In a culture obsessed with quick fixes and symptom suppression, holistic health stands as a quiet, stubborn rebellion — the radical idea that you are more than a collection of body parts, diagnoses, and prescriptions. Holistic health dares to say that your mind, body, spirit, and relationships are all bound together, and that true healing means tending to all of them.
This is not a trendy wellness fad or a soft alternative to “real” medicine. It is a return to an older, deeper wisdom — the kind found in the teachings of St. Francis, in Indigenous medicine ways, in the midwives and herbalists who understood that you can’t heal a wound in the body while leaving the soul neglected.
The Fourfold Path of Healing
Holistic health recognizes four inseparable dimensions of our well-being:
- Body – Nutrition that nourishes, movement that strengthens, rest that restores. Not punishment or deprivation, but care rooted in dignity.
- Mind – Mental clarity, emotional balance, and learning how to unhook from the constant hum of stress that erodes our health from the inside.
- Spirit – Connection to the Sacred, however you name it, that restores meaning and purpose when life feels hollow.
- Community – We heal in relationship, not isolation. Friendship, mutual aid, and shared belonging are as medicinal as herbs and clean water.
The Franciscan Clarean Way
In the Order of Franciscan Clareans, we approach holistic health as an act of justice. Poverty, exploitation, and environmental destruction are not just “social issues” — they are health issues. You cannot breathe well if your air is toxic. You cannot eat well if the land is poisoned or food is priced out of reach.
We take inspiration from Francis and Clare, who understood that health is communal. Care for the sick was inseparable from care for the poor, the earth, and the soul.
Tools for a Whole Life
Holistic health is not about buying expensive supplements or following Instagram wellness trends. It’s about integrating simple, sustainable practices into daily life:
Herbal Medicine – Time-tested plant allies for prevention and healing.
Mindfulness & Prayer – Practices that ground the heart and calm the mind.
Seasonal Living – Eating and resting in rhythm with the natural cycles.
Acts of Service – Healing the soul through compassion in action.
A Call to Live Differently
The path of holistic health is countercultural. It resists the idea that health can be bought in a pill or outsourced to a clinic. It calls us to live with intention, to tend our bodies as sacred vessels, and to care for one another as part of the same body.
As Franciscan Clareans, we see health not as a personal possession but as a shared responsibility. We are not free until we are all well — body, mind, and spirit.
Sister Abigail Hester 