Today's Gospel tells of the ultimate signs foretold by Christ.

Francis, who had experience of signs, lived his earthly pilgrimage uninterruptedly directed towards the manifestation of Christ and thus working for the good of his brothers and sisters.

Everything would crumble and in the end a single banner would continue to fly: the Cross of Christ, the ultimate sign and victory of the Risen One.

In the light of all this, Francis seemed to contrast the signs that would be manifested in the moon, the sun, the stars, the anxiety of peoples in anguish... with the one sign around which Christian existence revolves: the Cross through which the world has been redeemed.

In the Sources, then, we find passages that explain and support what has been said.

"And we give you thanks, because your Son himself will return in the glory of his majesty to consign the reprobate, who did not do penance and did not know you, to eternal fire, and to say to all those who knew you and adored you and served you in penance: Come blessed by my Father, enter into possession of the kingdom, which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world [...]" (FF 65).

And so Francis, the Minim "chose to live for all, rather than for himself alone, spurred on by the example of Him who deigned to die, He alone, for all men" (FF 1066).

And all this together with his brothers "concerned to refresh themselves more with the bread of tears than with the bread of abundance" (FF 1067).

Yes, there will be many signs in the universe at the full manifestation of Christ, but only one will stand undisturbed: his redemptive and transforming Holy Cross.

To his brothers, therefore, he taught:

"When you pray, say: Our Father, and: We adore you, O Christ, in all your churches that are in the whole world, and we bless you, because through your holy cross you have redeemed the world" (FF 1068).

«And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and on earth anguish of nations in bewilderment by the roaring of the sea and the waves» (Lk 21:25)

Thursday, 34th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 21,20-28)

Today's Gospel passage speaks of persecution and hatred towards the witnesses of Jesus.

The Poor Man of Assisi, having known Christ, well knew that following in His footsteps would also entail insults and persecution, starting with his family.

In fact, the people of Assisi and his father, a shrewd merchant, could not bear his radical change, and thought him mad.

But Francis, Herald of Christ, did not let himself be intimidated, guided by divine Wisdom, which suggests to those who welcome it every response appropriate to the moment.

The Franciscan Sources, a place of special evangelical training, narrate:

"One day, inflamed with enthusiasm, the Saint left the cave and set out towards Assisi, lively, quick-witted and joyful.

Armed with confidence in Christ and inflamed with heavenly love, he reproached himself for cowardice and vain trepidation, and boldly decided to expose himself to the hands and blows of his persecutors.

At the first sight of him, those who knew him as he was before, began to insult him, shouting that he was a madman and a fool, throwing mud and stones at him.

Seeing him so changed, exhausted by penances, they attributed his change to exhaustion and dementia.

But the Knight of Christ passed through that storm without paying any attention to it, not allowing himself to be struck and agitated by the insults, giving thanks to God instead.

News of what was happening spread through the squares and streets of the city, until it came to the ears of his father.

Hearing how they were mistreating him, he immediately went out to get him, intending not to free him but to end it.

Out of his mind, he pounced on him like a wolf on a sheep, and staring at him with grim eyes and a face contracted in fury, he seized him and dragged him home.

There he locked him up in a dark cubbyhole for several days, doing everything, with words and blows, to bring him back to worldly vanity" (FF 1417).

But "Francis did not let himself be moved neither by words, nor by chains, nor by beatings. He endured everything with patience, indeed becoming more agile and stronger in following his ideal" (FF 1418).

«Now before all these things they will lay their hands on you and persecute you by delivering you to synagogues and prisons» (Lk 21:12).

«And you will be hated by all because of my name» (Lk 21:17).

Wednesday 34th wk in O.T.  (Lk 21,12-19)

In today's Gospel, while some were thinking of the beautiful stones of the temple, Jesus announces that nothing would remain of what they admired.

Francis and Clare of Assisi, with different paths, lived with the final horizon of life always before them.

By divine revelation and by unquestioned intuition they understood that the glitter of this world would be the first detractors of souls.

They knew that of all they saw, nothing would remain at the end of days.

And every day, from the first light of dawn, this thought guided them in the work of witnessing.

The Sources, a bottomless vein of the Gospel events experienced by these Giants of the Gospel, proclaim beginning with the Canticle of Brother Sun

"Be praised, my Lord, for sister our death of the body/ from which no man can escape/ woe to those who die in mortal sins;/ blessed are those who find in your most holy will,/ for the second death will do them no harm" (FF 263).

