The Gospel passage from Matthew presents Jesus who, after praying in seclusion, approaches his disciples in the boat at the end of the night, walking on the water.

After the crossing, the people gathered round Him to seek healing of body and soul.

The Poor Man of Assisi, too, sought a solitary relationship with the Father before meeting the crowd, who sought healing of body and soul, perhaps by touching his rough habit.

The crowd flocked to him devoutly, for they longed to ‘be’ with God.

Francis, a servant of Christ, was a simple man yet eager to ‘dwell’ with the Lord, so that he might conform himself to the Gospel and help his brothers to flourish and grow in the path of unwavering faith.

For this reason, as soon as he was free, he would withdraw into solitude to pray, seeking enlightenment and a deeper commitment to the divine plan, without fear.

The Sources portray Francis as an ‘Alter Christus’, in whose image he was even in his solitude ‘on the Mount’ to enter into the intimacy of the Father.

Indeed, we read:

“Desiring to devote himself solely to God and to purify his spirit from the dust of the world, which might have defiled him whilst living amongst men, the blessed and venerable Father Francis one day withdrew to a place of contemplation and silence [La Verna], leaving behind the crowds who flocked devoutly to him every day to hear and see him.

He was in the habit of dividing and allocating the time granted to him for the acquisition of graces, as he deemed most appropriate: one part for the good of his neighbour, the other reserved for solitary contemplation. He therefore took with him a very small number of companions, among the closest and most intimately involved in his life, so that they might shield him from visits and the disturbance of others and serve as loving and faithful guardians of his peace.

He remained in that solitude for a certain period, and having attained, through intimate prayer and frequent contemplation, an extraordinary intimacy with God, he longed to know what about him and within him might be most pleasing to the eternal King” (FF 479).

He knew, in fact, that he would help to develop the disciples’ fearful faith only through a trusting surrender to God, who does not cause one to falter or drown in dangers.

In the face of adverse winds, the stability of the existential ‘boat’ in God’s hands brings salvation.

«And having sent the crowds away, he went up the mountain by himself to pray» (Mt 14:23)

Tuesday of the 18th wk. in Ordinary Time (Mt 14:22–36)

The Lord feels compassion for the crowd following him, and wants to share the loaves and fishes.

So his disciples, invited to feed so many people, fed about five thousand people with twelve baskets leftover.

A reminder of the unimaginable abundance of the Eucharist, Bread of Life for all.

Francis, who described himself as "simple and idiotic", had a special heart that enabled him to perceive the depths of the Mystery of Christ's total self-giving.

Celano points out in the Vita Prima:

"Friend of simplicity, with an incomparably sincere and noble heart. And how much this name of "Francis" suits him, to him who had a frank and noble heart more than any other" (FF 529).

His compassion for needy and poor people was visceral:

"He stooped, with marvellous tenderness and compassion, towards anyone afflicted by some physical suffering and when he noticed in someone indigence or need, in the sweet pity of his heart, he considered it as a suffering of Christ himself" (FF 1142).

Indeed, before Jesus, Bread descended from Heaven, he expresses himself in his Admonitions thus:

"Behold, every day he humbles himself [...] 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 [...] and as they with the eyes of the body saw only the flesh of him, but contemplating him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that he was the same God, so we too, seeing bread and wine with the eyes of the body, must see and firmly believe that this is his most holy body and blood alive and true.

And in this way the Lord is always with his faithful, as he himself says: «Behold I am with you to the end of the world» " (FF 144-145).

And in his letters:

«O sublime humility! O humble sublimity [...] Behold, brothers, the humility of God, and open your hearts before him; humble yourselves also, that you may be exalted by him. NOTHING, THEREFORE, OF YOU HOLD BACK FOR YOURSELVES, THAT HE WHO OFFERS HIMSELF TOTALLY TO YOU MAY RECEIVE YOU TOTALLY» (FF 221).

But an example of 'Bread given' comes to us no less from Clare of Assisi:

"There was only one bread, in the monastery, and already the hour of supper and hunger were pressing. Calling the dispenser, the saint commanded her to divide the bread and send one part to the brothers, keeping the other inside, for the sisters.

From this second half kept, she ordered her to cut fifty slices, as was the number of the Women, and to present them to them at the table of poverty.

And to the devout daughter, who replied, "It would take the ancient miracles of Christ, to be able to cut so little bread into fifty slices," the Mother replied, saying:

«Do safely what I tell you daughter!».

So hastened the daughter to carry out the Mother's command; and hastened the Mother to address more sighs to her Christ, for her daughters.

And by divine grace that scanty matter grows in the hands of her who breaks it, so that an abundant portion results for each member of the community" (FF 3189).

«Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, not counting women and children» (Mt 14:21)

18th Sunday in O.T. (year A)  (Mt 14:13–21)

The evangelist Matthew also recounts the episode of the Baptist's martyrdom.

Herod wanted to have John killed because he reproached him for his offences, but at the same time he feared the crowd who considered him a prophet.

The theme of persecution combined with the people's favour for the man of God is also present in the story of St Francis.

In the Sources:

"Since the herald of Christ was famous for these and many other prodigies, the people paid attention to his words, as if an Angel of the Lord were speaking.

For the prerogative of the lofty virtues, the spirit of prophecy, the thaumaturgical power, the mission to preach coming from heaven, the obedience of creatures deprived of reason, the sudden conversions of hearts brought about by hearing his word, the knowledge infused by the Holy Spirit and superior to human doctrine, the authorisation to preach granted by the Supreme Pontiff by divine revelation, as well as the Rule, which defines the form of preaching, confirmed by the Vicar of Christ himself and, finally, the signs of the Supreme King impressed like a seal on his body, are like ten testimonies for the whole world and confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Francis, the herald of Christ, is worthy of veneration for the mission received, authentic in the doctrine taught, admirable for his holiness and that, therefore, he preached the Gospel of Christ as a true envoy of God" (FF 1221).

For this he too encountered persecution.

But to his brethren, in the Regola non bollata, he reminds them:

«And let all the friars, wherever they are, remember that they have given themselves and abandoned their bodies to our Lord Jesus Christ.

And for his love they must expose themselves to enemies both visible and invisible, for the Lord says:

'He who loses his soul for my sake will save it for eternal life' » (FF 45).

Francis sacrificed his whole self on the altar of charity and poverty for the sake of the Kingdom, leaving a shining example.

«Herod, wanting to kill him, was afraid of the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet» (Mt 14:5)

Saturday of the 17th wk. in O.T.  (Mt 14,1-12)

Chapter thirteen of Matthew's Gospel highlights the rejection of Jesus by the inhabitants of Nazareth.

The Lord is amazed at the unbelief found in his homeland and the contempt reserved for him, so much so that he cannot perform any wonders there.

Like Jesus, so is his disciple.

Following in Christ's footsteps, Francis of Assisi too would have wished that the people of his time had been builders and choristers of other dreams.

But in his life he met (and with him his friars) men in whom often dwelt the inability to recognise the figure of the divine in the human.

A hardness that went hand in hand with that contempt for the prophetic and tended to nullify what was revolutionary in the spirit of the Poverello: the happy intuition of the valorisation of the person.

We find in the authoritative Sources:

"If Guido [a benefactor] treated them with such regard, others instead covered them with contempt. People of high and lowly status mocked and maligned them, even to the point of stripping them of their miserable garments.

The servants of God remained naked because, according to the evangelical ideal, they wore nothing but that one piece of clothing, and moreover they did not demand the return of what was taken from them [...].

Some threw mud on them; others put dice in their hands, inviting them to play; still others, grabbing them from behind by the hood, dragged them on their backs.

These and other such wickednesses were inflicted on them, because they were thought to be such mean beings, that they could be scrambled at will.

Together with hunger and thirst, with cold and nakedness, they endured tribulations and sufferings of all kinds.

But they bore everything with imperturbable patience, according to the admonition of Francis" (FF 1444).

«There is no prophet despised except in his own country and his own house» (Mt 13:57)

No longer a local child:

Son of Pietro di Bernardone (rich merchant) and Monna Pica, Francis had left all worldly and local affiliations to follow Christ and his Word.

For this he and his brothers were mocked and sidelined by the arrogance of many, incredulous towards the model of life that their witness provided.

We read in the Sources about Francis:

"The Spirit of the Lord who had anointed and sent him, assisted his servant Francis, wherever he went Christ himself, the power and wisdom of God, assisted him" (FF 1210).

Despite the little faith of the bystanders Jesus so conformed him to himself that he relived all his mysteries in his flesh.

Friday 17th wk in O.T.  (Mt 13,54-58)

In the Gospels, the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a net that gathers all sorts of fish, which are then selected by the fishermen.

One day Francis, walking with Aegidius, confided to him the following:

"«Our religious movement will be similar to the fisherman, who casts his nets into the water and catches a multitude of fish; then, letting the small ones fall into the water, he piles up the big ones in baskets».

He prophesied with this simile the expansion of his Order" (FF 1436).

At the same time he never forgot the judgement of God who discerns Good and Evil, and the Lords whom we have served. Hence the final judgement on our actions.

Francis lived his entire existence in the fear of God and so did Clare; committed to ensuring that there were good fish in their Order.

