Levi's call and sharing the table with him produced scandal among the Pharisees, but Jesus taught them that it is the sick who need the doctor!

Francis and Clare saw in their vocation and that of the brothers and sisters who followed them an attractive and fundamental appointment in their existence.

Through the Call, God was realising a secret gift in them, far beyond the expectations of a petty life.

Regarding Francis, we read in the Sources:

As he was passing near the church of St Damian, he was inspired to enter it. He went there, and began to pray fervently before the image of the Crucifix, who spoke to him with moving goodness:

"Francis, do you not see that my house is falling down? Go, then, and restore it".

Trembling and astonished, the young man replied:

"I will do it gladly, Lord".

However, he had misunderstood; he thought it was about that church which, because of its antiquity, threatened imminent ruin.

At those words of Christ he became immensely happy and radiant; he felt in his soul that it was really the Crucified One who had given him the message.

As he left the church, he found a priest sitting nearby, and putting his hand in his purse, he offered him money, saying:

"Sir, I beg you to buy oil to make a lamp burn before that Crucifix. When this money is finished, I will bring you more, according to need" (FF 1411).

The Poverello, considering minority as a specific vocation of the Friar, was worried because "he saw that some ardently desired the offices of the Order, of which they made themselves unworthy, apart from anything else, even for the mere ambition to govern. And he said that these were not Friars Minor, but had forgotten their vocation and had fallen from glory" (FF 729).

Clare, regarding the vocation of the sisters residing at San Damiano, also expressed herself in her Testament as follows:

"The Lord himself has placed us as a model, as an example and mirror not only for other men, but also for our sisters, those whom the Lord himself has called to follow our vocation, so that they too may shine as a mirror and example for all those who live in the world" (FF 2829).

«I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to conversion» (Lk 5:32)

Saturday after the Ashes  (Lk 5:27-32)