SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Model of Eucharistic love for priests and laity

      St. Francis of Assisi, “burned with fervour to his very marrow, and with unbounded wonder of that loving condescension and condescending love.  He considered it to be disrespectful not to hear, if time allowed, at least one Mass a day.  He received Communion frequently and so devoutly that he made others devout…

He once wanted to send brothers throughout the world with precious pyxes, so that wherever they should find the price of our redemption in an unsuitable place they might put it away in the very best place.

He wanted great reverence shown to the hands of priests, since they have the divinely granted authority to bring about this mystery.  He often used to say: ‘If I should happen at the same time to come upon a saint coming from heaven and some little poor priest, I would first show honour to the priest, and hurry more quickly to kiss his hands.  For I would say to the saint: “Lo, Saint Lawrence, wait!  His hands may handle the Word of Life, and possess something more than human!’” (2C 201)

      This stupendous section from the writings of the blessed Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of St. Francis, sums up the totality of the Eucharistic life of St. Francis – a life rich in love, devotion, and ardour.  There is absolutely nothing lacking in this full Eucharistic life as an exemplar for everyone - priests and faithful alike.

      The Holy Mass, Communion, Eucharistic adoration, the loving care for altars in churches, the veneration of priestly ministers of the Eucharist: St. Francis is a master and model for us in all of this to such a degree that he could be considered not only a Eucharistic Saint, but also a seraph of Eucharistic love. 

      Among his first children we have other admirable Eucharistic seraphs like St. Anthony of Padua and St. Bonaventure who also have written pages of sublime doctrine and of all consuming love for the Eucharist.  To these we can add St. Paschal Baylon, who became the patron of the Eucharistic congresses; St. Joseph Cupertino, who used to levitate in ecstatic flight in the presence of a monstrance or a tabernacle; Bl. Matthew of Girgenti; Bl. Bonaventure from Potenza, whose body continued to venerate the Eucharist even after his death; and, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, who used to spend many hours during the day and the night in prayer before the Eucharistic altar.

      For St. Francis the Holy Mass was a sublime mystery of grace, as he pointed so beautifully to his friars who were meeting in chapter with this burning exclamation: “Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exalt when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest!” (LtOrd 26)

      The love of Jesus that impelled Him to embrace the depth of this humility stupefied and delighted the saint, “O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity!  O sublime humility! O humble sublimity!  The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread!” (LtOrd 27)

      For this reason he considered an absence at daily Mass to be a grave lack of love on our part.  The saint would do his best to participate in at least one Mass a day, but when he unable to attend due to an illness he would ask that a Mass be celebrated in his cell – or at least to have the readings of the Mass of the day read to him.  As The Assisi Compilation (also known as the Legend of Perugia) relates, St. Francis would ask for a friar priest to pray with him when he was ill and unable to leave his cell, “since, although he was sick, he always wanted, gladly and devoutly, to hear Mass whenever he was able” (AC 59). 

      What a wonderful lesson for all of us, especially when we are lazy and have to force ourselves to participate in a Mass only once a week on Sunday!  Let us not even talk about the daily Masses in our churches that are many times deserted to the point that the priest has to celebrate the Holy Mass to empty pews or for a handful of devoted elderly.

      Regarding Holy Communion, St. Francis teaches us how to receive it lovingly, as if we were seraphim burning with love: “He received Communion frequently,” Celano tells us, “and so devoutly that he made others devout.” Here we see true devotion: devotion that edifies, that builds, that impels others.  In fact, St. Bonaventure states that the devotion that St. Francis showed when he received Communion was such that “he made others devout,” and that “for the sweet taste of the spotless Lamb he was often rapt in ecstasy as if drunk in the Spirit” (LMj 9:2).  Celano gives us a wonderful insight into the depth of the personal devotion of St. Francis when he wrote that when the saint received “the Lamb that was slain he slew his own spirit in the fire which always burned upon the altar of his own heart” (2C 201).  This is a love that becomes fusion, the immolation of a love that admits of no division: “Whoever eats by flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn. 6:56).

