The Poor Man of Assisi strove throughout his life to bless and foster the unity of spouses in marriage.
To a noblewoman who was worried about her husband's sourness, which was hindering her in the service of Christ, the Saint, after listening to her, said:
"Go in peace and be assured that you will soon have from your man the consolation you desire" (FF 1193).
So it happened: the man changed his life, and after a long time, on the same day they returned to the Lord.
Francis was so concerned about the sanctity of Christian married life that he founded the (then) Franciscan Third Order alongside the two previous orders - Friars Minor and Poor Ladies of St Damian.
All this so that even though they were in the world they were not of the world, bearing witness to the Gospel.
In fact, in the Vita prima of Celano, we read:
"To all he gave a rule of life, and showed the way of salvation to each according to his condition" (FF 385).
The same simplicity of children with which he loved to receive the Word of God, he transferred it between the lines of life.
It is worth this episode to help us understand the childlike heart he had received from God:
"At St. Mary of the Portiuncula they brought the man of God a sheep as a gift, which he accepted with gratitude, because he loved the innocence and simplicity that, by its nature, the sheep shows.
The man of God admonished the sheep to praise God and not to annoy the brothers at all. The sheep, in turn, as if feeling the pity of the man of God, put his teachings into practice with great care.
When she heard the friars singing in the choir, she too would enter the church and, without the need of a teacher, would bend her knees, uttering tender bleats before the altar of the Virgin, Mother of the Lamb, as if eager to greet her" (FF 1148). Becoming a child at heart, Francis welcomed in simplicity the Kingdom that was coming to him, testifying in his concrete life the infancy of the Spirit that informed him.
The littleness of Francis, the frame of his evangelical life, is moving.
"He did not blush to ask small things of those smaller than himself; he, a true minor, who had learnt great things from the supreme Master.
He used to seek with singular zeal the way and manner of serving God more perfectly, as it pleased Him best.
This was his supreme philosophy, this his supreme desire as long as he lived: to ask the wise and the simple, the perfect and the imperfect, the young and the old, what was the way in which he could most virtuously reach the summit of perfection" (Sources 1205 - Major Legend).
Francis loved with a child's heart and so he taught his brothers and the poor Ladies of San Damiano, virtuous sisters on the path of faith, among whom Clare shone for her humility and transparency.
This young woman bore witness to light; she was a morning star in becoming a child in the service of God, in the footsteps of Christ, following the example of the blessed Father Francis, a true lover and imitator of Him.
27th Sunday (B). Mk 10:2-16
