Jesus had told His disciples that, bound to Him like the branch to the vine, they would do greater things than those hitherto wrought by His Person.
Francis is one of those disciples through whom God was able to perform wonders.
Indeed, invested by the Spirit, we read in the Sources thus:
"A citizen of Fano named Buonuomo was a paralytic and leper. Taken by his parents to the church of Blessed Francis, he was cured of both diseases.
But a young man from San Severino, named Atto, who had his body all covered with leprosy, was also cured by the merits of the Saint, after having made a vow and visited his tomb" (FF 1312).
The crowd gathered around was healed.
Multiple healings took place through the work of his Servant.
But all this had a secret: Francis' unspeakable faith in the efficacy of the Word that transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Francis rested on such certainties.
The Sources offer us splendid passages where all the beauty of the Poverello's heartfelt love for the Eucharist appears: Bread of Life to be distributed to men.
"Behold, every day he humbles himself, as when from the royal seat he descended into the womb of the Virgin; every day he himself comes to us in humble appearance; every day he descends from the bosom of the Father onto the altar in the hands of the priest. And as to the holy apostles he showed himself in the true flesh, so also now he shows himself to us in the consecrated bread" (FF 144 - Admonitions).
And again:
"We know that there can be no body if it is not first sanctified by the word.
For nothing do we bodily possess and see in this world of the Most High Himself except the body and blood, the names and words by which we were created and redeemed 'from death to life'" (FF 207 - Letter to all clerics).
Yes, Bread of Life that feeds to satiety those who believe in Him who gave Himself entirely to us.
«I have compassion on the crowd, for [it is] three days that they remain with me and have nothing to eat, and I will not dismiss them fasting lest they fail in life» (Mt 15:32)
Wednesday 1st wk. in Advent (Mt 15:29-37)
