The Feast of Our Holy Father Saint Francis

....in whose time the house of God was renovated, in whose days the temple was reinforced.


Early in its history the Franciscan Order received extraordinary permission to celebrate its saints, especially its founder, Francis of Assisi, with our own liturgical prayers and readings. Beginning with the celebration of Transitus on October 3rd, this feast is always a big event for us. 


Saint Francis' friars were especially amazed at the newness of his experience. Medievals had a profound suspicion about anything new. Newness was revolutionary and upsetting. It was unpredictable and dangerous; and life was dangerous enough already. So when Francis went about greeting people with Pace Bene (Peace and Good) they wondered what he meant by that. Why didn't he just say buon giorno like everyone else? 
But the times were changing. Merchants were bringing foreign goods to local markets; they were using money instead of barter. Banks were reappearing after centuries of disuse. A small middle class was growing more confident of its right to exist. They often had more money than the aristocrats and could lend to them at interest. They dared even to buy their way into the aristocracy, as Francis' father intended to purchase knighthood for his son. 
Francis brought that middle class brashness to his new way of life. Whoever heard of monks without monasteries or hermits who traveled over land and sea? Francis and his friars did those things. They lived in the open, with the clouds for blankets and the sun for warmth. Rather than providing for their own table by farming they preached the Good News in the market squares and relied on the crowds to repay them with food. 
It was all very upsetting -- and exciting. 
The leaders of the Church, especially Francis' personal friend Cardinal Ugolino of Segni (the bishop of Assisi who was later elected Pope Gregory IX) saw the potential of this new movement for reforming the whole church. As pope, no one was in a better position to see the rottenness at the core of the church which had reached its apex of religious, political, social, economic, intellectual and military power in the thirteenth century. Francis' vision of Jesus as the impoverished Son of God and Child of Mary, his lifestyle of poverty, and his inexhaustible enthusiasm were just what the Church needed. 


Many historians consider Saint Francis of Assisi the most influential man of the second millennium. He did not set out to change anyone but himself, and he did that only by letting the Lord change him. Francis would subscribe to the teaching of another saint who found God in deep poverty, Blessed Charles de Foucauld: 

The moment I realized God existed, I knew that I could not do otherwise than to live for Him Alone..