Today's Gospel passage portrays Jesus going, almost covertly, to the Feast of Booths, in a persecutory atmosphere.

He does not go at the time that seemed opportune to his relatives, nor does he intend to manifest himself in the way they wanted.

Instead, he goes up there afterwards, and in a different way: to fulfil his mission as set by God, not to seek his own glory.

Francis, too, did not follow the path his father wanted, but the mission entrusted to him by the Lord, according to the 'canvas' of divine will.

In fact, consulting the Sources, we understand many things in this regard.

For example, we become aware of the obstinate persecution of the father, who could not bear Francis' repudiation of his previous life, spent in merry bandits.

He wanted his son to live another way, far from God's plans as he was.

"While the servant of God was dwelling in the company of this priest, his father heard about it and ran there with a distraught soul.

But Francis, an athlete still in his infancy, having been informed of the threats of the persecutors and foretelling of their coming, wanted to leave time for wrath and hid himself in a secret pit.

He remained hidden there for a few days, and in the meantime he unceasingly supplicated, amidst rivers of tears, to the Lord, that He would deliver him from the hands of the persecutors and bring to fulfilment, with His goodness and favour, the pious intentions He had inspired in him" (FF 1040).

The Poverello was not concerned to please his parental prerogatives, but the project and mission prepared by God, even in the vituperation of the city of Assisi.

"The citizens of Assisi, seeing him squalid in the face and changed in spirit, thought he had lost his mind, and threw mud and stones from the streets at him, and, shouting and clamouring, insulted him as a madman, a demented person.

But the servant of God, without being discouraged or upset by the insults, passed among them, as if he were deaf.

When his father heard that strange racket, he rushed immediately, not to free his son, but rather to ruin him: putting aside all feeling of pity, he dragged him home and persecuted him, first with words and beatings, then by putting him in chains.

But this experience made the young man more ready and more determined to complete the task he had begun, because it reminded him of that saying in the Gospel:

«Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven» (FF 1041).

Even so, the Minim of Assisi, like Jesus, did not want to serve what common opinion considered opportune and convenient to do.

He preferred to follow, in another way, what Providence had revealed to him and in a manner that was disconcerting for the mentality of the world in which he lived.

His family, his fellow citizens knew Francis, but they did not understand that he was a beloved son of the heavenly Father.

A creature who had been entrusted with an unequivocal mission of renewal in the Christian walk.

«[Of course] you know me and you know where I am from. Yet I came not of myself, but he is true who sent me, whom you do not know. I know him, because I am from him and he has sent me» (Jn 7:28-29)

Friday 4th wk. in Lent  (Jn 7:1-2.10.25-30)

The passage from Jn shows how Jesus receives testimony not from men, but from works done.

People do not believe in Him because the Son hears the voice of the Father who sent Him, and His Word does not dwell in their hearts.

Francis, in love with the Word, drew from it the strength of his witness. Like Jesus, the works he performed testified to the Father's mandate.

The Word of the Almighty remained in him and the love of the Lord dwelt in him.

The Poor Man did not seek glory that comes from men; on the contrary, he fled it to seek only that which comes from God - of a different flavour.

Humility was the measure of his living.

We find important references to this in the Sources.

For example, in the Letter to the whole Order we read:

"Incline the ear of your heart and obey the voice of the Son of God.

Keep his precepts in the depths of your heart and fulfil his counsels perfectly.

Praise him for he is good, and exalt him in your works, for this he sent you throughout the whole world, that you may bear witness to his voice in word and deed and make known to all that there is none Almighty but he!

The Greater Legend informs us:

"Like a burning coal, he seemed all consumed by the flame of divine love.

On hearing the name of the Lord's love, he immediately felt stimulated, struck, inflamed: that name was for him like a plectrum, which made the depths of his heart vibrate.

"To offer, in return for alms, the precious patrimony of the love of God," he said, "is noble prodigality, and most foolish are those who esteem it less than money, for only the inappreciable price of divine love is capable of buying the kingdom of heaven.

And much must we love the love of Him who loved us much" (FF 1161).

The testimony of the Creator's works appealed to him:

"In order to draw from everything incitement to love God, he rejoiced at all the works of the Lord's hands and, from this spectacle of joy, he went back to the Cause and Reason that makes everything live.

He contemplated, in beautiful things, the Beautiful One and, following the footsteps impressed in creatures, he pursued the Beloved everywhere.

Of all things he made himself a ladder to climb to grasp Him who is all desirable" (FF 1162).

And to his brothers he often repeated:

"No one should flatter himself with unjust boasting about those deeds, which even the sinner could do.

The sinner,' he explained, 'can fast, pray, weep, macerate his body.

But only one thing is not possible for him: to remain faithful to his Lord.

It is precisely this that we must glory in, if we give God the glory that is His due, if as faithful servants we attribute to Him all the good that He gives us' (FF 718).

