Luke recounts the healing of ten lepers and the gratitude of one of them for his restored health, recognising God in the Lord Jesus.

St Francis 'the Minor' poured out on everyone the gratitude he received from Christ. 

A man of indomitable faith, he embraced those marginalised, going beyond all judgement and stereotypical thinking.

In the Sources, the episode that makes him the guardian of the marginalised is one of extraordinary beauty and special humanity.

We read: "One day, while riding his horse across the plain that stretches out at the foot of Assisi, he came across a leper. 

That unexpected encounter filled him with horror. 

But, thinking and reflecting that if he wanted to become a knight of Christ, he had to first overcome himself, he dismounted and ran to embrace the leper, and while the latter stretched out his hand as if to receive alms, he gave him money and kissed him.

He immediately remounted his horse, but no matter how he looked around, and even though the countryside stretched out freely all around him, he could no longer see the leper anywhere.

Therefore, filled with wonder and joy, he began to sing devoutly the praises of the Lord" (Sources 1034).

From then on, he was imbued with the spirit of poverty, an intimate feeling of humility and profound piety. 

Whereas before he abhorred not only the company of lepers, but even seeing them from afar, now, because of Christ crucified who, according to the words of the prophet, took on the despicable appearance of a leper, he served them with humility and kindness [...]

He often visited the homes of lepers; he gave them alms generously and, with great compassion and affection, kissed their hands and faces" (Sources 1036).

In the Unconfirmed Rule, an eminent guide for his friars, we read:

"And they should be happy when they live among people of little importance and despised, among the poor and weak, among the sick and lepers, and among beggars along the road [...]" (Sources 30).

Since authentic courage knows no time limits, in Celano's First Life, we read the following in relation to his last period of life:

"Therefore, he ardently desired to return to the humble origins of his evangelical life journey and, rejoicing in a new experience of the immensity of love, he planned to bring his exhausted body back to the primitive obedience of the spirit [...] 

He said: «Let us begin, brethren, to serve the Lord God, for so far we have made little or no profit!».

[...] He wanted to return to the service of lepers and be reviled, as he had been in the past" (Sources 500).

Francis, being the great soul that he was, understood that in every leper there was the supreme presence of Christ.

«Getting up, go; your Faith has saved you»  (Lk 17:19)

Sunday 28th in O.T. year C  (Lk 17:11-19)

In these few verses of today's Gospel is contained the true blessedness, enunciated by Jesus, of those who know how to listen and embody the Word of God in the folds of daily life.

Francis, who considered himself simple and idiotic, passionately loved the Word of God.

In fact, when he came across its letters on the ground, he would pick them up for due consideration.

The Sources attest to this, in the first letter [written by him] to the Keepers:

"Even the writings containing the names and words of the Lord, wherever they are found in inconvenient places, let them be collected and placed in a worthy place" (FF 242).

Clare herself, a little plant of the Seraphic Father, recalls in her Testament how much Francis loved and lived the Word, giving it as an example:

"The Son of God became our way; and this by word and example our blessed Father Francis, true lover and imitator of Him, showed and taught us" (FF 2824).

And to those who asked him if he was pleased that educated people should enter the Order, he replied:

"I have pleasure in it; provided, however, that following the example of Christ, of whom we read not so much that he studied as that he prayed, they do not neglect to dedicate themselves to prayer, and provided they study not so much to know how they should speak, as to put into practice the things they have learned, and, only when they have put them into practice, propose them to others.

I want my brothers to be disciples of the Gospel and to progress in the knowledge of the truth, so that at the same time they may grow in the purity of simplicity" (FF 1188).

"And the principal reason why he revered the ministers of the Word of God was this: that they revive the offspring of their dead brother, that is, they revive Christ, who was crucified for sinners, when they convert them, being their guide with pious solicitude and solicitous piety.

