Francis, the Minor of Assisi, detested appearances and was convinced that to give all one has to live is to give back to the Lord what is his.
In the Sources we read:
"He was once asked how he could, in such light clothing, defend himself from the rigours of winter.
Full of spiritual fervour, he replied:
"If our hearts burned for the desire of the heavenly homeland, we would easily endure this external cold".
He had a horror of soft clothes, preferred rough ones, and claimed that, precisely because of his rough clothes, John the Baptist had been praised by the very mouth of God.
If by chance they gave him a cassock, which seemed soft to him, he would weave it inside with ropes, saying: soft garments, according to the Word of Truth, are to be sought not in the huts of the poor, but in the palaces of princes.
He had learnt from certain experience that demons are frightened by harshness, while from softness and delicacy they take courage to try more boldly (FF 1088).
And Clare, little plant of the seraphic father, in a letter to his beloved spiritual daughter, Agnes of Prague, we hear her say:
"Surely you know [...] that the Lord promises the Kingdom of heaven and gives it only to the poor, because when one loves temporal things one loses the fruit of charity; and that it is not possible to serve God and Mammon, because one either loves the one and hates the other or serves the latter and despises the former [...] Therefore you have thrown away superfluous garments, that is, earthly riches" (FF 2867).
Clare, following the example of Francis, had thrown into the common treasure the trifles of her earthly existence in the service of her neighbour.
"And when a poor widow came, she threw in two pennies [...] her entire livelihood" (Mk 12:42, 44).
32nd Sunday B (Mk 12:38-44)