In chapter ten of the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself as the Gate for the sheep; those who enter through it find salvation. He alone is the true Shepherd who cares for them and protects them from danger.

One day, as Francis neared the end of his calling, a friar asked him who would lead the Order after him.

The passage, taken from the Second Life of Celano, reads as follows:

«Father, you will pass from this life, and the family that has followed you will be left abandoned in this valley of tears. Name one, if you know of anyone in the Order, who satisfies your spirit and upon whom the burden of the office of Minister General may be laid with peace of mind».

Francis, accompanying each word with a sigh, replied:

«I know of no one capable of being the leader of such a diverse army and the shepherd of such a numerous flock. But I wish to describe to you, and, as they say, to sketch out the figure, in whom it may be clearly seen what the father of this family must be like».

«He must be,’ he continued, ‘a man of the most austere life, of great discretion and commendable reputation […] he must apply himself zealously to prayer and know how to devote certain hours to his own soul and others to the flock entrusted to him […] After prayer, then, he should make himself available to the religious, willing to be pestered by everyone, ready to respond and to provide for all with affability […] Even if he stands out for his learning, nevertheless, even more so in his conduct, he should be the portrait of virtuous simplicity and cultivate virtue […]».

And he continued:

«Let him console the afflicted, being the last refuge for the afflicted, lest it come to pass that, finding no salutary remedies with him, the sick feel overwhelmed by the disease of despair. Let him humble himself, to bend the haughty to meekness, and let him relinquish part of his right, to win a soul for Christ. When dealing with those who have deserted the Order, like lost sheep, let him not close the depths of his mercy to them, knowing full well that the temptations are most violent, which can drive one to such an act […] It is his task above all to probe the secret of consciences to extract the truth from the most hidden recesses, but let him not lend an ear to those who spread gossip […]» (FF 771-772).

All this points to the importance of being a ‘Door’ for Francis amongst his friars, whom he loved with firmness and tenderness; with discretion and understanding, for the love of Christ.

«I am the gate: whoever enters through me will be saved; they will come in and go out and find pasture»  (Jn 10:9)

4th Sunday in Easter A  (Jn 10:1-10)

«By going all over the world, preach the Gospel to every creature» (Mk 16:15).

The Risen Jesus, before ascending to the Father, entrusted the disciples with the universal mission of proclaiming the Gospel to every creature, emphasising how the proclamation would be confirmed by signs, an anticipation of that full salvation that is awaited in God's future.

Francis gave the measure of all this when he set out on a mission to the East, to meet the Sultan.

The Sources read as follows:

"In the thirteenth year of his conversion, he set out for Syria, and while bitter battles raged between Christians and pagans, taking a companion* with him, he did not hesitate to present himself before the Sultan*.

Who could describe the confidence and courage with which he stood before them and spoke to them? [...]

Before he reached the Sultan, his assassins seized him, insulted him, lashed him, and he feared nothing [...] and although invested with the brutal hatred of many, he was received by the Sultan with great honour!

He maintained that the preacher called to proclaim the Gospel "must first draw in the secret of prayer what he will then pour out in his speeches. First he must warm himself inwardly, so as not to utter cold words outwardly [...] they are the life of the body, the adversaries of demons, they are the lamp of the world.

They proclaim salvation, they perform signs, because what they carry in their hearts overflows outwardly and God works in them.

Such a model was what the brothers saw in Francis, as a witness and proclamation of the Risen One.

(FF 422) "The brothers who lived with him also know very well how every day, indeed every moment, the memory of Christ surfaced on his lips; with what gentleness and sweetness he spoke to Him, with what tender love he conversed with Him.

His mouth spoke out of the abundance of the holy affections of his heart, and that spring of enlightened love that filled him inside, overflowed outside as well.

He was really very busy with Jesus. Jesus always carried Jesus in his heart, Jesus on his lips, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in all his other limbs [...]" (FF 522).

And when a creature disappears, making the image of the Son of God emerge in her, she accomplishes, wherever she is, the most perfect evangelisation, she offers the most convincing proclamation.

Thus Francis, a new man made living Word.

* He was Friar Illuminato, as St Bonaventure informs us.

* St Francis probably came to the Sultan Melek-el- Kamel in the truce of arms between the end of August and the end of September 1219.

S. Mark the Evangelist (Mk 16:15-20)

In today's passage Jesus upsets the mind-sets of the Jews who wonder how he can give them to eat his body and drink his blood.

Francis, endowed by Grace with extraordinary charisms, understood all this well.

In his simplicity he was a great lover of the Eucharist, to which he dedicated a special letter: «Letter to all clerics on the reverence of the Body of the Lord».

