The Liturgy proposes to us the sending of the Twelve to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
After repairing the Church of St Mary of the Angels, hearing a Gospel passage proclaiming the Good News, Francis leaves everything and accepts Christ's mandate.
In the Franciscan Sources we find on this subject:
"One day when the Gospel passage was being read in this church concerning the mandate given to the Apostles to preach, the Saint, who was present and had only guessed the general meaning, after Mass, asked the priest to explain the passage to him.
The priest commented on it to him point by point, and Francis, hearing that the disciples of Christ must possess neither gold, nor silver, nor money, nor saddlebags, nor bread, nor staff for the road, nor have shoes, nor two tunics, but only preach the Kingdom of God and penance [Lk 9:1-6], immediately, exulting in the Holy Spirit, exclaimed:
"This I want, this I ask, this I long to do with all my heart!".
The holy father then hastens, all full of joy, to carry out the salutary admonition; he bears no delay in faithfully putting into practice what he has heard: he loosens his shoes from his feet, abandons his staff, makes do with a single tunic, and replaces his belt with a cord.
From that instant, he makes for himself a robe that reproduces the image of the cross, to keep away the devil's seductions; he makes it very rough, to crucify the flesh and all its vices and sins, and so poor and coarse that the world cannot envy him" (FF 356).
"In certain regions they were welcomed, but without allowing them to build dwellings. Elsewhere, they were driven out, for fear that they were heretics" (FF 1475).
"And he sent them out preaching the kingdom of God and to heal [the sick]" (Lk 9:2).
Wednesday, 25th wk. in O.T. (Lk 9,1-6)