Born in 1934, Brennan Manning became a priest in the Franciscan Order in the mid-50s. He held a number of positions in the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, in Louisiana, and in Florida.  It was while he was a campus minister in Florida in 1969 that he was engulfed by the alcoholism which had always lapped hard at the shores of his adult life.

Six months of drying out, rehab, and recovery followed. He then began writing of the grace of God which he, the most imperfect of humans (as he considered himself), had been offered. It was a love he didn’t feel was deserved, but was offered anyway. It was an acceptance by God for what he was, not for what he should be.

He considered himself to be a ragamuffin, like the prostitutes, sinners, soldiers, and tax collectors that Jesus had gone to, embraced and accepted as his own. It was the ragamuffin gospel of perfect love for the most imperfect of humans.

The more Manning wrote- and he wrote prolifically, and the more he proclaimed this gospel- and he spoke often, the larger became that group of ragamuffins who were able to perceive God’s love for them, too..even them. They didn’t have to be special, act special, or do anything other than accept the transforming love of this ragamuffin-loving God.

“Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, “God told me…” As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

“I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery. ”

“The confessing church of American ragamuffins needs to join Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Brennan Manning knew his God as Abba, the diminuitive form of the word Father. In other words- Daddy. It was the same word used by Jesus for his father in the earliest manuscripts of the gospel.

He revealed that child/Daddy relationship to thousands of people during the many years he travelled the world speaking of it. His words were secondary to his “ragamuffin-ness.” Through him, many learned of the gentleness of God they had not before known. Me among them.

Brennan Manning died in April of 2013.

“Do you believe that God loves you as you are and not as you should be?”

Here’s a brief video of Manning speaking. If you like this one, there are many more..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQi_IDV2bgM