{"id":4496,"date":"2025-03-22T08:01:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T12:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4496"},"modified":"2025-03-22T08:01:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T12:01:06","slug":"francis-of-assisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/francis-of-assisi\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis of Assisi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0<\/em>

People who end up as Catholic saints don\u2019t always start out looking like saints.

Francis Bernardone, the son of a wealthy Italian cloth merchant, seemed destined for a life of affluence and influence. His teenage pals nicknamed him rex convivii<\/em> \u2013 \u201cmaster of the revels.\u201d In other words, he was a party boy.

He also had an appetite for adventure.

When his hometown of Assisi went to war with their ancient enemy \u2013 the neighboring town of Perugia, just 12 miles down the road \u2013 Francis turned up in a full suit of armor and a plumed helmet.

Things did not go well. The rich man\u2019s son, who was totally out of his element, was captured and thrown into an airless dungeon, where he languished for a year. Starved and stricken with malaria, he emerged a mere shadow of his former self.

Throughout the next year, Francis faltered. He resisted his father\u2019s efforts to bring him into the family business.

One summer day in 1205, he slipped into the shade of a tumbledown church building, the chapel of San Damiano. Looking around at the evidence of neglect, his eyes fell on a painted image of Christ. He later reported that Jesus seemed to speak to him: \u201cFrancis, don\u2019t you see my house is being destroyed? Go, then, rebuild it for me.\u201d

A profound change overtook him, one which he could never quite put into words. Francis began to care for people on the margins \u2013 the poor, the sick, the abandoned.

His father could hardly contain his fury. He dragged Francis into a nearby piazza and earnestly tried to beat some sense into him. He next tried locking up his son in the family manor, but his mother conspired to set him free.

Finally, when Francis cashed out some bolts of cloth and used the money to help restore San Damiano, Dad brought out the big guns. The elder Bernardone forced Francis to stand before Guido, the Bishop of Assisi, in the cathedral square. He denounced his son as a thief and a monumental family disappointment. Guido, a man who plainly enjoyed the finer things in life, would surely be sympathetic.

How would Francis respond?\u00a0

What followed was a scene that no could have expected, and that no one would ever forget.

Francis stepped for a moment into the cathedral. When he returned he was stark naked, carrying his expensive clothes and a bag full of coins. He presented both to his father, dramatically announcing that from now on his true father was his Father in heaven, not Pietro di Bernardone. Guido, stunned, took off his enormous cloak and wrapped it around the young man.

Just like that, the Church wrapped itself around someone who was destined to become one of the greatest reformers in Christian history.

It wasn\u2019t just a turning point in Francis\u2019 life. It proved to be pivotal for Rome, too. In an era when reform was desperately needed \u2013 and top-down efforts were struggling to gain traction \u2013 what happened in Assisi provided evidence that the Spirit was able and willing to orchestrate bottom-up revival by means of the unlikeliest characters.\u00a0

Thoughtful historians have suggested that Francis is one of the five or ten most admirable characters in the last twenty centuries.

That doesn\u2019t mean he wasn\u2019t a bit off-kilter.

Donald Spoto, one of his biographers, acknowledges, \u201cReal saints are not normal people.\u201d The historian Thomas Cahill has floated the idea that Francis might have been bipolar. But once he found the north star in his life \u2013 once he fully abandoned himself to Jesus \u2013 he functioned \u201cbrilliantly, excessively, erratically, eccentrically.\u201d

Francis, having renounced his family\u2019s wealth, wore a plain brown tunic. He joyfully gave to the poor whatever gifts were placed in his hands. He famously celebrated \u201cbrother sun and sister moon,\u201d and preached a sermon to a flock of birds. In an effort to dramatize the message of Christmas, he arranged the world\u2019s first live nativity scene, complete with animals.

Christendom ached for such spontaneity.

Within a dozen years, Francis was surrounded by more than 3,000 followers. He composed a simple set of regulations for daily life which ultimately became the ground rules for the Franciscan Order. These \u201cLesser Brothers and Sisters\u201d shared whatever they had with anyone who crossed their path, no matter how broken or pathetic.

Across the continent, Christians took heart that someone \u2013 not bishops, cardinals, or popes \u2013 was finally able to show what a surrendered life might actually look like.

Francis died in 1226 at the age of 44, his fasts and physical deprivations having left him nearly blind and covered with sores. His final words were, \u201cI have done my duty. May Christ now teach you yours.\u201d

It\u2019s possible that the most enduring legacy of this medieval saint were his efforts at peacemaking in a weary, war-torn world. Here is his best-known prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.<\/em>

One of the practical outflows of Francis\u2019 commitment to peace was the blessing he spoke to everyone he met: \u201cMay God\u2019s peace be upon you.\u201d

Those words should not be mistaken as blanket approval of the misdeeds of others, as if someone should feel good about themselves at the end of the day simply because some follower of Jesus has asked for a shower of God\u2019s peace.

Francis\u2019 prayer, in fact, turns out to be genuinely subversive.\u00a0 \u00a0

Biblically, God\u2019s peace is shalom<\/em> \u2013 the deep peace that God has always intended for the world and everyone in it.\u00a0Shalom means that justice will be done, and all that is right will prevail.\u00a0

To pray that God\u2019s shalom might come upon another human being is to ask that they might catch God\u2019s own vision of a healed and restored planet, and to feel genuine sorrow and repentance for whatever sins or selfishness in their own lives have become obstacles to that vision.

May God\u2019s peace be upon you.\u00a0<\/em>

That\u2019s a prayer we can pray for both friends and strangers, allies and enemies, and everyone we meet today, tomorrow, and the day after that.

We can even pray that prayer for ourselves as we<\/u><\/em> seek to be<\/em> God\u2019s hope for this hurting world.

May we be more like Francis, that most extraordinary child of God.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0 People who end up as Catholic saints don\u2019t always start out looking like saints. Francis Bernardone, the son of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[884,283,436],"class_list":["post-4496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-history","tag-poverty","tag-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4498,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions\/4498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}