The Baptist points to Jesus-Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

He is the Witness of the dove that alights and remains on the Son of God.

Francis, a gift from Heaven sent to prepare the ways of God, after Providence led him to a complete conversion, was transformed by the Spirit into a Prophet for his time and beyond.

In the Major Legend, St Bonaventure presents us with the figure and experience of the Poor Man of Assisi.

Like John, born to point to the Lamb of God, so was the young merchant's son.

Renewed by his spiritual rebirth, he sang the Mystery of the Incarnation in the fibres of his own flesh.

In the Sources:

"The Grace of God, our Saviour, has appeared in these last days in his servant Francis, to all those who are truly humble and truly friends of Holy Poverty.

For while they venerate in him the superabundance of God's mercy, they are instructed by his example to renounce radically impiety and worldly desires, to live in conformity with Christ, and to yearn with insatiable thirst and desire for the blessed hope.

God looked upon him, truly poor and contrite of heart, with great condescension and goodness; not only did He raise him, 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 of light, he might prepare for the Lord the way of light and peace in the hearts of the faithful" (FF 1020).

"Like the morning star appearing in the midst of the clouds, with the most brilliant rays of his life and doctrine, he drew those who lay in the shadow of death towards the light; like the rainbow shining among the luminous clouds, bearing within himself the sign of the covenant with the Lord, he announced 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 for him in the desert of extreme poverty and to preach penance by example and word" (FF 1021).

«I saw the Spirit descend like a dove from heaven, and it remained on Him» (Jn 1:32)

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A  (Jn 1:29-34)