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From the Major Life of St.
Francis by Brother Bonaventure
As the moment of his
death drew near, the saint had all the friars who were there
called to his side; he spoke to them gently with fatherly affection, consoling
them for his death and exhorting them to love God. He mentioned
especially poverty and patient endurance and the necessity of holding to the
faith of the holy Roman Church, and gave the Gospel pre-eminence over any
other rule of life. The friars were grouped about him and he
stretched out his arms over them in the form of a cross, because he loved the
sign, and blessed all the friars, both present and absent, in the
power and in the name of the Crucified. Then he added, "I bid you good bye,
all you my sons, in the fear of God. Remain in Him always. There
will be trials and temptations in the future, and it is well for
those who persevere in the life they have undertaken. I am on my
way to God, and I commend you all to his favor." When he had finished his
inspiring admonition, he told them to bring a book of the Gospels and
asked to have the passage of St. John read which begins, "Before the Pascal
feast began..." Then, as best he could, he intoned the psalm,
"Loud is my cry to the Lord, the prayer I utter for the Lord's
mercy," and recited it all down to the last verse, "Too long have honest hearts
waited to see you grant me redress." At last, when all God's
mysteries had been accomplished in him, his holy soul was freed from his body
and assumed into the abyss of God's glory, and Francis fell asleep
in God. One of the friars, a disciple of his, saw his soul being
borne on a white cloud over many waters to heaven, under the appearance of a
radiant star. It shone with the brightness of sublime sanctity,
full of the abundance of divine wisdom and grace which had earned for him the
right to enter the home of light and peace, where he rests with
Christ forever. (Major Life, XIV, 5-6)
Oct 4 - Our Holy Father St. Francis 1182-1226
Francis was the son of Peter Bernardone, a wealthy merchant of Assisi. Peter intended that his first-born should follow him in his career. But Francis was in no way avaricious as was his father. Rather, he was very generous and in gay good humor readily disposed of anything at his command.
Our Lord, whose delight it
is to show mercy to the merciful, intended to tear Francis away from the danger
of worldly pleasures and draw him to Himself. He permitted Francis to become
seriously ill. As Francis lay in the solitude of the sick chamber,
exhausted in body, his soul was being prepared by God for higher things. He
felt a great longing for perfection, and heroic self-conquest was needed as a
foundation for that edifice. When Francis recovered his health, he was one day crossing the plain of Assisi on horseback, when he met a leper. The unexpected sight filled him with horror, and he was minded to turn back. But he remembered his resolution, dismounted, and hastened to kiss the hand of the leper and then pressed an alms into it. As he remounted and turned to salute the leper once more, there was no one to be seen anywhere on the plain. Seemingly Christ had appeared to him in the form of a leper. Francis so loved the poor that he frequently associated with them. Complying with a divine command, he also begged stones to repair three ruined churches. His father was enraged at the strange conduct, and had his son brought before the bishop of Assisi. There Francis returned to his father not only the money he had but the clothes he wore, saying: "Now I can truly say, Our Father, who art in heaven." The bishop gave him an old gardener's cloak, on the back of which Francis drew a cross with a piece of white chalk. He now begged our Lord to make known to him His will regarding the future.
Soon after, Francis was at
holy Mass in the Portiuncula. Hearing the Gospel in which our Lord commissions
His apostles to carry about with them neither gold, nor silver, nor two coats,
nor shoes, the heart of Francis was filled with joy, for he recognized in it the
will of God regarding his own life. In a coarse penitential garb,
girded with a cord, without shoes, he entered upon a life of complete poverty
and began to preach penance. This occurred in the year 1208. Francis was then
about 26 years old. Several companions soon joined him. When there were eleven in number, he went with them to Rome, where Pope Innocent III gave his approval to the new order. They lived in the severest poverty and in brotherly harmony, preaching penance to the people both by their example and by their words. The holy founder called them Friars Minor, so that they might always regard the virtue of humility as the foundation of perfection. He himself was so humble that, when the people proclaimed him a saint, he called himself the greatest sinner. "For," he said, "if God had given the greatest criminal the graces He has given me, he would have used them to better advantage than I have done."
The order grew rapidly. In
1219, at the renowned Chapter of the Mats, more than 5,000 brethren were
gathered together. As Christ sent His apostles to preach the
Gospel to all nations, so Francis sent out his brethren. He himself
courageously faced the Sultan of Egypt and announced to him that salvation could
be found only in Christ.
