St Francis of Assisi

Tradition has it that St Francis and St Dominic met in Rome when they were both there to seek ratification for their new Orders from the Pope. The two Orders have regarded themselves as 'first cousins', even 'brothers', ever since. Where possible, Franciscans come to Dominican churches to preach on the feast of St Dominic and Dominicans go to Franciscan churches to preach on the feast of St Francis. Below is the homily given by Br Robert Gay OP at the Capuchin Franciscan church in Oxford for the feast of St Francis, 4th October 2009.

If you were to choose a person on the Cowley Road at random and ask them to name a saint, it would be worth betting a reasonably large amount of money that the answer you would get would be St Francis. I would certainly be very surprised if the answer was St Dominic! There is no doubt that Francis has captured the popular imagination, much more than any other saint. If you were to ask that same person what he knows about St Francis, then he might mention something about animals or birds. And this is where it starts to go wrong. Of course, a love of creation was an important part of Francis’ life, but as with so many of the popular ideas about him, it simply doesn’t do him justice.

Zeffirelli’s famous film, ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’ is just one example of a rather limited, a rather skewed view of who Francis was and what he stood for. I looked at the blurb on the back of the DVD box for the film yesterday, and it says this: ‘Francis sought communion with the natural world, by renouncing his family’s riches to seek his own destiny’. It continues: ‘Francis was, in a sense, history’s first drop out; he left a life of comfort to seek spiritual union with the world’.

The problem with this blurb, and perhaps with many of the popular images of Francis, is that it doesn’t do him justice because it doesn’t mention anything about what his life was really all about. Why? Because it doesn’t mention Jesus Christ. From the moment Francis heard the voice from the cross at San Damiano, he was hooked – he was captivated by Jesus Christ, and he wanted to penetrate the mysteries of his life, and do whatever he had to do to follow him.

I want to suggest to you that Francis’ captivation with the person of Jesus shows us something important about his path to founding the Order, and about his particular route to sainthood. The beginning of this path was an encounter with Jesus, and he continued to be nourished along the way by contemplating Jesus throughout his life. He had a special fascination with the incarnation, something which I think shows itself in three ways, each one related to the other.

Firstly, we see the importance Francis gave to Christ’s infancy, and as I’m sure you know, he is credited with introducing the practice of having a nativity scene in the Church during the Christmas period. He clearly felt that contemplating the child in the manger was an important way of getting close to Christ, and he came to understand what it meant for Christ to be poor, weak, and defenceless.

Francis also saw how the condition of the child in the manger was linked to another episode in Jesus' life; his poverty, weakness and defencelessness during his passion, and his death on the cross, which was his second distinct way of looking at the incarnation. The importance Francis gives to Jesus’ final days is shown in the ‘Office of the Passion’, a collage of scriptural passages that Francis arranged to be used especially during Holy Week. Reading this collection, we can see how he uses the scriptures to outline a contemplative journey: accompanying Jesus in Gethsemane, standing with him before Pilate, witnessing the scourging and crowning with thorns, his crucifixion and death. And we should not forget the marks of Christ's passion, the stigmata, which provided Francis with a personal experience of the suffering of the cross in his later years. His third way of looking at the incarnation was to look at Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament, what looks like a simple piece of bread revealing the Saviour to those who have the eyes of faith. What seems small and insignificant is in fact nothing less than Christ himself.

Through contemplating the incarnation, Francis realised that he had to model his life on this mystery. The way of poverty, vulnerability, the way of suffering and rejection, that Francis saw in Christ was to be his way too. And once he had started living in this way, it had a dramatic effect. Francis began to see the poor, the sick and the marginalised as people just like Jesus Christ. And he saw that to serve these people was to serve Jesus, because they were like Christ in the manger, or Christ on Calvary. And his job, and the job of his brothers, was to tend to their needs, and to speak to them of the one who had become a poor man to share their broken condition. In his service of them, he showed them the love of Christ. For Francis being vulnerable and rejected like Jesus, and serving those who shared that condition brought him true joy, the sign that he had found his vocation.

Today’s feast is a great occasion. It’s a chance to honour Francis and give thanks to God for his life and his witness to Jesus Christ. It’s a chance to give thanks to God for the Order in all its branches, and for the gift of benefactors and friends. But that isn’t all. Whether you are a Friar who has celebrated his golden jubilee, a newly clothed novice, a tertiary, or a member of this parish, it’s a chance to look at Jesus again, through the eyes of Francis. It’s a chance to contemplate the poor vulnerable child in the manger, to contemplate Jesus in his passion and on the cross, and to gaze and adore him present in the Holy Eucharist. And when you pray to him this day, ask that he open your eyes, so that you may see more clearly who are poor, weak, vulnerable, and the needy here in Oxford that he is calling you to serve.