He affirmed that this office of piety is more pleasing than any sacrifice to the Father of mercies, especially if it is fulfilled with zeal dictated by perfect charity, so that one labours in it more by example than by word, more by the tears of prayer than by the loquacity of speeches" (FF 1135).

"For he had never been a deaf hearer of the Gospel, but, entrusting to a commendable memory all that he heard, he sought with all diligence to follow it to the letter" (FF 357).

«Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and [keep] it» (v.28)

Saturday of the 27th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 11,27-28)

Jesus testifies to the onlookers that He casts out demons not by Beelzebul but by the Finger of God, by the work of Him.

As Jesus did, so Francis had temptations and was greatly tried by the devil.

But the Finger of God, the Holy Spirit, won every battle in him, extending the Kingdom of heaven in hearts.

Like Francis, Clare too encountered such trials from which, by the Grace of God, she always emerged unscathed, because she was not divided, but totally united with Christ.

The Sources are eloquent bearers of great existential and spiritual truth. Let us look at what they tell us in this regard.

"In those places he had to fight hand to hand with the devil, who confronted him in order to frighten him not only with interior temptations, but also exteriorly with clashes and ruin.

But Francis, as a very strong soldier of Christ, knowing full well that his Lord could do everything everywhere, did not let himself be frightened at all, but repeated in his heart:

'You cannot, O evil one, unleash the weapons of your malice against me in these places any more than you would do to me if we were in the crowd'" (FF 446).

And a friar, who had long been harassed by the assaults of the devil and wept at the feet of Francis, was delivered by him:

"the Father felt pity for him and understood that he was tormented by malignant instigations:

"I command you, O demons," he exclaimed, "by the virtue of God, not to torment my brother any more from now on, as you have dared so far.

Immediately that gloomy darkness dissipated, the friar rose free and felt no more torment, as if he had always been free of it" (FF 697).

Clare was also attacked several times by the enemy.

"While she was once weeping, in the middle of the night, the angel of darkness appeared to her in the form of a black child, and thus admonished her: Do not weep so much, for you will go blind!

But, she answered him at once:

"He will not be blind who will see God", he turned away in confusion" (FF 3198).

And in the first letter to her spiritual daughter, Agnes of Bohemia, Clare expresses herself thus:

"The man covered with clothes cannot pretend to wrestle with an unclothed man, for he who offers a grasp to his adversary is sooner thrown to the ground" (FF 1867).

The servants of God, in their simplicity, have clear ideas, because they are guided by the Finger of God - and they do not give up the authentic Vocation.

«But if by the Finger of God I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come for you» (Lk 11:20)

Friday, 27th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 11:15-26)

Chapter eleven of Luke continues by highlighting how confident and persevering prayer not only obtains what is asked for, but even more: the great gift of the Holy Spirit.

In the Sources, Francis is a magnificent example.

Poor in worldly goods but rich in the Spirit of God, the Poverello considered the Lord as the Great Almsgiver who gives generously to those who trust in Him.

In the Sources we find a telling episode:

"The servant of God, who had become very ill, was brought back to Assisi from Nocera by an escort of ambassadors sent by the devout people of Assisi.

The escorts, together with the servant of God, arrived at a poor village called Satriano.

As the hour and hunger made them feel the need for food, they went to look for it in the village. But, finding nothing to buy, they returned empty-handed.

Then the Saint said to these men:

"If you have found nothing, it is because you have more faith in your flies than in God (by the term 'flies' he meant money).

But go back to the houses you passed by and humbly ask for alms, offering God's love as payment.

And do not think that this is a shameful and humiliating gesture: that is a mistaken idea, because the Great Almsgiver, after sin, has made all goods available to the worthy and the unworthy, with most generous goodness."

The knights put aside their embarrassment, went spontaneously to ask for alms and managed to buy with the love of God what they had not obtained with money.

In fact, those poor inhabitants, moved and inspired by God, generously offered not only their possessions, but also themselves.

And so it came to pass that Francis' poverty made up for the poverty that money had been unable to alleviate" (FF 1130).

