on people."

Brennan Manning is a compelling figure. At the age of 47, his fame has grown with the popularity of his books -- Prophets and Lovers, The Wisdom of Accepted Tenderness, Stranger to Self-Hatred, and Souvenirs of Solitude.

Dressed in stark black Franciscan garb, sandals on his feet and a rope belt about his waist, Manning appears somewhat of an ascetic, his manner serious and intense, lightened here and there by his use of a humorous anecdote.

But beneath the ice-blue clarity of his steady gaze and the unflinching directness of his personal presence lies a core of gentle, healing testimony.

"I'm nothing special," Manning offers easily to those who wonder if fame in the spiritual arena will go to his head.

Indeed, the former Marine sergeant from Brooklyn, New York is no more special than any other pilgrim who has traveled the arduous journey of faith and arrived at a point of deep and lasting conversion.

Father Manning perceives himself as a vessel from which a powerful message is released. The message -- a healing balm poured on a wounded and broken world -- is the heady notion of Christ as total servant, full of "unflinching, unwavering compassion."

"Man is made not to know, love and serve God," the priest told the crowd massed in the warm wood and stone of St. John's Church, "but made to know how God wants to know, love and serve his children!"

Utterly rejecting any fearful, punitive concept of God, Father Manning underscores the "saving" power of Christ active in a lonely, frightened world.

"If we're going to treat Jesus as God, we must let him be who he is -- a savior who frees us from fear" of the Father, dislike of ourselves, self-reproach, perfectionism, legalism.

The bold Franciscan is impatient with those in the Church who would distort the image of a loving God or spend excessive time and money on minor importances -- building up a church bureaucracy, amassing wealth, placing undue stress on ritual and institutional encumbrances.

"Because God is not presented as an unconditional lover, only two out of five Catholics go to Mass," he claimed.

His vision of the Church is one that follows the servant model. "Humble, serving love is the way God manifests himself in the world. Christian freedom rests in this conception of servitude, a reversal of the world's values … Servanthood is not a mood or a good feeling. It is the decision to live the life of Jesus -- humble service."

Father Manning asks, "What would the Church be like if we suffered from an excess of compassion?" if we, like Christ, said "sinners (are) welcome?"

He quotes from the mystic Julian of Norwich for a compelling and succinct answer: "… and all shall be well, and all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

Lest the man be viewed as somewhat more than a man -- for whom all things have always been "well" -- Brennan Manning related some of his personal peregrinations for the benefit of Bulletin readers, revealing the peaks and valleys common to most lives, but with the added dimension of an every-changing, somewhat exotic scenario.

Manning was ordained a Franciscan priest in 1963 and began a ministry of teaching and spiritual direction. Four years later, he sensed a need to step back and take a look at his own spiritual development.

He decided on a two-year affiliation with the Little Brothers of Jesus, a unique community founded in 1909 by Charles de Foucauld which stresses prayer and manual labor.

Father Manning served his "novitiate" with the Little Brothers as a dishwasher in France and later a construction worker in Spain. Following this period of manual labor, he retired to a crudely furnished cave, spending seven months in total isolation and prayer.

It was in this hermitage that Brennan Manning herd the words that "are burned on my life" -- "For love of you I left my Father's side."

The Franciscan was deeply drawn to the life of the Little Brothers. After a further tenure in a Swiss prison where he shared the vicissitudes of an inmate's existence, he considered joining the community permanently.

But because "ministry was an essential and integral part" of his calling, the Prior General of the Little Brothers and members of the order advised him to return to the States and his Franciscan brethren.

He resumed university teaching for several years and was thereafter appointed to lead a group of Franciscans who aspired to follow the original Franciscan model of contemplative prayer, manual labor, poverty and simplicity. The little band of five friars served the seagoing-migrants -- shrimpers -- in a small Alabama town for about two years.

It was in his next assignment that Brannan Manning met perhaps his greatest challenge. As campus minister at a Florida community college where 60% of the students were married and there was little campus involvement among the student body, he found himself "left with nothing to do." Loneliness, frustration and isolation took their toll.

"I crossed the line from heavy drinking to addiction," Manning said frankly.

One morning in April 1975, he woke up in a gutter, covered in his own vomit. He was, he recalled, near death, but managed to call for help and was placed in the detoxification unit of a local hospital.

Some months later, he continued, "I very slowly started back to retreats and began writing."

The journey of Brennan Manning has not been without its darker moments, but he has emerged, it would seem, more convinced than ever of his own "smallness" in the hands of an all-powerful and constantly loving God.

"I don't forget who I am and where I come from. I can't take myself seriously," he says simply. And as for the Lord he follows, Father Manning observes, "He is the Pied Piper of my own lonely heart."