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St Francis of Assisi 
Rebuild My Church A happy man in a ragged tunic took a hand cart half full of stones and toiled up the steep streets of Assisi - "Anyone who gives me a stone will get a blessing! And if you give me two stones you'll get two blessings." The reactions varied from "You're the son of a rich merchant - get your Dad to pay" to the surreptitious widow's mite - half a cold pastry to feed the would-be church builder. This scanty fare he shared with the old beggar who followed him around. The children mocked him and threw mud at him. But Francis lived in a place of joy which human contempt could no longer reach, and he went on singing in French, "Come and help me build Saint Damians.... For he was a jongleur at heart.
It was a hot, humid day, the road was steep and Francis, whose family had long since rejected him, came face to face with his younger brother. The brother looked at him over superciliously. "For how much will you sell me your sweat, Francis?"
Francis shook his head, "I can get a higher price from God." Beyond his brother he saw his father, Pietro Bernadone. The old man spat at him and cursed. They had been through all this before. "These days, I only call God in heaven, my Father," he replied, "but I must have someone to bless me". Francis turned to the old beggar who followed him. " You give me a Father's blessing, old Uncle," he said, and knelt at the beggar's feet.
Like Nazareth, Assisi was an ordinary town. It took great perseverance and miracles to impress inhabitants so reluctant to have prophets in their midst. Francis was born in 1181. He belonged to the minores - the non-noble end of the town, [unlike Clare, who was one of the, majores, the aristocracy.] His father, a rich merchant bent on social climbing, had him educated with knighthood in view. When in a political shake up the Imperial nobility, Clare along with them, were exiled, Francis would have been among those who helped to pull down the Rocca, the residence of the Imperial Vicar.
However, the wheel turned and Francis found himself a prisoner of war in Perugia. In the miserable wait to be ransomed, God slowly began inserting new ideas into his head, and when he got home, still nursing jail Fever, people began to notice a change. In a series of symbolic events God spoke to him. Three of them formed the direction of his life.
Rebuild my Church
Francis stopped to pray in the little ruined church of St Damian's and as he prayed before the crucifix for "Right faith, firm hope and perfect charity," he heard the Lord's voice: "Francis, rebuild my Church which you see, is falling down." Francis did; he set out, gathered stones and rebuilt St Damian's, St Mary of the Angels and other damaged shrines. It was only as his life developed that he understood that what he was to rebuild - on the foundations of the Gospel - was the Universal Church.
From ‘St Francis of Assisi’, written by the Poor Clare Colettines of Tŷ Mam Duw: http://www.poorclarestmd.org/index.htm |
You are someone who is incredibly precious to God, who called you by your name and loved you from all eternity. Whoever you are and whatever you are, you are never alone. In all your joys and sorrows, successes and failures, thrills and spills, he is there, at your side.