      St. Francis prepared himself for the reception of Holy Communion with the most attentive care, rich in daily heroism, but also by taking advantage of sacramental Confession in order to prepare his soul for the reception of the Eucharistic Jesus with the maximum purity of grace.  At that time one was not able to receive Communion more than three times in week – therefore St. Francis would go to Confession three times a week.  When you love you want to please the object of your affection by doing everything possible to give joy to your beloved.  The soul purified by the Sacrament of Confession becomes a home full of purity and perfume and becomes ready to receive Jesus present in the immaculate host.  In a letter addressed to all the faithful St. Francis writes thus: Jesus “wishes all of us to be saved through Him and receive Him with our heart pure and our body chaste” (2LtF 14).  And, in his Letter to the Rulers of the Peoples, he writes: “I strongly advise you, my Lords, to put  aside all care and preoccupation and receive the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with fervour in holy remembrance of Him” (LtR 6).

      When you love you look with eyes of love - not only at the beloved, but also everything that relates to the beloved.  In this sense St. Francis cultivated the highest expression of love for Eucharistic adoration and for everything that is connected to the veneration of the Eucharist – and most especially for churches and for priests.

      The passion of love for Eucharistic devotion was so burning in St. Francis that he would often spend entire nights at the foot of a tabernacle.  And, if sleep overtook him or if he dozed off for a while on the steps of the altar, he would resume his vigil tireless and passionate when he awoke. What supported him in this? Only his faith and love for this “wonderful Sacrament” (from the Liturgy).

      His faith and his love in the Eucharist radiated from his life and from his writings with a brilliant splendour.  This can be seen in the way that he encouraged his friars to increase their own devotion to the Eucharist: “Kissing your feet, therefore, and with all that love of which I am capable, I implore all of you brothers to show all possible reverence and honour to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom that which is in heaven and on earth has been brought to peace and reconciled to almighty God” (LtOrd 12-13).

      For St. Francis faith in the Eucharist was intimately united to faith in the Holy Trinity and in the Incarnate Word.  This is something that he wished everyone would have.  For this reason he wrote with conviction and heartfelt devotion: “The Father dwells in inaccessible light, and God is spirit, and no one has ever seen God.  Therefore, He cannot be seen except in the Spirit because it is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh has nothing to offer.  But because He is equal to the Father, the Son is not seen by anyone other than the Father or other than the Holy Spirit.  All those who saw the Lord Jesus according to the humanity, therefore, and did not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity that He is the true Son of God were condemned.  Now in the same way, all those who see the sacrament sanctified by the words of the Lord upon the altar at the hands of a priest in the form of bread and wine, and do not see and believe according to the Spirit and Divinity that it is truly the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are condemned…,” and a little further on he continues, “As He revealed Himself to the holy apostles in true flesh, so He reveals Himself to us now in sacred bread.  And as they saw only His flesh by an insight of their flesh, yet believed that He was God as they contemplated Him with their spiritual eyes, let us, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, see and firmly believe that they are His most holy Body and Blood living and true” (Adm I: 19-22).

      This faith and love in the Eucharist caused him to exclaim more than once, “I see nothing corporally of the Most High Son of God except His most holy Body and Blood… I want to have these most holy mysteries honoured and venerated above all things and I want to reserve them in precious places” (Test 10-11).

      The love for the House of the Lord is inseparable from the love for the Eucharist.  One cannot love Jesus and at the same time neglect his resting place.  Even in this St. Francis leaves us a marvellous lesson that is fervent and tangible.  He was personally preoccupied with the cleanliness of churches and for the chalices, ciboria, altar linens, hosts, flower vases, and lamps that were in them.

      He exhorted the ministers of the altar to be fervent and faithful in taking care of anything that dealt with the presentation of - or the reverence for – the Most Holy Sacrament.  In one of his letters to the custodians he seemed to be kneeling as he wrote, “With all that is in me and more I beg you that, when it is fitting and you judge it expedient, you humbly beg the clergy to revere above all else the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ… They should hold as precious the chalices, corporals, appointments of the altar, and everything that pertains to the sacrifice.  If the most holy Body of the Lord is very poorly reserved in any place, let It be placed and locked up in a precious place according to the command of the Church.  Let It be carried about with great reverence and administered to others with discernment… When It is sacrificed on the altar by a priest and carried anywhere, let all  peoples praise, glorify and honour on bended knee the Lord God living and true” (1LtCus 2-4; 7). 

      These are the things that St. Francis wrote and preached.  When he arrived in a town, and after he had preached to the people, we would often gather the clergy away from the crowd and speak to them with passionate ardour about the need to take proper care of the churches and altars, even using the threat of eternal punishment: “Are we not moved by piety at these things when the pious Lord offers Himself into our hands and we touch Him and receive Him daily with our mouth?  Do we refuse to recognize that we must come into His hands?  Let us, therefore, amend our ways quickly and firmly in these and all other matters.  Wherever the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ has been illicitly placed and left, let It be moved from there, placed in a precious place and locked up” (2LtCl 8-11).