And again, in the Legend of the Three Companions:

"Divine Grace had profoundly changed him. Although he did not wear a religious habit, he longed to find himself unknown in some city, where he could barter his clothes for the rags of a beggar and himself try begging for the love of God' (FF 1405).

The Minim knew that what a poor man received was addressed to Christ himself and that a single glass of water given to the small and marginalised was offered to Jesus.

His encounter with the leper in the plain of Assisi had turned bitterness into true sweetness in him.

Francis feared divine judgement and wanted to correspond to what the Word of God demanded of him.

He wanted to be that good fish at the service of the kingdom of heaven through a life spent for his neighbour.

«The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers all kinds of fish. When it was full, and having hauled it up on the shore, they [the fishermen] gathered the good fish into baskets but threw out the bad ones» (Mt 13:47-48)

Thursday of the 17th wk. in O.T.  (Mt 13,47-53)

Francis of Assisi, the Knower and the Least of God, always had clear in his conscience the importance and necessity of the contemplative life, tempered by work that keeps idleness at bay and conforms to Christ. He demanded this for himself and for his brothers. He went so far as to say that serving his brothers was worth more than any stay in the hermitages, where he himself loved to go when he could.

We read in his writings:

«And I worked with my own hands, and I want to work; and I firmly want all the other brothers to work as befits honesty. Those who do not know, let them learn, not out of greed to receive the reward of work, but to set an example and keep idleness at bay» (FF 119).

Furthermore: «We are convinced that [...] those who live differently in hermitages have been reproached a great deal. Many, in fact, transform the place of contemplation into idleness and the hermit's way of life, instituted to allow souls perfection, reduces it to a place of pleasure [...] Certainly this reproach is not for everyone. We know that there are saints [...] who follow excellent laws in the hermitage» (FF 765).

Even among the friars there was discussion about whether to live in contemplation or action, in fact in the Major Legend it is written:

"While, firm in their holy purpose, they faced the Spoletana valley, they began to discuss whether they should spend their lives among the people or dwell in solitary places.

But Francis, the servant of Christ, not trusting in his own experience or that of his own, entrusted himself to prayer, in order to insistently seek what the disposition of the divine will was on this point.

He was thus enlightened with an answer from Heaven and understood that he had been sent by the Lord for this purpose: to win souls for Christ [...] And so he chose to live for all, rather than for himself alone, spurred on by the example of the One who deigned to die, He alone, for all men" (FF 1066).

But love for prayer and listening to the Word always accompanied his actions and those of his brothers.

"The tireless dedication to prayer [...] had brought the man of God to such clarity of spirit that [...] he scrutinised the depths of the Scriptures with a clear and acute intellect.

He read the sacred books and kept tenaciously imprinted in his memory what he had once assimilated: for he continually ruminated with affectionate devotion what he had listened to with an attentive mind" (FF1187).

The Poverello and Clare of Assisi had well understood that at the basis of their lives was the choice of the good part that no one would ever take away from them.

Listening to the Word and the relationship with Jesus were the driving motives behind every gesture, which took its flavour from being with God and with faith.

Clare, in fact, in a letter to her spiritual daughter, Agnes of Bohemia, writes:

«The love of Him makes one happy, contemplation restores, kindness fills. The gentleness of him pervades the whole soul, the memory shines sweetly in the memory» (FF 2901 - letter four).

Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus  (ref. Lk 10:38-42)

Francis, the Little One of God, often instructed his brethren not to be servants of the weeds sown in the world by the evil one, not to follow his perverse and anti-Gospel logic. He recommended that they live the Word sown by Christ. 

We find, in fact, in his writings:

«All those who [...] walk after evil concupiscence [...] and do not observe those things which they have promised to the Lord and serve [...] the cares of the world and the preoccupations of this life: these are prisoners of the devil, whose children they are and do the works; they are blind, for they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ. They do not have spiritual Wisdom, for they do not possess the Son of God, who is the true wisdom of the Father» (FF 178/4).

Also, as he explained to the Supreme Pontiff to whom he went for approval of the Rule, the children of God have nothing to fear:

«There is no need to fear that the children and heirs of the Eternal King should die of hunger; for they, in the likeness of Christ, were born of a poor mother, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, and were begotten, by virtue of the spirit of poverty, into a poor religion.

For if the King of Heaven promises to his imitators the Eternal Kingdom, how much more will he provide for them those things which he bestows without distinction on the good and the bad» (FF 1064).

«The good field is the world; the good seed, these are the children of the Kingdom. Whereas the tares are the sons of the wicked» (Mt 13:38)

Tuesday of the 17th wk. in O.T.  (Mt 13,36-43)