In it, among other things, we read:

“«For we possess and see bodily nothing in this world of the Most High himself, except the body and blood, the names and words by which we were created and redeemed «from death to life»" (FF 207a).

And again the Sources inform about Francis' devotion to the Body and Blood of the Lord.

"He was burning with love in every fibre of his being for the sacrament of the Body of the Lord, filled with awe beyond measure at such benevolent deigning and most generous charity [...] being filled with reverence for this venerable sacrament, he offered the sacrifice of all his limbs, and, when he received the immolated Lamb, he immolated his spirit in that fire, which always burned on the altar of his heart [...].

One day he wanted to send the brothers into the world with precious pyxes, so that they might place the price of redemption in the most worthy place possible, wherever they saw it kept with little decorum" (FF 789).

Clare also yearned to receive the living Bread descended from heaven with great devotion and recollection:

"When then he was about to receive the Body of the Lord, he first shed hot tears and, approaching then with trembling, feared Him who is hidden in the Sacrament no less than the Sovereign of heaven and earth" (FF 3210).

And again, during his long stay he devoted himself even more devoutly to the Eucharist.

According to the Legend:

"In that grave illness which confined her to the bedside, she had herself lifted up and supported at the back with supports; and, while sitting, she spun very delicate fabrics.

From these she made more than fifty pairs of corporals and, enclosing them in silk or purple envelopes, she destined them for various churches throughout the plain and the mountains of Assisi" (FF 3209).

The life of these two Poor Men was an unceasing Eucharistic sacrifice for the benefit of humanity, in unity with Jesus.

Their every gesture was bread broken and blood shed for every needy creature.

Living in poverty and simplicity in daily life, she became bread for all.

«He who chews my flesh and drinks my blood has the Life of the Eternal One» (Jn 6:54)

Friday of the 3rd wk. in Easter  (Jn 6,52-59)

In this part of chapter 6 of the Johannine Gospel it is emphasised by Jesus that no one can go to Him unless the Father draws him.

Whoever listens and learns from the Father goes to Jesus.

Francis, always listening to the Word and instructed by the Spirit, one day told his brothers the following:

"«The Order and the life of the Lesser Brothers resembles a little flock, which the Son of God, in this last hour, asked of his heavenly Father, saying:

«Father I wish that you would raise up and give to me in this last hour a new humble people, different in their humility and poverty from all the others who have gone before them, and happy to possess only me alone». And the Father answered his beloved Son:

«Son, what you have asked is done».

Francis then added that the Lord wanted the brothers to be called 'Minor', because this is precisely the people asked by the Son of God to his Father, and of them it says in the Gospel: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom; and again: What you did to one of the least of my brethren (minors), you did to me.

'Although here the Lord speaks of all who are poor in spirit, yet he intended to refer in a special way to the Order of Friars Minor, which would flourish in his Church' (FF 1617).

And Clare, in the enclosure of the Damianite walls, writing to her spiritual daughter Agnes of Prague:

"«Fill yourselves with courage in the holy service which you have begun by the ardent desire of the poor Crucified One. He for all of us bore the torment of the cross, snatching us from the power of the Prince of Darkness, who held us in chains as a result of the sin of the first man, and reconciling us with God the Father»" (FF 2863).

These two saints testify with their lives that for them the Bread that comes from God is the Word of Jesus and the ultimate self-giving Act of Him, transformed into everlasting salvation for us all.

The prayer dear to Francis, and often repeated by him before the Crucifix, is an externality of listening and faith at the same time, of footsteps directed to communion with the Father and his Son Jesus in the Spirit.

"«Most high and glorious God, / illumine the darkness of my heart. / And give me straight faith, / certain hope and perfect charity,/ wisdom and knowledge, / Lord, / that I may do your holy and true commandment. Amen»" (FF 276).

«No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him» (Jn 6:44).

«He who believes has the Life of the Eternal One» (Jn 6:47).

Thursday of the 3rd wk. in Easter  (Jn 6:44-51)

In the Gospel of today's liturgy, Jesus reveals himself as the Bread of Life: salvation that every man seeks.

He affirms that he came down from heaven to do the will of the One who sent him, not his own.

Francis always distinguished himself by that continuous search for God's will in all things.

In the Sources we find from the Poverello an appreciation of the Father's will for Jesus:

«And the will of his Father was this, that his blessed and glorious son, whom he gave to us and was born for us, should offer himself, through his own blood, as a sacrifice and victim on the altar of the cross, not for himself, since through him all things were created, but in atonement for our sins, leaving us the example so that we might follow in his footsteps. And he wants us all to be saved through him and to receive him with a pure heart and a chaste body» (Letter to the Faithful. FF 184).