«I do not receive glory from men. But I know that you do not have the love of God in yourselves» (Jn 5:41-42)

Thursday, 4th wk. in Lent  (Jn 5:31-47)

In today's Gospel passage Jesus affirms his intimate relationship with the Father, highlighting the gift of such greatness that has been transmitted.

Francis had a relationship of special intimacy with the Lord.

The Life received in contemplation, in Union with God, became power poured out on his neighbour in various forms.

The energy humbly received in prayer was synonymous with unitive life, which redeems and transforms.

The Sources offer us the possibility of entering the paths of this special relationship, proper to Christ and transmitted, by Grace, to his brothers.

Browsing through the Franciscan documents we read:

"And the man of God, remaining all alone and in peace, filled the woods with groans, sprinkled the earth with tears, beat his breast and, as if he had found a more intimate sanctuary, talked with his Lord.

There he answered the Judge, there he pleaded with the Father, there he conversed with the Friend.

There also, from the brothers who piously observed him, he was heard to appeal with cries and groans to the divine Goodness on behalf of sinners: to cry, even aloud, the passion of the Lord, as if he had it before his eyes.

There, as he prayed at night, he was seen with his hands outstretched in the form of a cross, lifted up from the ground with his whole body and surrounded by a luminous cloud: marvellous light spread around his body, which wonderfully testified to the light shining in his spirit.

There, moreover, as sure evidence testifies, the hidden mysteries of divine wisdom were revealed to him, which, however, he did not divulge to the outside world, except to the extent that the charity of Christ compelled him to do so and the usefulness of his neighbour demanded it [...].

When he returned from his prayers, which almost transformed him into another man, he took the greatest care to behave in uniformity with the others, lest the wind of applause, because of what he let out, deprive him of the interior reward" (FF 1180 - Major Legend).

To his brothers he recommended above all else the intimate relationship with the Father, as sons who receive every gift of life from Him and with whom they work in harmony.

In fact, the Sources illustrate:

"At that time the brothers insistently asked him to teach them to pray [...] And he answered:

"When you pray, say: Our Father!" and: "We adore you, O Christ, in all your churches that are in the world and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world"" (FF 399).

Their intimate union with the Father made them sons in the Son and, just as Jesus did what he saw the Father do, so the brothers in the school of the Son worked, following the example of Francis.

Listening to the Word and believing in Jesus they became bearers of life, animated by the Poverello.

«The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing; for those things which he does, these the Son also does» (Jn 5:19).

Wednesday 4th wk. in Lent  (Jn 5:17-30)

Jesus lectures the Sabbath worshippers with facts.

Respecting that day was more important than life, than the person himself, placed on the periphery, prone at the feet of the sacred laws.

Life can wait, for these Pharisaic worshippers; but according to Jesus, this is not so, and he proves it.

Even for Francis it was not so!

The man of God, from the very beginning of his calling, put in first place the person to be saved and for whom Christ died and rose again.

How many times, in his humility, did he prostrate himself before his sick, poor brothers, honouring the divine Presence of the Lord!

How many healed by that Charity that inflamed him and directed him on his way!

It is unthinkable that Francis was a bearer of novelty and a 'slave' to the law. Deeply obedient, but free in his exquisite conscience as a creature, he had the life of all at heart.

In the Sources we find many episodes on this subject.

"In the city of Narni, at the bishop's insistence, he blessed a paralytic, deprived of the use of all his limbs, by drawing a sign of the cross from his head to his feet, and restored him to perfect health" (FF 1214).

"In the city of Fano there was a shrunken man, whose ulcerated tibiae were bent backwards and stuck to his body, and he was so malodorous that no one felt willing to take him into hospital.

He implored the mercy of the most blessed Father Francis, and shortly afterwards had the joy of seeing himself completely recovered' (FF 548).

Moreover, 'He showed great compassion for the sick and tender concern for their needs [...].

She even ate on fasting days so that the sick would not feel flushed, and she was not ashamed in the public places of the city to beg meat for a sick friar' (FF 761).

Mother Clare herself, moved by tender compassion for the sick, placed at the centre of her attention the souls for whom Christ had shed his Blood.

Indeed in the Rule:

"Those who are infirm may use straw mattresses and have feather pillows under their heads; and those who need stockings and a woolen mattress may use them [...]" (FF 2799).

When the salvation of their brothers and sisters was at stake, Francis and Clare did not make a problem of rule or day.

Charity was above everything: round the clock.

They looked to Jesus, Author and Perfecter of the Law, to which He had given fulfilment with Love, without which we are only clanging cymbals.

«That is why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did such things on the Sabbath» (Jn 5:16)

Tuesday 4th wk. in Lent  (Jn 5:1-16)

Jesus [who also attributes great value to signs and performs them to lead one to believe, revealing his glory] reproaches the king's official with immature faith, too attached to miracles.

