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…every once in a while, a Sunday homily will make it to these pages…
Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday which comes either on the Sunday before Thanksgiving or the Sunday following Thanksgiving. – a time we when we are busy about many things. We are preparing to travel, to cook, to receive visitors, to celebrate, and all sorts and manner of things. It is not a time when we are given to pause and reflect on what it means to hold that Christ is King. Continue reading
One aspect of Francis’ changing life that has attracted recent attention is the movement of Francis from solitary figure, living a quasi-hermetical life for four to five years, now beginning to live in a growing community of brothers – all of whom are looking to Francis for spiritual and communal leadership. There was something attractive about Francis, his way of following the gospel, and perhaps the recent “commissioning” by Pope Innocent III gave a certain cache of legitimacy to this way of being Christian in the world. Eventually many people came to join the Franciscan movement, which soon enough became a religio and eventually an ordo, but those demarcations are eight to ten years in the future ahead of the Spring of 1209.
Virtually all scholars agree that Francis, at this point, did not envision his group to be more than a small group of men living an evangelical life in common. But there are also no indications that Francis thought too far ahead in any matter at this point in his life. Things just seemed to unfold, signs appeared along the way, and Francis followed the path in faith. And people followed Francis. Whether he liked it or not, Francis was their leader. Continue reading
It is later in the autumn of 1206 that with his decision to “leave the world” Francis began to be aware of the powerful Divine Presence in his life through, his work among the lepers near Assisi, and his habit of taking refuge in churches for prayer and rebuilding the structures. At San Damiano he encountered the consoling presence of the Savior who had suffered and died for him. It was a presence he soon came to recognize in other church: “And the Lord granted me such faith in churches that I would pray simply and say: We adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, in all you churches throughout the world, and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.” (Testament 4-7). Francis was at the beginnings of an inner peace. Continue reading
There are three events that seem to highlight the “period of crisis” in Francis life during the period from late 1205 until the summer of 1206:
There is no consensus on the order of the events – and there is some question about later embellishments of the event – and even questions about whether some accounts indicating a single event is actually a compilation of a series of experiences. But then the 13th century writers were not trying to capture “history” they were trying to tell their understanding of the “meaning” of the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Continue reading
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance” (St. Augustine, Letter 18). At the root of Francis of Assisi’s on-going conversion was the movement towards a fuller realization of humility in his own life: from son of a privileged, wealthy merchant to a lesser brother following the footsteps of Christ. From one well-dressed and flamboyant as a young man to one who asked to be laid naked upon the ground at the time of his death. From one hiding from God, to one laid bare, knowing that what he was before God he was that and nothing more. Along the way he discovered and lived all the other virtues. Continue reading
“You are so judgmental!” That is one way to respond to someone offering some fraternal correction. Here’s another: “Who do you think you are?” Or how about, “You are you to admonish me, when….?” Not one of our more spiritual moments. Yet fraternal correction is listed among the spiritual works of Mercy (CCC 2247). St. Thomas Aquinas lists it in the Summa as a work of Charity: “fraternal correction properly so called, is directed to the amendment of the sinner. Now to do away with anyone’s evil is the same as to procure his good: and to procure a person’s good is an act of charity, whereby we wish and do our friend well” (II, IIae, 33.1). Continue reading
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