St. Francis

As children and young adults we are regularly imprinted with memories that mark us forever.  We see, for instance, how others treat the poor with compassion or dismiss them as lazy, and these experiences are like seeds that grow in us and form the basis for the critical decisions we make in our lives and lifestyles.

Something like this happened to St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast we celebrate today. Born into a merchant’s family, a new class of people that began to emerge after the year 1000 in Europe, Francis regularly traveled with his father to the cloth fairs of southern France where he encountered thousands of poor and homeless people who surrounded the great fairs begging. While most people could dismiss what they saw or patronize the poor as weak and lazy, Francis saw something else. At first, he did not know what he was feeling, but gradually he realized how awful he felt when he saw poor people, especially lepers. A seed of doubt about the dignity of the poor had been planted in his spirit, one that eventually would change him and his society forever.

Riding his horse one day, perhaps daydreaming, Francis came upon a leper. Compelled by grace he dismounted and kissed the leper and later exclaimed, “What before was bitter was turned into sweetness of body and soul.” Kissing the leper changed everything for Francis. The seed of discontent sowed in him at the cloth fairs of southern France was beginning to bear fruit. While others felt free to dismiss lepers as sinners and think of them as less than human, Francis, with a simple kiss, knew that he had become part of a new family. He would join the poor, the lepers, and the forgotten. He would take off the clothes his father gave him as a gift and don the garb on the poor as a pilgrim. His life and the life of those who eagerly followed him, would never be the same. All creation was holy, Francis proclaimed. Every person had dignity and the Gospel of simplicity, lived so powerfully in Jesus, was reborn for a new age.

Today we pause in joy and gratitude for the faith of St. Francis. Afraid, intimidated and resistive, he avoided God’s plan for more than 20 years, but eventually God won his heart and sent him forth as a herald of the great king and the dignity of the poor.

Pray that the seeds planted in you as a child will bear fruit for the good of the world. If this means rejecting the values that blinded you to the needs of others or letting the glory of God flower in you as you remember a compassionate, understanding and giving grandparent, let it be. Give God access to your heart and let God do God’s work.

The Stigmata of St. Francis

"And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.”  (Lk 8:8)

Today Franciscans celebrate the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis, a day that reminds us how committed Francis was to imitating Christ.  But this was not always so.  In Francis’ early years, the seed that God was sowing so generously (Lk 8) did not fall on good ground, but rocky, dry, shallow and thorny ground.  

Francis was born into privilege.  His father was the second richest man in Assisi, and Francis delighted in spending his father’s money and entertaining his friends.  Although we don't have all of the details, Francis apparently lived an empty life, as Thomas of Celano his early biographer wrote, “he attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people addicted to evil and accustomed to vice.”  Francis himself said, “I lived in sin.”

One day, however, while riding in the countryside, Francis happened upon a leper who startled him. The sight and smell of lepers had always repelled Francis, but this time Francis dismounted from his horse and kissed the man, an act that sealed what had been happening to him internally.The seed of God's love was taking root and Francis knew he had to let go of the life of luxury he was leading and find another path.  

The same is often true for us.  We are gifted with a moment of awareness or insight and everything changes.  While the behavioral shifts we will have to make are not immediately clear, our spirits will not rest until we discern a new direction, and then slowly new habits of quiet, reflection and prayer grow in us and what before seemed impossible now brings joy. 

For Francis the desire to identify with and  witness to the Christ whose grace had changed him forever would result in him bearing in his own body the wounds of Jesus. While the Stigmata might seem a strange gift to modern people, the desire to walk with others who suffer is not.  How many times have all of us wanted to take away or identify with the suffering  of a friend or family member. While painful, especially when we can do little to ease the physical suffering of another, to walk with those we love when they are most in need is a simple act of compassion that we often feel privileged to offer. That is what Francis wanted to do with Christ for the sake of the world and to build God's reign.

Today ask the Lord for the courage not to turn away from the leper and for the grace to open yourself again to the seed of God's love that is searching for the fertile soil within you so that you might bear fruit a hundredfold for the sake of all searching for a sign of God's enduring love for the world.