HAPPY FEAST DAY!!
Well today we celebrate the feast of our Holy Father St. Francis (1181-1226). I as sure the all of you have heard of him, if not you surly have seen a statue of him in a garden as a bird bath.
There is much that can be said about this man from the little town of Assisi north of Rome He was the son of a rather wealthy merchant in town. He was known to have been quite the “man about town”. In his early days, he truly live the ‘good life.”
But somewhere along the way, as with most of us, Francis had to”grow-up.” He found that his “foot loose and fancy free life style” would have to come to an end. He thought that he would become a knight and fight for Assisi against the neighboring town of Perugia. And as we know was captured and spent the next year in a prison until his father was able to pay his ransom.
The next adventure was that he wanted to go off to the Holy Land and fight the Muslims to “liberate” the holy shrines there. Well, God in his way, had something else in mind and as he was taking care of hie horse, as the story goes, he heard a voice telling him to return to Assisi. This event began his great conversion. The following days, many thought that he had some kind of mental breakdown. But Francis was undergoing a profound remaking of himself into what God was calling him to be.
I guess we all have had some experience in our lives where we had to “grow up.” It may not have been as dramatic as we see with Francis but it did put up on the road, as Robert Frost would say, the “one less taken”.
Later in life Francis would write, “Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” Given in what Francis went through in his life, I would dare say he lived out every word of that statement.
Francis’ life would be a good read. God, in His own way, took this “man about town” and made him into a saint that is venerated through out the world. Just keep in mind as a dear friend of mine told me, “God don’t make junk!”
Peace and All Good,
Fr. Vinnie, osf and the
Bros and Srs of the
Franciscan House of Prayer.