4.10.2009 @ 08:00

St. Francis of Assisi - homily

Saint Francis of Assisi (Assisi – Oct. 4, 2009)
Br. Jose Rodriguez Carballo, ofm - Minister General

“Why to you? Why to you? Why to you, Br. Francis?” was the question addressed by one of his companions to our father and brother Francis. “Why to you? Why to you? Why to you, Br. Francis” “Why to you? Why to you? Why to you, Br. Francis?” Why does the whole world continue to look upon you in profound admiration after 800 yrs since you passed from the scene? Why do so many men and women continue to venerate you as both father and master, plus follow your example? Why do believers and non-believers alike look to you when they speak of the commitment to justice, peace, and the defense of nature? “Why to you? Why to you? Why to you, Br. Francis?”

I don’t know, my dear brothers, how St. Francis would reply to these questions; but I, who have asked myself the same questions over and over again, think that the secret of the timeliness of Francis lies in the fact that he allowed himself to be transformed by Christ – although those who don’t share our faith may not understand it. Francis is before anything else a believer, a man who encountered the poor and crucified Christ and allowed himself to be captivated by His beauty. Bonaventure describes Francis as the “friend of Christ” (LM 13, 3), and Clare as his “little plant”; the latter speaks of the former in her testament as a “true lover and imitator of Christ” (TestCl 5). Such is Francis, indeed, a true lover of Christ that was able to identify himself fully with Christ to the point that he can apply to himself the words of St. Paul who said of himself, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2, 20). Just as Paul allowed himself to be found by the Risen One on the road to Damascus, so Francis allowed himself to be found by the poor and crucified Christ in the hermit of San Damiano, the embrace of the leper, and the listening of Sacred Scripture in the Porziuncula. Since then, his life had changed forever.

“At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to the little ones’ (Mt.11:25). After Christ grieved for those who didn’t receive his word (Mt. 11:20-24), the evangelist Matthew shows us the joy of those who receive it. This joy is called the “Magnificat of Jesus” to the Father for having revealed himself to the “little ones”, the silent wisdom of the little ones, the “learned ignorance” of the pure of heart to whom God makes himself seen (Mt. 5:8). The wise of this world seek a wise and powerful god. The “little ones”, instead, seek the wisdom and power of God right where it is, i.e., in weakness, in the cross, for “but far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Among the “little ones” is St. Francis, the lesser brother par excellence; he who, because of his love of a lover was transformed in the beloved – as the Seraphic Doctor describes him (LM 5). God is not the object of the conquest of intelligence; rather, he is the beginning and end of our love. God does not peer into the window of our mind; rather, he looks for the door of our hearts to enter into it.

Here lies the reason for Francis timeliness, viz., for having discovered Christ as the sole good – as the Psalm states in today’s liturgy (Ps. 15). To search elsewhere for the timeliness of the Little Poor one would be to head in the wrong direction. If Francis embraced the leper and that embrace changed his heart, it was because he discovered Christ in the “leper” (LM 1, 6). If he sang creation as his sister, it was because he saw the Creator in her, for all about her is a revelation full of meaning (Cant 5). If he loved his brothers more than a mother loves her children (Rb 6:8), it is because he saw in them the “gifts of God” (Test 14). If he worked for peace and reconciliation (MP 101), it is because he discovered that “Christ is our Peace” (Eph 2:14). Francis has a Christian vision of the human person and the universe. For him, everything was a “sign” and “sacrament”. He saw Christ as the beginning, center, and end of all things. Christ for St. Francis was everything: the beginning and the end, the first and the last reason behind his existence and his most radical options for poverty and minority.

“For to me to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21). Francis experienced the power of divine grace and he was as though both dead and live. All the riches he possessed, all that was a cause of pride and security, everything he considered a “lost” from the moment he encountered the crucified and risen Jesus (Phil 3:7-11). Thus, to relinquish everything and to be crucified to the world (Gal 6:14) becomes something almost necessary to express the superabundance of the gift received. This gift is so great, in fact, that it requires a total expropriation.

Francis “understood himself in light of the Gospel” (Benedict XVI) and in the light of Christ. This, therefore, is what fascinates us about the son of Lady Pica, i.e., that he became a living Gospel. Behold how he rebuilds the Church! Behold how he fortified the sanctuary according to the expression of the first letter we have just heard (cf. Sir 50:1ss)! “Francis, go, rebuild My Church, for as you can see, it is falling into ruins” (2 Cel 10). Furthermore, it is not stone by stone that Francis is to rebuild the Church – something he eventually realizes later on in his life. The little poor man of Assisi repaired the Church by allowing himself be transformed by Christ; and from this standpoint of a transformed, he saw both the human person and the universe with the eyes of Christ. The son of Peter Bernardone consolidated the Church (Sir 50, 1) by loving Christ passionately and with the heart of Christ loving all of humanity, especially wounded humanity lying on the side of the road half dead. The Stigmatized of La Verna protected his people and assured the city (Sir 50:4) by accepting the Gospel for himself and for all who follow him.

800 yrs have passed since the start of the Gospel adventure of Francis. And today as yesterday, Francis shows Christ to us. Francis himself is not the goal, but an example to follow, an example of one seeking the Lord; and, once having found him, again, he becomes an example of radical discipleship and giving of oneself to Christ and others, especially the poorest. It is in this way that he lived and it is also in this way that all who follow or admire him are called to live.

• Francis, father and brother, come! Teach us how to follow Christ through the path paved by the Gospel.
• Francis, father and brother, come! Teach us to discover the poor and crucified Christ as you described him, and to serve him by serving the least, the last, and excluded.
• Francis, father and brother, obtain for us from the Lord the heart of a poor person, so that we can be graced with the revelation of the secrets of heaven.
• Francis, father and brother, obtain for us the grace to be renewed in the spirit of the Gospel and reinstate it by word and deed.
• Francis, father and brother, obtain for us the grace to look upon humanity and the whole of creation with God’s eyes and to love with his heart.
• Francis, father and brother, we need you. This world, so divided and confronted with wars and violence, needs you, so that you may show it the way of peace and reconciliation. The Church needs you to remind her that to live and proclaim the Gospel is her reason for being. The Franciscan Order needs you to remind us that only by living with both fidelity and creativity the way of life you left us can we renew society and the Church we so much love.
• Come, brother and father Francis, we need you.