Daily Readings with St. Francis of Assisi

Daily Readings

by Francis of Assisi, Elizabeth M. Klepec (Editor)

There is probably no saint as appealing to so many people as Francis of Assisi. Even in the wild company of the saints his literal acceptance of the Gospel stands out. We love the Francis who was kind, and the Francis who composed hymns to the sun is marvelous, but it is hard to feel near to the Francis who stripped himself naked to show his independence from his family, or who threw himself into thorn bushes. Francis was in worldly terms uncompromising and unrealistic. It is this Francis we must try to understand-the fool for Christ, who said that the Passion and the humiliation of Jesus were all the instruction he needed. The Fioretti speaks of Francis transfigured, so that "his five stigmata were as five beautiful stars and so radiant that they lit the entire palace with their rays." Reading the Fioretti-especially at points like this one-we feel a certain embarrassment, as if we had outgrown that kind of story. But learning to read that kind of story "with eyes that can see" might

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy as a Roman Catholic friar founded the Franciscan order in 1209 and inspired followers with his devotion, simple living, and love of nature; the pope canonized him in 1228.

A mother at Assisi bore him circa 1182, and he died in 1226.

People more commonly know the order of friars minor.

"To most people ... there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of Saint Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be answered fully here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also." --G.K. Chesterton