Nevertheless, Clare reminded her sisters of the ultimate goal of life:

"Blessed, however, are those to whom it is granted to walk this way and persevere in it to the end" (FF 2850).

Again in one of her letters to Agnes of Bohemia, she recalls:

"How many times do kings and queens of this world deceive themselves in this regard!

Even if they raise their pride up to heaven and almost touch the clouds with their heads, in the end they will be dissolved into nothingness, like rubbish' (FF 2894).

They always threw their hearts over the hurdle, trusting in God.

As Jesus announces in the Gospel: «These things you observe, there will come days when no stone will be left upon stone, which will not be destroyed» (Lk 21:6)

Tuesday 34th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 21:5-11)

In today's Gospel Jesus emphasises the extent of a poor widow's gift: "her whole life" (Lk 21:4b).

A man of thought like Fr Claudel said: "What is life for if not to be given?".

Francis of Assisi, who shared his birth on his mother's side [Mona Pica, a refined woman of France] had made the total gift of himself to God and his brothers and sisters the evangelical meaning of his life.

He had embedded it in a verb very dear to him: 'give back' - give back to God what he had lavishly bestowed upon him.

And the 'poor in spirit' understand this better than anyone else.

In the Sources we read:

"To those who wanted to enter the Order, the Saint taught to repudiate the world first, offering to God first the external goods, then to make the interior gift of oneself.

He did not admit to the Order except those who had divested themselves of all possessions, holding nothing absolutely, both for the word of the holy Gospel and so that personal peculence would not be a scandal' (FF 667).

And again:

"In poverty they found great joy: they did not covet riches, indeed they despised every ephemeral good, coveted by the lovers of this world.

Above all they were against money, trampling it underfoot like the dust of the road: Francis had taught them that money was worth no more than donkey dung.

They were happy in the Lord, always having nothing within themselves or among them that could in any way upset them.

The more they were separated from the world, the more they held fast to God. They advanced in the way of the cross and in the paths of righteousness" (FF 1454).

They had well understood what the Gospel means when it proclaims the Blessedness of those who give all of themselves for Christ and in Christ.

«Truly I tell you, this widow, so poor, has given more than all» (Lk 21:3)

Monday, 34th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 21:1-4)

The Gospel passage from Luke presents Christ's kingship on the cross, mocked and insulted, even by one of the two thieves crucified with him.

The other, however, humbly asks Jesus to remember him, and the Lord, in the exercise of his authentic kingship, assures him of Paradise.

Francis considered himself "the herald of the Great King".

When attacked by brigands who asked him who he was, he replied fearlessly: "I am the herald of the Great King; does that interest you?" (FF 346).

And when he had to sit at the sumptuous tables of great people, Francis repeated:

"The Lord is pleased with poverty, especially that which consists in becoming voluntary beggars for Christ.

And I do not want to exchange this royal dignity that the Lord has assumed for us, making himself poor to enrich us with his poverty and making the truly poor in spirit heirs and kings of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the fiefdom of false riches granted to you for a moment" (FF 1127).

And when he set up the first nativity scene in Greccio, Francis stood before the manger filled with pity:

"He preached to the people about the birth of the poor King, and in naming him, he called him, out of tenderness of love, the 'child of Bethlehem'" (FF 1186).

And Clare echoes him in the Legend, saying:

"If, in fact, the King of kings gives himself to those who love him ardently, what can there be that he will not grant, if it is fitting, to those who pray to him with devotion?" (FF 3208).

In the Praises of God Most High we read:

“You are Holy, Lord, the only God, who works wonders.

You are strong, You are great, You are Most High, You are almighty King, You, Holy Father, King of Heaven and earth […]” (FF 261).

«Now the soldiers also mocked him as they came up and offered him vinegar, saying, 'If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!'» (Lk 23:36-37)

Christ the King (year C)  (Lk 23:35-43)

Jesus reminds us that those who are considered worthy of the future life do not take a wife or husband.

In this regard, the Sources have a very significant episode that gives us pause for thought.

"In the hermitage of the friars of Sarteano, the evil one, who always envies the spiritual progress of the sons of God, even had this presumption.

Seeing that the saint was continually attending to his sanctification, and did not neglect today's gain satisfied with that of the previous day, one night, while he was praying in his little cell, he called him three times: 'Francis, Francis.

"What do you want?"