And in the Paraphrase of the «Our Father» he adds:

«Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: That we may love you with all our heart, always thinking of you; with all our soul, always desiring you; with all our mind, directing all our intentions to you and in all things seeking your honour; and with all our strength, expending all our energies and sensibilities of soul and body in the service of your love and not for anything else; and that we may love our neighbour as ourselves, drawing all with all our power to your love, enjoying the goods of others as of our own and in evils suffering together with them and giving no offence to anyone» (FF 270).

In prayer he always asked God for knowledge of his will:

"Francis, the servant of Christ, not trusting in his own experience or that of his own, entrusted himself to prayer, to seek insistently what was [...] the disposition of the divine will.

He was thus enlightened with an answer from heaven and understood that he had been sent by the Lord for this purpose: to win souls to Christ, whom the devil was trying to kidnap.

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

From a young age Clare of Assisi always sought the will of the Father and, in the monastery, in her Rule, she wrote:

«Let the sisters [...] remember that they have renounced their own will for the love of God» (FF 2807).

Following the example of Christ who came to fulfil the Father's plan, Francis and Clare were also tireless seekers of the divine plan for them.

«For I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me» (Jn 6:38)

Wednesday 3rd wk. in Easter  (Jn 6:35-40)

Today's Johannine Gospel passage shows how the crowd had not yet understood the eternal value of the Bread that Jesus wanted to give them. The people think of the manna eaten in the wilderness by their fathers, but Christ directs their attention to his Father who provides a food that does not perish: his own Person.

A reminder of the unimaginable abundance of the Eucharist, Bread of life for all.

Francis, who described himself as «simple and idiotic», had a special heart that enabled him to perceive the depths of the Mystery of Christ's total self-giving.

Celano points out in the Vita Prima:

"Friend of simplicity, with an incomparably sincere and noble heart. And how much this name «Francis» suits him, to him who had a frank and noble heart more than any other" (FF 529).

His compassion for needy and poor people was visceral:

"He bent down, with wonderful tenderness and compassion, towards anyone afflicted by some physical suffering and when he noticed in someone indigence or need, in the sweet pity of his heart, he considered it as a suffering of Christ Himself" (FF 1142).

Indeed, before Jesus, Bread descended from Heaven, he expresses himself thus in his Admonitions:

"Behold, every day he humbles himself [...] every day he himself comes to us in humble appearance; every day he descends from the bosom of the Father onto the altar in the hands of the priest [...] and as to the holy apostles he showed himself in the true flesh [...] And as they with the eyes of the body saw only the flesh of him, but contemplating him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that he was the same God, so we too, seeing bread and wine with the eyes of the body, must see and firmly believe that this is his most holy body and blood alive and true.

"And in this way the Lord is always with his faithful, as he himself says: «Behold I am with you to the end of the world» " (FF 144-145).

And in his letters:

«O sublime humility! O humble sublimity [...] Behold, brothers, the humility of God, and open your hearts before him; humble yourselves also, that you may be exalted by him. NOTHING, THEREFORE, OF YOU HOLD BACK FOR YOURSELVES, THAT HE WHO OFFERS HIMSELF TOTALLY TO YOU MAY RECEIVE YOU TOTALLY» (FF 221).

But an example of 'Bread given' comes to us no less from Clare of Assisi:

"There was only one bread in the monastery, and already the hour of supper and hunger were pressing. Calling the dispenser, the Saint commands her to divide the bread and send one part to the brothers, keeping the other inside for the sisters.

From this second half kept, he orders fifty slices to be cut, which was the number of the Women, and to present them to them on the table of poverty.

And to the devout daughter, who answered her: «It would take the ancient miracles of Christ, to be able to cut so little bread into fifty slices», the Mother replied, saying:

«Do safely what I tell you daughter!».

So the daughter hastened to carry out the Mother's command; and the Mother hastened to address more sighs to her Christ, for her daughters.

And by divine grace that scanty matter grows in the hands of the one who breaks it, so that an abundant portion results for each member of the community" (FF 3189).

«The Bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world» (Jn 6:33)

Tuesday 3rd wk. in Easter  (Jn 6:30-35)

In today's passage, after the sharing of the loaves, the crowd chases Jesus to the other shore, towards Capernaum.

And immediately the Lord puts his finger on the sore spot by emphasising that they seek Him not because of the signs they have seen, but because they are satiated.

A quest driven not by faith, but perhaps by need.

And, to those who ask what to fulfil to do the works of God, the Lord urges the work par excellence: believing.

Jesus dismounts and shifts his gaze from law to Faith.