On the other hand, the Servant of the Lord had always believed throughout his life that God offers much more than we think, giving us the Holy Spirit - the sum of all good things.

In fact, in the Regola bollata (1223), Francis states that we must "desire above all else [...] to have the Spirit of the Lord and his holy working" (FF 104), which rests on those who live the Gospel faithfully.

The Poor Man of Christ, in fact, considered Him the Minister of the Order.

And he said:

"With God [...] there is no preference of persons, and the Holy Spirit, the general minister of the Order, rests equally on the poor and the simple" (FF 779).

«How much more will the Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him» (Lk 11:13b)

Thursday of the 27th wk. in Ordinary Time  (Lk 11:5-13)

After praying, Jesus receives a request from the disciples to teach them how to pray.

Thus he gives them the 'Our Father'.

If we look in the Franciscan Sources we realise how important prayer was for the little Poor Man.

Francis, the Herald of the Great King, was no longer so much a man who prayed as a creature made prayer.

And just as the disciples, when they saw Jesus praying, asked him to teach them to pray, so the friars who had the good fortune to see Francis immersed in prayer, asked him to teach them.

"When, then, the brothers asked him to teach them to pray, he said: When you pray, say:

«Our Father» and «We adore you, O Christ, in all your churches which are in the whole world, and we bless you, because through your holy cross you have redeemed the world» (FF 1068).

"Moreover, he taught them to praise God in all creatures and [...] to confess frankly the truth of the faith" (FF 1069).

And in his writings (specifically, the Paraphrase of the "Our Father"):

«O most holy Our Father: creator, redeemer, consoler and our Saviour. Who art in heaven: in the angels and in the saints, enlightening them to knowledge, because thou, Lord, art light: enkindling them to love, because thou, Lord, art love; making thy dwelling in them and filling them with bliss, because thou, Lord, art the supreme good, eternal, from whom all good comes and without whom no good exists» (FF 266- 267).

He recommended to his brothers not to neglect prayer. Indeed:

"Above all else," he firmly asserted, "the religious must desire the grace of prayer" and he urged his brothers in every possible way to practise it zealously, convinced that no one makes progress in the service of God without it.

Walking and sitting, at home and away, working and resting, he was so intent on prayer that he seemed to have devoted every part of himself to it, not only his heart and body but also his activity and time" (FF 1176).

«When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be thy name,

thy kingdom come» (Lk 11:2)

Wednesday of the 27th wk in O.T.  (Lk 11,1-4)

Francis of Assisi, the Knower and the Least of God, always had clear in his conscience the importance and necessity of the contemplative life, tempered by work that keeps idleness at bay and conforms to Christ. He demanded this for himself and for his brothers. He went so far as to say that serving his brothers was worth more than any stay in the hermitages, where he himself loved to go when he could.

We read in his writings: "And I worked with my own hands, and I want to work; and I firmly want all the other brothers to work as befits honesty. Those who do not know, let them learn, not for the greed of receiving the reward of work, but to set an example and keep idleness at bay" (FF 119).

Furthermore: "We are convinced that [...] those who live differently in hermitages have been reproached a great deal. Many, in fact, transform the place of contemplation into idleness and the hermit's way of life, instituted to allow souls perfection, reduces it to a place of pleasure [...] Certainly this reproach is not for everyone. We know that there are saints [...] who follow excellent laws in the hermitage" (FF 765).

Even among the friars there was discussion about whether to live in contemplation or action, in fact in the Major Legend it is written:

"While, firm in their holy purpose, they faced the Spoletana valley, they began to discuss whether they should spend their lives among the people or dwell in solitary places. 

But Francis, the servant of Christ, not trusting in his own experience or that of his own, entrusted himself to prayer, to insistently seek what the disposition of the divine will was on this point.

He was thus enlightened with an answer from Heaven and understood that he had been sent by the Lord for this purpose: to win souls for Christ [...] And so he chose to live for all, rather than for himself alone, spurred on by the example of the One who deigned to die, He alone, for all men" (FF1066).

