You have got to shake out of your head the image of St. Francis of garden statues with bunnies and birds. Get rid of the Brother Sun stuff.
In my text group this came up… what a blessing, this group…
St. Francis lived at a time of heretical attacks on the doctrine of the Church facilitated by the weaknesses of its hierarchy.
He set out to combat such crisis by showing a love for Christ – one at times hard to comprehend in its “excesses” – which was surely aided by uncommon gifts by the Holy Spirit but was also a spiritual version of the knight he had been educated to be.
His weapons were extreme penance – to reform oneself before reforming anything else – and uncompromising adherence to Catholic truth. This would show in the personal poverty of the friars and in the uncompromising care for Liturgy and the Sacraments. This would prove heretical arguments false and surreptitious. Not perchance he is considered a patron saint of the Roman Missal which he and his friars propagated well before Trent.
He sought to imitate Christ in His sacrificial love but never asked anybody to imitate what he himself was doing. He only asked two things of his friars: to follow the Rule and “to be Catholic” and wrote and preached so every time he could. Granted the Rule was tough, but he did much more than what it required, trying to hide it from his friars for fear they’d be discouraged. In fact, he forbade his friars form judging those who could not live as friars, he was an enemy of the sectarian mentality. But had no patience for those friars who were found to be unfaithful to the doctrine of the Church.
His writings leave no doubts about that unlike modernists and heretics, he didn’t think he had “the” solution to the Church’s problems. He knew that only Christ is the solution and that you only encounter Christ in the Church. So, he set out to do just that, to the point of being transformed almost physically into another Christ, his body pierced his soul burning to save as many as he could.
Our day brightened at 07:09 and it will darken at 18:48, if storm clouds don’t darken it first.
It began with optimism. It devolved into irritation.
Breakfast in Brooklyn.
Yeah, a lot of food was had. It was all terrific.
