26th Week, Friday, Oct 4, Saint Francis of Assisi
Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5 / Luke 10:13-16
Job talks about God; God's wisdom far surpasses ours.
The scholar St. Jerome (347-419/20) translated most of the Bible from the original languages into Latin and revised some parts already translated to make them more understandable. His immense work opened the Scriptures to the parts of Europe that spoke Latin. He fought all his life against his difficult character. He can still inspire us today to love the Word of God… and to live it.
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God's words to Job take the form of a litany recounting the wonders of
nature. God reminds Job, in a dramatic series of rhetorical questions, that Job
neither created nor understands the workings of the universe. This doesn't
answer Job's questions directly, but it does suggest a new line of thought. It
is this: If Job admits that God's wisdom greatly surpasses his, why does
he question God's fairness to him? If he can't understand other things, why does
he expect to understand this? Job's wisdom falls so short of God's wisdom that
it is folly for Job to challenge God. To challenge God is the posture of a
fool, not a wise man. In any event, Job's experience of God changes him from a
sage into a saint. It transforms him into a true person of faith.
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Do we sometimes challenge God? Why? "Belief in a cruel
God makes a cruel man." Thomas Paine
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If nothing happens by coincidence, then it is only natural
that we want to know what is the link between the various events and
experiences of our lives. We would want to know why such an event happened in
our lives and why we had certain experiences.
Although we know that everything that has happened has a
meaning and a purpose, yet we can be rather impatient to know the answers
immediately. Especially so when misfortune and tragedy happens. We won't be
just asking for answers; we will be demanding for answers and demanding it
furiously too. For the character of Job in the 1st reading, he too was
demanding for answers from God as misfortune and tragedy befell upon him one
upon another, although he had insisted that he had not done anything wrong.
***
Saint Francis of Assisi
Feast Day October 4
We speak much today of poverty and or returning to the true values of the Gospel. What St. Francis of Assisi (1181?82-1226) undertook in the 13th century might very well inspire our times. Today’s society threatens to destroy itself in many parts of the world by its own philosophy and prosperity; even in developing countries, artificial needs are forced on people, to the loss of the deeper values of God and people. What we need is not only talk about poverty and evangelical living, but responsible Christian living according to the values of the Gospel.
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The popular image of St. Francis of Assisi is warped with romantic notions. Many see him as a sweet simpleton who picked flowers and talked with animals. Francis was gentle and loved God’s creation, but he was not naive. Just the opposite. As a youth he went to war eagerly, patiently endured imprisonment and illnesses, embraced Lady Poverty as his bride, and gave up everything to follow Christ. The real St. Francis of Assisi was a courageous spiritual warrior.
Francis’s vocation cost him dearly. Decision by decision he stripped himself of attachments so as to be more like Jesus. Once en route to a war in southern Italy, Francis heard a divine voice invite him to stop serving the servant and dedicate himself to the master. He responded by committing himself to live for God alone. In his early twenties, Francis decided to become like the poor he met in Assisi’s back streets and took “Lady Poverty” as his bride. Then one day when Francis was praying in the dilapidated church of St. Damian, he heard a voice from the crucifix say, “Go and repair my church.” At first Francis literally worked to fix the building, but later understood that his real call was to renew people spiritually. From that day Francis devoted himself to Christ crucified. Francis’s father took him to the bishop’s court, demanding that his son repay the money he had used to repair St. Damian’s church building. The saint submitted but then stripped naked, returning his clothes to his father as a sign that he forsook his family and his inheritance.
Then Francis began his itinerant ministry in central Italy, attracting young followers as he went. Once in 1209 at Mass he heard the gospel about Jesus sending his disciples to preach, to heal, and to do spiritual warfare. He took it literally as a life pattern for him and his band of men (see Matthew 10:7–10). In 1210, Francis got formal approval for his community of Friars Minor from Pope Innocent III, and by 1221 he had hundreds of brothers and had established friaries all over Europe. In 1224 at his retreat on Mount Alvernia, Francis had a vision of a seraph, a great angel, nailed to a cross. As he watched, Francis himself received the stigmata. Replicas of the Savior’s wounds appeared in his hands and side, acknowledging the saint’s intimacy with Christ. The movement Francis launched has reverberated through the centuries, touching millions of souls. He died in 1226.
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Opening Prayer
Lord our God, it is a pleasure for us to celebrate today your gentle and loveable saint, Francis of Assisi. Let us go through life like him one with you, one with nature, one with all that is good and kind-hearted. Make us humble and peaceful like him. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
