The Lord calls to pay attention to events. Not to waste opportunities for life.
Francis of Assisi was a singular prophet capable of reading the signs encountered on the journey of faith.
But the grave error could have been that of not having understood that Francis was a sign of the times, and what a sign!
Given by Heaven to win souls to God, knowing that time was short.
The Sources, Teachers of Franciscanism, tell us why Francis was chosen as a sign of the times.
In this sense, St Bonaventure's Major Legend becomes a revelation:
"On him truly poor and contrite of heart, God rested his gaze with great condescension and goodness; not only did he lift him up as a beggar from the dust of worldly life, but he made him a champion, guide and herald of evangelical perfection and chose him as a light for believers, so that, having become a witness to the light, he might prepare for the Lord the way of light and peace in the hearts of the faithful" (FF 1020).
St. Bonaventure continues: "Like the morning star appearing in the midst of the clouds, with the radiant rays of his life and teaching he drew to the light those who lay in the shadow of death; like a rainbow, shining among the bright clouds, bearing in himself the sign of the covenant with the Lord, he proclaimed to men the Gospel of peace and salvation.
Angel of true peace, he too, in imitation of the Precursor, was predestined by God to prepare the way in the desert of the highest poverty and to preach penance by example and word [...].
He was filled with the spirit of prophecy and, deputed to the office of the angels, was filled with the ardent love of the seraphim, until, having become similar to the angelic hierarchies, he was taken up to heaven by a chariot of fire.
It is thus rationally demonstrated that he was sent among us with the spirit and power of Elijah" (Sources 1021).
"And therefore it is rightly affirmed that he is symbolised in the figure of the angel who ascends from the east and bears within himself the seal of the living God" (Sources 1022).
"He had from Heaven the mission to call men to weep, to mourn, to shave their heads and gird their loins, and to impress, with the sign of the penitential cross and with a garment made in the form of a cross; the Tau, on the foreheads of those who weep and mourn" (Sources 1022).
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Mk 13:31)
33rd Sunday in O.T. (B) (Mk 13, 24-32)