Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Today (4 October 2016), is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.  It will be a day of great celebration at Adraa Agricultural Collage.  Mass will be celebrated in the heart of the College's grounds and this will be followed by tree planting, a celebratory lunch and a football match with the College's staff taking on the students.  But who was St. Francis?  

Saint Francis of Assisi, was born in 1181.  Though born into a wealthy family and in his early life enjoying a rich and privileged life, he was drawn by God to a life of great simplicity and poverty.

God called him in a dream to "build my church".  Francis acted on the literal meaning of this dream, seeing that the Church of San Damiano was in urgent need of rebuilding.  However, God was calling him to build His Church, that is the Christian community.  Overtime, his simple lifestyle attracted more and more men and women to join him and to teach the Gospel by example.  St. Francis sought to live by Christ's response to the rich young man who had asked Him what he must do to inherit follow Christ, "Good and sell all you own".  Francis did just this, even to giving up the simple robe he worn to a bagger who was naked.


Francis did not try to abolish poverty, he tried to make it holy. When his friars met someone poorer than they, they would eagerly rip off the sleeve of their habit to give to the person. They worked for all necessities and only begged if they had to. But Francis would not let them accept any money. He told them to treat coins as if they were pebbles in the road.

 

Francis' final years were filled with suffering as well as humiliation. Praying to share in Christ's passion he had a vision received the stigmata, the marks of the nails and the lance wound that Christ suffered, in his own body.  He died during the evening hours of 3 October 1226, while listening to a reading he had requested of Psalm 142,

Hear, O Lord, my prayer:

give ear to my supplication in thy truth:

hear me in thy justice.

And enter not into judgment with thy servant:

for in thy sight no man living shall be justified.

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul:

he hath brought down my life to the earth.

He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old:

And my spirit is in anguish within me: my heart within me is troubled.

I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all thy works:

I meditated upon the works of thy hands.

I stretched forth my hands to thee:

my soul is as earth without water unto thee.

Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath fainted away.

Turn not away thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

Cause me to hear thy mercy in the morning;

for in thee have I hoped.

Make the way known to me, wherein I should walk:

for I have lifted up my soul to thee.

Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, to thee have I fled:

Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God.

Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land:

For thy name' s sake, O Lord, thou wilt quicken me in thy justice.

Thou wilt bring my soul out of trouble:

And in thy mercy thou wilt destroy my enemies.

And thou wilt cut off all them that afflict my soul:

for I am thy servant.