Francis considered it the test of his witness, seeing in it the secret of knowing how to live human affairs - once one is 'instructed' by the Passion of the Son of God.

The Minim saw in the poor and sick the Christ who took on our infirmities and healed them.

An episode from the Sources, taken from the Major Legend, tells us:

"A pilgrim, debilitated by a very acute fever, which had previously struck him, was returning from overseas on board a ship [...].

Since he was not yet perfectly free of the fever, he felt tormented by a burning thirst.

Although, by now, there was no more water, he began to shout aloud:

"Go with confidence and fetch me a drink, for blessed Francis has filled my keg with water!".

A truly wonderful thing: they found the vessel they had previously left empty filled with water" (FF 1284).

One day the father said to a friar who had despised a poor and sick man:

"Shall I tell you how you have sinned against him, or rather against Christ?

Behold: when you see a poor man, you must consider him in whose name he comes, that is, Christ, who became man to take our poverty and infirmity. In the poverty and infirmity of this beggar we must lovingly discern the poverty and infirmity of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he bore in his body for the salvation of the human race' (FF 1645).

The Poverello also healed many people afflicted with fever and various ills,

but emphasised what he saw beyond the albeit important sign.

He always called his brothers to a solid, granitic faith.

He spoke to them of that, expressing it in a discipleship adhesion that went beyond the immediate and rested on union with Christ.

We well understand the prayer he uttered before the Crucifix of San Damiano, in which, addressing God, he said:

"dame fede dricta" [give me certain faith] (FF 276).

The Word ruminated and lived by the Poverello increased day by day our trust in the Lord, who has plans for us of Peace and not of misfortune.

Clare too, abandoned to Christ, healed a sister with the sign of the cross.

Not the signs, but the Sign changes the life, the history of every creature.

"Another of the sisters, named Amata, had been in bed suffering from dropsy for thirteen months and had a fever, a cough and sickness on one side.

On her Donna Chiara, moved by pity, resorted to that noble system of her medical art.

She marked her with the cross in the name of her Christ and immediately restored her to full health" (FF 3223).

This is the faith that sinks into the incarnate Word and transforms the path, rests on Christ who died and rose again for all, and is a sure beacon in the night.

«Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe» (Jn 4:48)

Monday 4th wk. in Lent  (Jn 4:43-54)

In his young life, Francis had encountered the paternal and maternal compassion of the Lord.

After a life spent in cheerful and somewhat dissolute brigades, he was thunderstruck by the Father of Mercies or, as he called him, the Great Helmsman.

Touched by Grace, after his evident change of mentality, before the Crucifix of San Damiano his vocation-mission was revealed to him.

He renounced everything, even his earthly father, to be free to go where the Father in heaven sent him.

The waste of his youthful years translated him into boundless generosity towards lepers and the poor.

The Blessing Embrace of the Almighty had imprinted him with a more solid and precious human and spiritual character.

All his life he wept for his sins, thinking of the Passion of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again for all his lost children.

In the Sources ('Vita seconda' by his biographer Celano) we find a moving passage:

"Once he heard that a sick friar had a desire to eat some grapes. He accompanied him to a vineyard and, sitting down under a vine, to infuse him with courage, he himself began to eat first' (FF 762).

Mercy for the misfortunes of others is the Franciscan foundation of the spiritual journey.

And again:

"He used to say that it is the duty of the superior, a father and not a tyrant, to prevent the occasion of guilt and not to allow those to fall who would then find it difficult to get up again, once they have fallen.

Oh, how worthy of compassion is our foolishness!

Not only do we not lift or support the weak, but we sometimes push them to fall.

We judge it of no importance to take away from the Supreme Shepherd a sheep, for whom on the Cross he uttered a loud cry with tears.

But quite differently didst thou, holy father, prefer to amend the errant and not to lose them!

[...] the oil and the wine, the rod and the staff, the zeal and the indulgence, the burning and the anointing, the prison and the womb, everything has its time.

All these things require the God of vengeance and the Father of mercies: but he prefers mercy to sacrifice' (FF 763).

Clare herself, a loving mother, had received a generous heart full of compassion, especially towards her needy sisters.

The Sources, through the Rule, attest that as the leader of the community, the First Plant of Francis did not allow herself to be imprisoned by the law, but unmistakable Charity reigned over all.

We read in fact:

"[The abbess] console the afflicted. May she still be the last refuge of the afflicted so that, should the remedies of health be lacking in her, the disease of despair may not prevail in the sick" (FF 2778).

Francis and Clare, transformed by the Father's mercy, treasured the gift they had received and poured it out freely to all creatures. Never caged by the immovability of the codes, they were witnesses of that singular welcome that recovers those who have erred and reintroduces them into the new life of the risen.