But love for prayer and listening to the Word always accompanied his actions and those of his brothers.

"The tireless dedication to prayer [...] had brought the man of God to such clarity of spirit that [...] he scrutinised the depths of the Scriptures with a clear and acute intellect. He read the sacred books and kept tenaciously imprinted in his memory what he had once assimilated: for he continually ruminated with affectionate devotion what he had listened to with an attentive mind" (FF1187).

Transformed into prayer, without failing in service:

Francis had a special predilection for the Word of God, and in him, without failing in the services to be rendered to his neighbour, he always gave priority to listening to what the Lord asked or taught, fixing it well in his mind.

He had chosen the good part that no one could take away from him. 

Indeed, the Sources instruct us in this regard:

"He spent all his time in holy recollection in order to imprint Wisdom in his heart; he feared to turn back if he did not always make progress.

And if at times there were urgent visits from seculars or other matters, he would cut them off rather than finish them, to take refuge again in contemplation [...].

He was always looking for a secluded place, where he could unite himself not only with his spirit, but with his individual limbs to his God" (FF 681).

"Often without moving his lips, he would meditate for a long time within himself and, concentrating the external powers within, he would lift himself up with his spirit to heaven. In this way he directed his whole mind and affection to the one thing he asked of God: he was not so much a praying man as he himself was transformed into a living prayer" (FF 682).

He had understood the essence of the Gospel.

When he was infirm and full of pain, to a friar who had learned from Francis to take refuge in the Scriptures and who now invited him to have them read to him for relief, the Saint replied:

"It is good to read the testimonies of Scripture, and it is good to seek in them the Lord our God. But, as for me, I have already taken so much from the Scriptures as to be more than sufficient for my meditation and reflection. I need no more, Son: I know Christ poor and crucified' (FF 692).

Jesus, to the one who asks: «And who is my neighbour?» (Lk 10:29) answers by telling a story.

When faced with someone lying on the ground, one should not pass by, but rather come to his aid, take care of him, because every person who is beaten is one's neighbour, whoever he may be.

The Poverello, who had received mercy from the Lord, had learned the lesson well enough to apply it "sine glossa", literally towards everyone, starting with the most needy and marginalised of his time.

The Poor Man's encounter with lepers constitutes a fundamental page in his growth in the Spirit.

It was a crossroads that profoundly modified him and changed the coordinates of his interior life.

For those unfortunate people he feels compassion and "passion", willing to help them in any way he can, because he is the Suffering Servant.

We read in his wonderful Testament

«The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: when I was in sin, it seemed to me too bitter to see lepers; and the Lord himself led me among them and I used Mercy with them.

And as I turned away from them, what seemed bitter to me was changed to sweetness of soul and body» (FF 110).

Thus "the Saint goes among the lepers and lives with them, to serve them in every need for the love of God. He washes their decaying bodies and heals their virulent sores [...].

For the sight of lepers, as he attests, was at first so unbearable to him, that as soon as he saw their shelter two miles away, he plugged his nose with his hands.

But here is what happened: at the time when he had already begun, by the Grace and virtue of the Most High, to have holy and wholesome thoughts, while he was still living in the world, one day a leper stood before him: he did violence to himself, approached him and kissed him.

From that moment he decided to despise himself more and more, until through the mercy of the Redeemer he obtained full victory" (FF 348).

And Francis healed many lepers:

"In the city of Fano, a young man named Bonomo, considered by all the doctors to be a leper and a paralytic, as soon as he was offered very devoutly by his parents to Blessed Francis, was freed from leprosy and paralysis and regained full health" (FF 564).

The care he lavished on lepers, as the Good Samaritan of the Gospel, was transformed, by the gift of the Lord, into power and efficacy in healing diseases of body and spirit.