      Even more concretely, as the Assisi Compilation points out, St. Francis himself often made the care of churches a personal project.  After preaching in cities and villages the saint would go to churches in the area and sweep them with a broom he carried with him: “For blessed Francis was very sad when he entered some church and saw that it was not clean.  Therefore, after preaching to the people, at the end of the sermon he would have all the priests who were present assembled in some remote place so he could not be overheard by secular people.  He would preach to them about the salvation of souls and, in particular, that they should exercise care and concern in keeping churches clean, as well as altars and everything that pertained to the celebration of the divine mysteries” (AC 60).

      “Moreover,” according to the Mirror of Perfection, “at one time, he wanted to send throughout every region some brothers who would carry many beautiful and decorated pyxes. And wherever they would find the Body of the Lord carelessly lying around, they were to place It fittingly in them.  He also wanted to send throughout every region other brothers with good and beautiful wafer irons for making fine and pure hosts” (2MP 65).

      To all of this we can also add that St. Francis asked St. Clare of Assisi to make corporals to donate to poor churches where the saint himself would prepare vases of flowers for the altars.  These personal touches give us a more complete picture of the Eucharistic fervour of St. Francis. 

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      What message, in particular, does the veneration of St. Francis tell the priests of the altar?  It is sufficient to read the words of his Testament: “…the Lord gave me, and gives me still, such faith in priests who live according to the rite of the holy Roman Church because their orders that, were they to persecute me, I would still have recourse to them… And I desire to respect, love and honour them and all others as my lords.  And I do not want to consider any sin in them because I discern the Son of God in them and they are my lords” (Test 6, 8-9).

      Here is the supernatural vision of St. Francis regarding those consecrated in “Persona Christi”, the priests: “…in them I discern the Son of God…”  For this reason, according to The Legend of the Three Companions, “He wanted priests who handle the tremendous and greatest sacraments to be honoured uniquely by the brothers, so that whenever they met them, as they bowed their heads to them, they would kiss their hands.  And if they found them on horseback, he wanted them not only to kiss their hands, but, out of reverence for their power, even the hooves of the horses upon which they were riding” (L3C 57).

      He would often challenge the priests in his own Order to recognize the great gift they have received from the Lord: “See your dignity, my priest brothers, and be holy because He is holy.  As the Lord God has honoured you above all others because of this ministry, for your part love, revere and honour Him above all others” (LtOrd 23-24).  The dignity of one who “personifies Christ” and is to be known everywhere as the “presence of Christ” – to think, speak, and act “like Christ” – is truly ineffable

      For this reason St. Francis admonished the priests, “that whenever they wish to celebrate Mass, being pure, they offer the true Sacrifice of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with purity and reverence, with a holy and unblemished intention…” (LtOrd 14).  They are always to have the maximum devotion and purity of soul and a perfect obedience to all of the norms of the Church when they celebrate Mass – and impress the angels who assist them with the reverence by which they handle the consecrated host and distribute communion to the faithful.

      St. Francis never tired in recommending humility to priests and challenged them to recognize and honor the humility of Jesus who “each day He humbles Himself as when He came from the royal throne into the Virgin’s womb; each day He Himself comes to us, appearing humbly; each day He comes down from the bosom of the Father upon the altar in the hands of a priest” (Adm I: 16-18).

      The Seraphic Father recommends that the hands of the priest should be like those of the Madonna: “Listen, my brothers: If the Blessed Virgin is so honoured, as is becoming, because she carried Him in her most holy womb… how holy, just and fitting must be he who touches with his hands, receives in his heart and mouth, and offers to others to be received the One Who is not about to die but Who is to conquer and be glorified, upon Whom the angels longed to gaze” (LtOrd 21).

      Therefore, considering the duties that are so intimately connected to the priesthood, St. Francis cannot refrain from making a painful and bitter observation: “It is a great misery and a miserable weakness that when you have Him present in this way, you are concerned with anything else in the whole world!” (LtOrd 25)  If only every priest would reflect on these words of the Seraphic Father!

      The conclusion of this discourse on piety and Eucharistic life according to St. Francis of Assisi can build on his exhortation that is certainly true for us all: “Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally” (LtOrd 29). To be one for another, to be one with another: is this not the meaning of the Divine words of the supreme love of Jesus: “Whoever eats by flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn. 6:56)?  

Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli,  FI