And that one: "There is no sinner in the world who does not obtain God's mercy if he repents. But whoever causes his own death by rigorous penance will not find mercy in eternity".

The saint immediately recognised, by revelation, the cunning of the enemy, as he sought to induce him to lukewarmness [...].

Seeing that in this way he had not succeeded in hiding the snare, he prepared another, that is, a carnal stimulus [...].

As soon as the Father noticed (such a temptation), he stripped off his robe and scourged himself with extreme harshness with a piece of rope.

"Brother Donkey,' he exclaims, 'this is how you must submit, this is how you must suffer the scourge! The cassock is the Order's, it is not lawful to misappropriate it [...]".

But since he saw that with the blows of discipline the temptation would not go away [...] he went out into the garden and plunged naked into the deep snow.

Then taking the snow with his bare hands he clutched it and made seven piles of it in the shape of dummies; he then placed himself before them and began to speak to the body thus:

"Behold, this eldest is thy wife, these four, two are thy sons and two thy daughters; the other two are the servant and the maid, necessary for the service."

"Make haste, they must all be clothed because they are dying of cold. If then this manifold concern is a burden to you, serve the Lord with diligence."

"[...] and the Saint returned to his cell glorifying God" (FF 703).

«But those who will be judged worthy to have part in that other world and in the resurrection of the dead shall neither take a wife nor a husband» (Lk 20:35)

Saturday, 33rd wk. in O.T.  (Lk 20:27-40)

Francis, a man of God, loved prayer in a special way, as a place of encounter with the Bridegroom, jealously guarding it from all noise.

We read in the Second Life of his well-known biographer, Celano:

"He always sought a secluded place, where he could be united not only with the Spirit, but with his individual members, to his God.

Instead, when he prayed in the woods and in solitary places, he filled the woods with groans and bathed the earth with tears.

He often dialogued aloud with his Lord: he gave an account to the Judge, pleaded with the Father, spoke to the Friend, joked amiably with the Bridegroom.

And actually, in order to offer all the fibres of his heart in manifold holocaust to God, he considered Him who is supremely One.

Often without moving his lips, he meditated long and hard within himself, and concentrating the outward powers within, he rose with the Spirit to heaven.

He was not so much a praying man as he himself was all transformed into living prayer" (FF 681-682).

«It is written: My house shall be a home of prayer» (Lk 19:46)

Friday, 33rd wk. in O.T.  (Lk 19:45-48)

Jesus shed tears over Jerusalem for its ungrateful choice of power.

Francis too, a disciple of the Lord, in the footsteps of the Word made flesh, as soon as he had finished his errands (indeed he would cut them off in a flash, so as not to be distracted by the things of God!) would retire, like Jesus, all alone, to pray, even at night.

Thomas of Celano, one of his most eloquent biographers, in the Sources, speaks thus about Francis' relationship with Christ.

This intimate union strengthened his faith, making him capable of going to God even on the great waters of life, amidst the storms of the world.

"He spent all his time in holy recollection, in order to imprint wisdom in his heart; he feared to turn back if he did not always make progress.

And if at times there were urgent visits from seculars or other matters, he would cut them off rather than finish them, to take refuge again in contemplation" (FF 681).

"When, on the other hand, she prayed in the woods and in solitary places, she filled the woods with groans, bathed the earth with tears, beat her breast with her hand; and there, almost as if taking advantage of a more intimate and reserved place, she often dialogued aloud with her Lord" (FF 682).

But Clare too, a seedling of the Seraphic Father Francis, was nourished by assiduous prayer and solitary contemplation to understand God's will and abandon herself to a solid faith.

Witness what he wrote in his third letter to his spiritual daughter, Agnes of Bohemia. Words charged with authentic 'Christian relationship'.

"Place your eyes before the mirror of eternity, place your soul in the splendour of glory, place your heart in Him who is the figure of the divine substance, and be transformed entirely, through contemplation, into the image of the divinity of Him" (FF 2888).

The Poor of Assisi have made "being with God" the condition for not fearing the adversities encountered on their journey; walking, by Grace, on the "great waters".

Thus, thanks to their eloquent example, many souls abandoned the spirit of confrontation and overpowering, turning to a life of conciliation and fraternal Peace.

«Hadst thou known in this day also that which is for peace! But now it has been hidden from your eyes» (Lk 19:42)

Thursday, 33rd wk. in O.T.  (Lk 19:41-44)