Our love and suffering as Christian disciples, like the Lord’s on the cross, does not happen in vain. As the Franciscan scholar Zachary Hayes stated so clearly, “We become like what we love,” and that transformation recasts the categories of our ordinary experience into something else, something greater, something more than what we had originally expected. This is not to deny the real pain, loss, and trauma that can accompany suffering, but it does suggest that the meaning of human experience is deeper and more significant than we think.
Like Francis of Assisi, we too can be transformed by the power of love and embrace the call to Christian discipleship with passion. The task at hand is to see that the Word continues to call us to move beyond ourselves, to enter into an evermore intimate relationship with God, to make God’s story our story, to work for justice and peace in our world, and to embrace the love and suffering that comes with following Christ.
—from the book The Last Words of Jesus: A Meditation on Love and Suffering by Daniel P. Horan, OFM
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.
New call-to-action 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
“Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” These are the words most often used as we are signed with ashes. It is a call to conversion, a call to follow Christ, a call to change our lives. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew gives us the three pillars of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are at the heart of the Gospel’s message. No one heard this call and followed it more devotedly than St. Francis of Assisi.
Francis took a literal approach to the Gospel. He began with the most basic interpretation of a text, but he didn’t stop there. He began by throwing aside his tunic, shoes, and walking staff, but over time discovered the many ways in which possessions can keep us from seeking God. He began by carrying stones and fitting them into the crumbling walls of Assisi’s churches, but over time he inspired his followers to reinvigorate the Church with the undimmed power of the Gospel.
“External validation comes from other people affirming your feelings, behaviors, and accomplishments. When a child says her first word or takes her first step, we clap and cheer, encouraging her. This external validation affirms the child and gives her courage and drive to take the next step.
At every stage in the development of a child, loving parents, teachers, coaches, and siblings, encourage children to explore their potential. This external validation takes many forms and is natural and normal, and over time should lead to a healthy sense of self.
One sign of a healthy sense of self is the ability to validate oneself. This is called internal validation.
If you feel angry over something that happened, it is unhealthy to repress, deny, avoid, or ignore that feeling. Your healthy self is able to say, “Feelings are messengers, I wonder what message this anger is sending.”
Internal validation also allows us to affirm our accomplishments, even and especially those that nobody else witnesses or will ever know about. Great champions affirm every little success, they validate their efforts to reach the next level. This internal validation is one sign of a very healthy sense of self.
The ability to internally validate ourselves is especially important in the face of the inevitable criticism we all encounter sooner or later in life. A healthy self is able to hear criticism, embrace what is true as fuel for improvement, and set aside what is not true.
One of the biggest problems in our culture today is that so many people are addicted to external validation and lack the healthy sense of self needed to internally validate. This is why so many people feel unworthy or worthless.
Liberate yourself from the need for external validation. Francis of Assisi understood this perfectly when he wrote, “I am who I am in the eyes of God. Nothing more, and nothing less.””
Our holiday celebrations often keep us indoors. In northern climates, this might be partly because the cold and snowy weather makes going outside a difficult and even unpleasant experience. We hurry from house to car and then into another warm house. In warm climates, the heat finds us scurrying between air conditioned buildings. But creation—including the weather— is a gift to be celebrated, not something simply to be controlled and altered. We lose our sense of wonder in nature when we become too absorbed in the structures of everyday life. Most of us have jobs and other responsibilities that keep us indoors. The people of the Bible lived much closer to the land than we do today. Navigating by the stars was something they did as a matter of course. Jesus’s parables reflect a deep knowledge of flocks, fields, and fishing. We can understand these stories better if we grow in our awareness of creation. Pope Francis, like his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, calls us to read God’s presence not only in our holy books but in the holiness of the world around us, plant and animal as well as human.
