Feast of Francis of Assisi
Reflection
Giovanni Francesco Bernardone was son of a wealthy merchant, an exuberant party goer, a rebel, a soldier, a ransomed prisoner of war whose recuperation had been a slow one, and, after that, he was an estwhile Crusader as well. Little by little, he became a new person with a new vision of life.
Francis Bernardone’s change of life was an assault on all of life around him, starting with his father’s. The picture is very clear. In Francis, one generation denies another, one set of values is abandoned for another, one way of life is challenged by another. Francis saw what Pietro either could not see or did not care about: the poor, the forgotten, the important things of life. Pietro Bernardone was one of the self-made men of the new merchant class; Francis was the image of those who had not made it in the system. Pietro was committed to maintaining what he had, whatever it took to do it; Francis was committed to giving things away, whatever it cost to do it. Pietro was on his way up in life to the realms of the rich, to the pinnacles of power; Francis was on his way down in life to the realms of the poor.
he presence of a happy pauper in our midst is a very disarming event, a bold attack on everything a consumer society has to teach. If it is really possible to be happy without things then we have to begin to ask what things are all about and what we might be missing because of them. It was after Francis gave away his wealth that he began to sing to the sun and talk to the birds and understand the animals and sink in to the beauty of nature and kiss the lepers and be fearless in the face of warlords and princes.
The radical among us make us look again at the nature and function of religion and what it does to us and what we do to it. It is so easy to use religion as a way to escape it. It is so much easier to go to church than it is to live the Gospel.
Joan Chittister
Prayer
O God, who inspired Francis to leave everything to follow the way of Jesus, grant us the grace of simplicity and sincerity. Help us to love and respect all Creation. May the Patron Saint of Ecology inspire us to have great respect and care for all God’s creation.
Action
Francis took the poverty of Christ literally. He also revered and loved all God’s creatures. How do I consider those who are poor? What is my appreciation of creation and all sentient beings? Is there a specific positive action I can take in any of these areas?
Suggested Reading
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5
If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
Francis of Assisi
What a man is before God, that he is, and nothing more.
St. Francis of Assisi
Each one should confidently make known his need to the other, so that he might find what he needs and minister to him. And each one should love and care for his brother in all those things in which God will give him grace, as a mother loves and cares for her son.
St. Francis of Assisi
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
Francis of Assisi
Francis is great because he is everything. He is a man who wants to do things, wants to build, he founded an order and its rules, he is an itinerant and a missionary, a poet and a prophet, he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it out. He loved nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying in the sky. But above all he loved people, children, old people, women. He is the most shining example of that agape.
Pope Francis
St. Francis is not only the most attractive of all the Christian saints, he is the most attractive of Christians, admired by Buddists, atheists, completely secular, modern people, Communists, to whom the figure of Christ himself is at best unattractive.
Kenneth Rexroth
Franciscan Pet Blessing
Blessed are you, Lord God,
maker of all living creatures.
You inspired St. Francis
to call all animals
his brothers and sisters.
We ask you to bless this animal.
By the power of your love,
enable this animal to live happily and in
peace according to its nature.
Amen.