Francis had learnt from the Gospel that holding one's life in one's hands causes one to lose it, but whoever is prepared to lose it for Christ and with Christ actually gains it.
When he encountered the lepers, the Minim was at a crossroads: hold his own life or give it?
To embrace the marginalised or to continue thinking about his own existence?
The Sources attest to what choice Francis made in the matter.
The Lord had told him something very precise:
"Francis," God said to him in spirit, "you prefer
bitter things to sweet things, despise yourself, if you want to know me" (FF 591).
And again: "Among all the horrors of human misery, Francis felt an instinctive repugnance for lepers. But, lo and behold, one day he encountered precisely one, while he was on horseback near Assisi.
He felt great annoyance and revulsion, but not to fail in his fidelity, as if transgressing an order he had received, he leapt from his horse and ran to kiss him.
And the leper, who had stretched out a hand to him, as if to receive something, received both money and a kiss. Immediately he got back on his horse, looked here and there - the countryside was all open and free of obstacles all around - but he no longer saw the leper.
Full of joy and admiration, a short time later he wanted to repeat that gesture: he went to the leper colony and, after giving each sick person some money, kissed their hand and mouth.
In this way he preferred bitter things to sweet things, and was manly in keeping his other intentions" (FF 592).
In this way, the Poor Man of Assisi made loving and caring for lepers the discriminating factor in losing one's life in order to find it again.
«He who seeks to keep his life will lose it; but he who loses it will keep it alive» (Lk 17:33)
Friday, 32nd wk. in O.T. (Lk 17:26-37)