In order to open the way of
perfection for all who wished to imitate his life, Francis established a Second
Order headed by St. Clare, and a Third Order, for people of both sexes living in
the world. His love for souls inspired him to labor for all his fellowmen. Still, his desire to be more intimately united with God caused him to retire again and again to a solitary place to fast and pray. He was consumed with ever increasing love for the highest and greatest Good. "In the beauty of things," says St. Bonaventure, "he saw the Author of all beauty, and followed in the footsteps of his Beloved, who has imprinted His image on all created things." Drunk with love, he could call upon creatures to extol the Creator with him, and the birds joined him in singing the praises of God. It was above all the passion and death of Christ on the Cross that filled his heart with love of his Savior, and he strove to become as similar to the object of his love as possible. Two years before his death, on Mount La Verna, the crucified Savior appeared to Francis in the form of a seraph and impressed on his body the marks of the five sacred wounds.
Francis knew in advance the
day of his death. Painful suffering preceded it, but Francis thanked God for it
and declared himself ready to suffer a hundred times more if God so willed. Prepared by all the consolations of Holy Church, and lying on the bare ground in imitation of his Savior's death on the cross, Francis passed to his heavenly home on October 3, 1226.
ON FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OUR HOLY FATHER FRANCIS 1. Our holy Father St. Francis can say to us all: "Be followers of me, as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor 4:16). He felt a strong attachment for the poor, because he saw in them the poor Christ. And because he always beheld Christ in poverty from the Crib to the Cross, he longed for the greatest poverty; he wanted to be deprived of everything material, that he might find God and call Him his own. He would cry out in holy rapture through entire nights: "My God and my all!" -- Would that all the children of St. Francis were imbued with this spirit.
2. Consider that we must
above all forsake ourselves in order to attain intimate union with God. "The
one thing that is supremely necessary for a man," says Thomas a Kempis (2,11),
"is that having left all things else, he leave also himself and retain nothing
in self-love." "If you would know perfectly," he has our Lord say to us (3,42),
"how to annihilate yourself and empty yourself of all created love, then would I
come to you with great grace." That was the source of the rich
stream of grace that flowed into St. Francis. Free of all self-love, he
sacrificed himself for others, and in humility he called himself and his
brethren Friars Minor, looking upon himself as in all sincerity as the greatest
of sinners. Do you strive as earnestly as your holy Father did, to forsake
yourself?
3. Consider how the poor
and humble heart of our holy Father Francis raised itself to God by means of the
things of earth. He saw in created things whatever they possessed of goodness,
usefulness, and beauty. But his heart did not cling to these
things; rather, his thoughts mounted to the Author of all that is good, useful,
and beautiful. Created things became for him the rungs of a ladder on which he
climbed to the uncreated Source of all good. Burning with love, he
then called upon all created things to join him in thanking and praising the
Creator; thanking Him also for all suffering through which God accomplished His
Holy will in him. With the praise of God on his lips, he went into eternity in
order to continue it at the throne of God amid the choirs of the seraphim. --
May our holy Father Francis intercede for us there today, that we may be enabled
to follow in his footsteps.
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH O God, who didst enrich Thy Church through the merits of our holy Father St. Francis and the establishment of a new congregation, grant us the grace to imitate him in despising the things of this world and to merit in eternity to share the heavenly gifts. Through Christ our Lord. Amen
from THE FRANCISCAN BOOK OF SAINTS edited by Marion Habig, ofm. October 3: The Transitus
The ceremony began with a procession outside, where we carried a dormant figure of the Saint lying on a stretcher. This figure was lit from the inside and lights were dimmed as we entered chapel. Psalm 142 was slowly chanted. Then, as previously rehearsed, we read from various stories in St. Francis's life leading to his death. Everyone was involved. There was a small group of people from the village who were considered friends of the friary and they participated in this beautiful ceremony. Fred
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For
many Franciscans of more mature years, the very mention of the "O sanctissima
anima," the "Voce mea," and the "Salve, sancte Pater" trigger melodies and
movements which evoke memories of what once constituted a significant part of
Franciscan identity, that once-a-year-day when we sang those beautiful chants
and honored Saint Francis in the ritual of the "Transitus" in the evening of
October 3rd, as a manifestation of the abiding personal presence of Francis of
Assisi among us. The author remembers the profound effect of that ceremony as a
Franciscan Novice at Cedar Lake, Indiana.