Wonderful context that in the time of Francis and Clare led the poor people of Assisi to evolve their path of trust and abandonment in God.

In the extraordinary Franciscan Sources we find Francis himself called by the Lord to a leap of faith.

"The Saint found great consolation in the Lord's visits and was assured by them that the foundations of his Order would always remain stable [...].

Being troubled by bad examples, and having resorted one day, so bitterly, to prayer, he felt himself addressed in this way by the Lord:

«Why are you, little man, troubled? Perhaps I made you pastor of my Order in such a way that you would forget that I remain its principal patron?

That is why I have chosen you, simple man, so that those who will, may follow the works that I will do in you and that must be imitated by all others.

I have called you: I will preserve and shepherd you, I will make up with new religious the void left by the others, to the point of giving birth to them if they were not already born.

'Do not therefore be troubled, but wait for your salvation, for if the Order should be reduced even to only three brothers, my help will always be stable'.

From that day it was customary to say that the virtue of a single holy friar overcomes a quantity, however great, of imperfects, as a single ray of light dispels the thickest darkness» (FF 742).

To him who believes in Him who makes us righteous, it is his faith that is reckoned to him for righteousness (cf. Rom 4:4-5).

S. Clare, then, lived literally what Jesus suggests in this Gospel passage: be concerned about food that lasts forever.

In fact, Pope Gregory, with the Bull «Quo elongati» [Up to what point] of 28 September 1230, forbade the Friars Minor from entering monasteries without a special licence from the Holy See - and that only those brothers deputed to do so could take care of the Poor Clares.

In this context, here is what the Sources attest:

"Once, when the Lord Pope Gregory had forbidden any monk to go to the monasteries of the Women without his permission, the pious Mother regretted that the sisters would more rarely have the food of sacred doctrine and groaning said:

«Take them all away from us now, the brethren, after you have taken away those who gave us the nourishment of life!».

And she immediately sent all the brothers back to the minister, not wanting to have beggars to provide the material bread, when they no longer had those who provided them with the bread of the spirit.

But when Pope Gregory learned of this, he immediately put the prohibition back in the power of the general minister" (FF 3232).

Solicitude of a soul in love with the eternal food and willing to renounce everything for It.

«Work not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for the life of the LORD [...]» (Jn 6:27).

«This is the Work of God: that you believe in him whom he has sent» (Jn 6:29).

Monday of the 3rd wk. in Easter  (Jn 6:22-29)

The Risen Jesus walked alongside the disciples on the road to Emmaus as they talked about Him and what had happened in Jerusalem. He put them to the test.

Christ’s body was now in a new, glorious state, whilst retaining its identity. To recognise Him required the faith and freedom of the children of God.

For Francis, poverty and freedom of spirit, united with faith, were the fundamental framework of his existential parable as a ‘minor’.

Begging for alms, for example, even during Eastertide, whilst living as a wayfarer on the road, was for him a wonderful exercise of the aforementioned values.

Leafing through the Sources, in the Major Legend, we read:

“Once, on the holy day of Easter, as he found himself in a hermitage far from any settlement and there was no possibility of going out to beg, mindful of Him who on that very day appeared to the disciples on their way to Emmaus in the guise of a pilgrim, he asked for alms, as a pilgrim and a poor man, from his own brothers.

Having received it, he instructed them with holy words to celebrate the Lord’s Easter continually, passing through the desert of the world in poverty of spirit and as pilgrims and strangers and as true Jews.

For, in begging for alms, he was not driven by the desire for gain, but by the freedom of the Spirit. God, the Father of the poor, showed him special care” (FF 1129).

And it was that inner freedom, together with faith, that became the gateway to recognising the Risen Christ at the breaking of bread, as at Emmaus.

Francis had three-dimensional eyes, which enabled him to look beyond appearances, grasping the essence of the message before him.

Indeed, in the Admonitions, he expresses it thus:

«Behold, every day he humbles himself, as when he descended from his royal throne into the womb of the Virgin; every day he himself comes to us in humble appearance […]

And just as he showed himself to the holy apostles in true flesh, so too does he now show himself to us in the consecrated bread.

And just as they, with the eyes of their bodies, saw only his flesh, but, contemplating him with the eyes of the spirit, believed that he was God himself, so too must we, seeing the bread and wine with the eyes of the body, see and firmly believe that this is his most holy body and living and true blood» (FF 144).

The Poverello had acquired, by grace, the inner capacity to discern the footsteps of the Lord in the ordinary course of daily life, with real concreteness.

«And it came to pass, as He sat at table with them, that He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised Him» (Lk 24:30–31)

3rd Sunday in Easter A  (Lk 24:13–35)