Mk depicts Jesus ascending the mountain and in solitude-prayer calling the Twelve to follow him.
Francis' vocation to follow Christ was a call and attraction of other sequels. His assiduous prayer encouraged many souls to share the evangelical ideal.
Francis desired to have brothers who would «stay with him and to send them out to preach» (Mk 3:14).
In the Sources there are numerous episodes that portray the call of many future brothers and souls willing to follow Clare of Assisi.
We read:
"Some began to feel called to penance by his example and to join him, in habit and life, leaving everything behind.
The first of them was the "venerable Bernard", who, having been made a partaker of the divine vocation, deserved to be the firstborn of the blessed father, first in time and holiness.
Bernard, having ascertained by himself the holiness of Christ's servant, decided to follow his example, abandoning the world completely.
Therefore he turned to him, to know how to realise this intention" (FF 1053).
And to his brothers, he often repeated:
«This is our vocation: to heal wounds, to bind up fractures, to call the lost back.
Many, who seem to us to be members of the devil, may one day become disciples of Christ» (FF1470).
In the legend of St Clare:
"Placing her nest, like a silver dove, in the hollows of this cliff, she generated a host of virgins of Christ, founded a holy monastery and started the Order of the Poor Ladies" (FF3176).
"The fame of the sanctity of the virgin Clare soon spread through the neighbouring districts, and women flocked from all sides after the fragrance of her perfume.
The virgins, following her example, hasten to keep themselves as such for Christ; the married ones study to live more chastely [...].
Countless virgins, spurred on by the fame of Clare, having some impediment to embrace the cloistered life in a monastery, study to live in their father's house, though without a rule, according to the spirit of the rule.
Such were the seeds of salvation born by the example of the virgin Clare, that it seemed to be fulfilled in her the saying of the prophet: more numerous are the sons of the abandoned than of the one who has a husband" (FF 3177).
«And he went up on the mountain and called those whom he wanted, and they came to him» (Mk 3:13)
Friday, 2nd wk. in O.T. (Mk 3,13-19)
