Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi

Readings and Sequence for the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, October 4

or Lectionary: 651

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation.
Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God.
From now on, let no one make troubles for me;
for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.

"Pace bene!" Francis called to friends and strangers as he walked the dusty roads of Italy. They wondered what on earth he could mean, That was a most unfamiliar greeting, never heard on street corners or in church. "Peace and good?" 

And this from a man with every appearance of a beggar. They might expect him to beg for alms; they might expect him to avoid their polite company; they would not expect a happy greeting of "Peace and Goodness!" 

When the world suspected anything that smacked of newness, Francis had been shown a new way of life and he introduced it to the world with a simple greeting. A nation of warring cities, in the habit of wasting cities, farms, and villages; of sacrificing young men to war and young women to kidnap; all too familiar with corruption in government and church: this young beggar greeted with Pace bene!

But his greeting was not a mocking, satirical remark as if the world should be a better place. Peace and good were gifts to a world in desperate need of both.  They came from the Crucified Lord who had spoken to Francis in the ruined church of San Damiano. 

"Peace and mercy!" Saint Paul had said to his Galatian disciples, remembering Jesus's farewell: 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

A nation troubled by memories of a civil war that transformed slavery into Jim Crow segregation, redlining, and gated communities -- a war that has never ended -- says it wants peace and good despite its practices of abortion, capital punishment, and "assisted" suicide. 

The way of peace they know not,

and there is no justice on their paths;

Their roads they have made crooked,

no one who walks in them knows peace. Isaiah 59:8

Saint Francis of Assisi saw the wisdom, beauty, and power of the cross like few men before or since. He invited his contemporaries to lay down their arms, to beat their swords into plowshares, and to hear a new greeting, Pace bene!