Tag: Saint Francis of Assisi

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Sermon Notes – February 22, 2026 – What Cannot Be Overcome Must be Endured

“What Cannot Be Overcome Must be Endured”

 Father Peter Fitzgibbons

February 21-22, 2026

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

Here is a bit of a rhetorical question – how many of you would like to step on a land mine?  It’s not recommended.  Do you know what the best way to avoid stepping on a land mine is?  Don’t go into a minefield.  Simple enough.   The problem is that land mines are not always labeled.  So, we must always be very careful.

It is the same thing with avoiding the temptation to sin.  Avoiding temptation is not always easy because sometimes it is not clear.  So how do we not sin?  First, don’t go where the temptation exists.   If you don’t want to drink, don’t go into a bar.  If you don’t want a haircut, don’t go into the barber shop.    Stay away from what leads to sin – people, places, and things.  But, like the minefield, we don’t exactly have signs that say, “This is a minefield. Don’t walk here.”  People, places, and things can easily lead you into sin.   That is never advertised.     Some of the things we have can be used for good.  But not always.  I’m talking about laptops, phones, Kindles, and whatever electronics you have. They are things that can be used for good, and they advance our lives.   I am blessed that I have no idea how to use any of them.  But they can all be occasions of sin.   If your computer offends you, turn it off, unplug it – you’ll save money.  Although television, computers, books, and movies are occasions of sin, do you know where the biggest occasion for sin is?   The biggest occasion of sin lies on top of our shoulders.   The devil can get into our heads.  If we stay by ourselves for too long, that is a terrible place to be.  You may be thinking, “Father, I have bad thoughts.”   I do too.  Whenever I drive by Hardees, I have lust in my heart.  But that’s just me.    We have to be very careful about what we allow inside our heads and what we allow to remain there.  One bad thought can lead to another and to another.  We cannot trust that all our thoughts will be pure and nice, so we must be careful. 

Remember, we are not responsible for our thoughts.  Thoughts come in and out for a number of reasons, many times by the evil one.  They are not sinful in themselves; we are only responsible for what we do with them.  We are not supposed to enjoy or prolong evil thoughts, take them out to lunch, chauffeur them, or diaper them.   That is when they are sinful.  We are supposed to fight against them.    Now, do we have the ability to fight against the devil?   Yeah, but we have long odds, and we will lose every single time.   We cannot fight evil thoughts directly.  Instead, we crowd them out through intense activity and through prayer.  Or you could do what Saint Francis of Assisi did.  They never tell this story about Saint Francis.  He was a little feisty.  He had a temptation of impurity, and do you know what he did?  He threw himself down a hill of thorn bushes.  That will leave a mark.   But we are supposed to go to that extent to avoid sin.  However, we don’t always have a hill of thorn bushes nearby.    If pop-ups appear on our phones and computers, we can say, “No thanks” and move on.  Sometimes things cannot be gotten rid of that easily.  So, we pray, and we struggle because what cannot be overcome must be endured.    

Bishop Sheen said that the temptations of Christ were:  1) To hunger.  Everybody hungers.  Give them all bread, and they will be holy.  No, they won’t.   There are plenty of fat, evil people.  We’ve got some correctional officers here.  Ask them how many fat people are in FU (felon university/prison).   2) It’s all about the show.  Give them a show.  Make the Mass entertaining, where everybody has a role.  Bring in the clowns.  No.  Nobody comes, and people leave.  The Mass is not a show.  It’s like when somebody dies – is that a show?  I’ve never met anyone who had a great time while watching a loved one in hospice die.  Watching the Most Beloved die in the Sacrifice of Christ is not a show, and it’s not for our entertainment.  It is a sacrifice for us to be a part of.   

Some people think we need to change the laws and create more.  You know, lawyers and police officers cannot memorize all the laws we have.  There aren’t enough cops to enforce them or prisons to hold felons.   Just having laws doesn’t change anything.  Many felons have accumulated several felony counts over the years.  Why?  Because they don’t learn even though they are given state-sponsored fish – blech.  Nothing changes.  It’s not about politics.  It’s not about laws.   It’s about the person.   But be careful about changes.  They may appear good, “Oh, it’s so great.  This is such a better way. We were so right!”  No.  Be very careful. 

How will you apply this message to your life? _________________________________________

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Saint of the Day – October 4 – Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi’s Story (1181 or 1182 – October 3, 1226)

The patron saint of Italy, Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit, and without a sense of self-importance.

Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”

From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.

He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up all his possessions, piling even his clothes before his earthly father—who was demanding restitution for Francis’ “gifts” to the poor—so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious fanatic, begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, evoking sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking.

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But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff” (Luke 9:1-3).

Francis’ first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no intention of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church’s unity.

Francis was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.

During the last years of his relatively short life, he died at 44, Francis was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.

On his deathbed, Francis said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior’s permission to have his clothes removed when the last hour came in order that he could expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord.

Reflection

Francis of Assisi was poor only that he might be Christ-like. He recognized creation as another manifestation of the beauty of God. In 1979, he was named patron of ecology. He did great penance—apologizing to “Brother Body” later in life—that he might be totally disciplined for the will of God. Francis’ poverty had a sister, Humility, by which he meant total dependence on the good God. But all this was, as it were, preliminary to the heart of his spirituality: living the gospel life, summed up in the charity of Jesus and perfectly expressed in the Eucharist.

Saint Francis of Assisi is the Patron Saint of:

Animals
Archaeologists
Ecology
Italy
Merchants
Messengers
Metal Workers