Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 99

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

Saint Francis of Assisi, born in wealth but schooled with little discipline, enjoyed a life of indolence until he was shocked into maturity by military service. Actually, it wasn't much service. He had little training and not much familiarity with weapons. He was captured in battle by soldiers from the neighboring city of Perugia and spent a year of his youth in a dungeon.

Returning home when his father ransomed him, sick and not much the wiser, he attempted to return to his idle, bachelor ways. But life was moving on without him as he stood on the sidelines.

And then one day -- we're not too sure how it happened -- he had a vision of Jesus as a poor man. According to one legend, he actually saw a beautiful young woman dressed in rags. Astonished by her beauty he knew she was the Bride of Christ. He called her Lady Poverty and believed she had been widowed since the day Jesus died. Older, traditional images of Jesus always depicted his divinity. The Lord enjoyed infinite power, honor, and majesty. He was King of kings and Lord of lords. Like any emperor, king or pope, Jesus could do anything he wanted to do and go where he wanted to go, accompanied by servile saints and angels.

But Francis discovered a different Jesus, one who has nowhere to rest his head.

Francis had grown up in dysfunctional, violent family. His father, Pietro Bernadone, was greedy, ambitious, unhappy, and absent. His mother was kinder than his father but ineffectual. Breaking free of his past, Francis met a Lord who was free, happy and very near. Driven by the Holy Spirit into solitude, Francis began to study in the school of poverty. He could miss meals, wander the country, and talk with strangers above and below his own class. At one point he went to Rome where, for a few days and just for the fun of it, he begged for food. He didn't die of hunger! He actually felt more free with owning less!

Eventually the young man committed himself to Jesus and to an unheard-of way of life, the life of poverty. He believed the evangelical lifestyle was an imitation of Christ -- homeless, poor, insecure, with no provision for tomorrow. God would provide. If he had food he thanked God for satisfaction; if he starved he thanked God for hunger. If he suffered the heat of the summer sun or the chill of winter nights, he did it with the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. When beset by robbers and stripped of his rags, he laughed to find he was still alive!

Francis recognized how often we bind ourselves to possessions, positions, opinions, and policies, at the cost of happiness and freedom. Trusting Jesus's reassurance -- "Your Father knows what you need!" -- he threw himself on God's mercy. He wasn't testing God or trying to prove anything. He didn't believe in impersonal forces like karma, fate, or luck. There were no machines in the medieval world; nothing happened automatically. Everything that happened was personal and intentional.

Francis saw the superabundant generosity of God the Father in all creation even as he set out to imitate Christ. Like Jesus, he would trust the Spirit of God to tell him hour by hour what to do and how to do it.

Not many are called to imitate Jesus in Francis's manner. He was given an extraordinary grace which proved, if nothing else, that some people are given extraordinary graces. It's pointless to compare oneself with them. But we learn from the Saint to trust the Spirit who would direct our interests, desires, and passions, who would set us free to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.