He had visceral compassion for these souls abandoned to themselves and lived the Gospel of the derelict and marginalised to the letter, loving with extraordinary fondness the Lazarus of his time and beyond.

«Go, do likewise» (Lk 10:37)

Monday, 27th wk. in O.T.  (Lk 10,25-37)

On this twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Liturgy focuses on the passage from Luke in which the apostles ask Jesus:

«Increase our Faith!» (Lk 17:5).

Looking through the Sources, we come across a passage from Celano, taken from the Second Life, in which Francis is called to strengthen his faith in God at a particular moment in his journey.

"At a certain moment in his life, the Father suffered a violent temptation of spirit, certainly for the benefit of his crown.

For this reason, he was distressed and full of suffering, mortifying and chastising his body, praying and weeping in the most painful way.

This struggle lasted several years. One day, while praying in Santa Maria della Porziuncola, he heard a voice in his spirit:

'Francis, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain to move, and it will move'.

'Lord,' replied the Saint, 'what is the mountain that I would like to move?'.

And the voice replied again:

"The mountain is your temptation."

"O Lord," replied the saint in tears, "let it be done to me as you have said."

Immediately, all temptation disappeared, and he felt free and completely serene in the depths of his heart (FF 702).

This is what happens when we open ourselves to Grace! It transforms everything, strengthening the inner man.

Chiara was also a teacher of faith for her Damianite sisterhood.

In fact, she addresses Ermentrude of Bruges in a letter:

"Remain, therefore, my dearest, faithful until death to Him to whom you have bound yourself forever. And you will certainly be crowned by Him with the crown of life. The time of toil here below is short, but the reward is eternal...

Bear adversity willingly, and let pride not swell your heart in prosperous times; the former call you back to your faith, the latter require it" (FF 2914).

Sunday 27th in O.T. year C  (Lk 17:5-10)

Today is the Feast of the one who gave meaning and roots to Franciscanism. The Gospel chosen is that of Jesus turning to the Father to thank Him for revealing the Mysteries of the Kingdom to the little ones. And he, Francis, is the Little One, the meek par excellence.

In the Sources, the littleness of this Giant of the Gospel is summed up thus:

"Another time he confessed to his companions:

"Among other graces, the Most High has bestowed on me this: I would obey the novice who entered the Order today, if he were my guardian, as if he were the first and oldest of the brothers.

Indeed, the subject must not consider in the prelate the man, but He for whose sake he submits to a man".

He also said:

"There would not be a prelate in the whole world, feared by his subjects and brothers as much as the Lord would have me feared by my brothers, should I wish it.

But the Most High has given me this grace: to know how to adapt myself to everyone, as if I were the smallest friar in the Order".

We have seen with our own eyes repeatedly, we who have lived with Francis, the truth of this statement of his.

On several occasions, when certain brothers did not assist him in his needs, or some word was addressed to him that produced agitation, the Saint immediately withdrew to pray.

And when he returned, he did not want to remember the insult, saying: 'That friar neglected me!', or: 'He said this word to me'.

And the closer he came to death, the more concerned he was to live and die in all the perfection of humility and poverty' (FF 1663).

He was humble and meek not only with superiors but also with peers and inferiors, content to be admonished and corrected by them.

One day, crossing a farmer's field on a donkey, because he was weak, the latter pointed out to him that he was in life really what they said about him:

'Look,' said the farmer, 'be as good as everyone says you are, because many people trust you. That is why I exhort you never to behave differently from what is hoped'.

At these words, Francis got down from the donkey and, prostrating himself before the peasant, he kissed his feet several times, humbly thanking him that he had deigned to admonish him [...].

He thought himself vile before God and men' (FF 726).

And in the Salutation to the Virtues, written by him, we read:

"Holy humility/ confounds pride/ and all men that are in the world/ and likewise all things that are in the world" (FF 258).

«I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to the little ones» (Mt 11:25)

S. Francis of Assisi, saint patron of Italy  (Mt 11:25-30)