"...Where there is mercy and discretion,

there is neither superfluity nor harshness" (FF 177).

«While he was still a long way off, his father saw him, had compassion, and ran to his neck and kissed him wide open» (Lk 15:20)

Sunday 4th in Lent (C)  (Lk 15:1-3.11-32)

In the parable of the Pharisee and publican, Jesus evangelises those who presumed to be righteous, despising others.

Francis always felt himself to be nothing before God, sinking into his humility like the seed in the earth.

He feared pride like the plague and detested it deeply.

To appear, to show off, to surpass, were verbs with which he never wanted to have any connection: he abhorred them.

We read in Celano's Vita prima:

"One day, full of admiration for the Lord's mercy in all the benefits bestowed on him, he wished to know [...] what would become of his life and that of his brothers.

To this end he withdrew, as he often did, to a suitable place for prayer.

There he remained for a long time, invoking with fear and trembling the Ruler of all the earth, thinking back with bitterness on the years that had passed badly and repeating:

"O God, be merciful to me a sinner!" (FF 363).

He feared all forms of boasting and ostentation of works; he abhorred feeling good and all kinds of pride.

In the Regola bollata (1223) to his brothers he said:

"I admonish, then, and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that the brothers beware of all pride, vainglory, envy, avarice, cares and cares of this world, of detraction and murmuring" (FF 103).

In the Rule of Clare, in paragraph 2809 of the Sources, we find the same statement - as if to highlight the same concern: to keep a distance from all forms of vainglory.

Francis (and Clare too) perceived himself to be a great sinner, like the publican in the Gospel, who dared not even look up to heaven.

His humility and awareness of his own penury led him to assume a very low profile, without glorying in anything, neither before God nor before men.

Indeed, in his Admonitions, we read:

"Blessed is that servant who does not glory in the good that the Lord says and works through him, more in the good that he says and works through another. Blessed is the man who wants to receive from his neighbour more than he wants to give of himself to the Lord God" (FF 166).

And again:

"By this sign one can recognise the servant of God, if he has the Spirit of the Lord: if, when the Lord accomplishes something good through him, his 'flesh' does not take pride in it - since 'flesh' is always contrary to all good - but rather still considers himself vile in his own eyes and esteems himself smaller than all other men" (FF 161).

«O God, be gracious to me a sinner [...] for whoever lifts himself up will be brought low, but whoever lowers himself will be lifted up» (Lk 18:13-14)

Saturday 3rd wk. in Lent  (Lk 18:9-14)

To the scribes who ask what is the greatest commandment Jesus answers in a disconcerting way: Listen! To love God and neighbour with all one's self is worth more than a thousand sacrifices!

To the scribe, who had understood all this, Jesus points out that he is not far from the Kingdom of God.

The Poor Assisian had clear ideas about the priorities to be given on the spiritual path.

For him, love for God with every fibre of his being, and for his neighbour, was a sweet truth carved into his heart in letters of fire.

In this regard, we are assisted by the Sources, rich in episodes from his life.

"The soul was all thirsty for its Christ and offered itself entirely to Him in body and spirit [...].

She was always looking for a secluded place, where she could be united not only with her spirit, but with her individual limbs, to her God.

And if he suddenly felt visited by the Lord, so as not to be without a cell, he made himself a small one with his cloak.

And if at times he was without it, he would cover his face with his sleeve, so as not to reveal the hidden manna [...].

Often, without moving his lips, he would meditate for a long time within himself and, concentrating the outward powers within, he would lift up his spirit to heaven.

In this way he directed his whole mind and affection to that one thing he asked of God: he was not so much a praying man as he himself was transformed into a living prayer' (FF 681-682).

Also, from the very beginning of his conversion, love for his brothers, compassion for their sufferings and needs, were the guiding motif of his actions.

"He took much money with him and went to the lepers' hospice; he gathered them together and distributed alms to each one, kissing their hands.

On his return, the contact that had previously been repugnant to him, that is, seeing and touching lepers, was truly transformed into sweetness [...] by the grace of God he became a companion and friend of the lepers so that, as he says in his Testament, he stood among them and humbly served them" (FF 1408).

Clare, a faithful disciple of Francis, did the same within the Damianite walls, always ready to serve lovingly the sisters of her community and those who knocked at the Monastery door.

"She washed the seats of the infirm, she cleansed them herself, with that noble spirit of hers, without shying away from filthiness or disgusting stench" (FF 3181).

"Very often she washed the feet of the servants who returned from outside and, washing them, she kissed them" (FF 3182).

Loving the Lord with all one's strength and one's neighbour as oneself is worth more than holocausts; the two Assisian giants had understood this well, testifying it to all.

«And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your mind and with all your strength [...] You shall love your neighbour as yourself» (Mk 12:30-31)

Friday, 3rd wk. in Lent  (Mk 12,28b-34)