Jesus exhorts the onlookers not to invite relatives and friends to lunch or dinner, but those who cannot reciprocate: the poor!
This is true beatitude!
The Poverello of Assisi insistently invited Our Lady Poverty to take food with the brothers [cf. Sacrum Commercium Beati Francisci cum Domina Paupertate]:
"Then they led her to the place where the table was prepared. As she arrived she looked around and, seeing nothing but three or four loaves of barley bread and bran placed on the grass, was seized with great admiration" (FF 2020).
Then "he commanded them all to be together and spoke words of life to them, saying:
"Be blessed, my children, by the Lord God who created the heavens and the earth, because you have welcomed me into your home with such fullness of charity, that today, being with you, it seemed to me as if I were in the paradise of the Lord [...] This is what I have sought so much, now I contemplate it [...] because on earth I am united with men who are for me the faithful image of Him who is my spouse in heaven. May the Lord bless your courage and praise the work of your hands" (FF 2024).
Called and elected in the company of Our Lady Poverty to follow in the footsteps of the Son of God.
Clare herself, in her Spiritual Testament, a true Franciscan pearl, addresses her present and future daughters, inviting them to guard the priceless treasure of election. We read in it:
"Among the other benefits that we have received and every day receive from our Donor, the Father of Mercies, for which we are greatly obliged to render to Him glorious living deeds of grace, great is that of our vocation. And the greater and more perfect it is, the more we are obliged to him. Therefore the Apostle admonishes: 'Know your vocation well'" (FF 2823).
And again:
"The Son of God became our Way; and this by word and example our blessed father Francis, a true lover and imitator of Him, showed and taught us" (FF 2824).
At this point Clare recalls when the Saint, under divine inspiration, prophesied about them.
"Having climbed over the wall of the said church [...] and addressed some poor people who were standing near it: "Come and help me in this work of the monastery of San Damiano, because soon some women will come to live there, and by the fame of the holiness of their lives, glory will be rendered to our heavenly Father in all his holy Church".
We can, therefore, admire in this fact the great goodness of God towards us: he has deigned, in his superabundant mercy and charity, to inspire such words to his Saint concerning our vocation and election" (FF 2827-2828).
"But when you make a banquet, invite poor cripples who are lame and blind, and you will be blessed because they have nothing to spare" (Lk 14:13-14).
Monday 31st wk. in O.T. (Lk 14,12-14)
