Novena of Saint Francis Day 8

Francis and the performance of the Gospel Lawrence Cunningham speaks of Saint Francis as performing the Gospel life:

“Francis was more a performer of the Word of God than a commentator upon it.”

Here are a few random thoughts - to make up for several missed days.

Some of the early legends try to make this performance a type of reliving of the life of Christ in Francis. Some commentators place the birth of Francis in a stable. There is a tiny chapel in Assisi, near the Chiesa Nuova (which is over the site of Francis’s family home). Some say it was his birthplace; others claim it was his father’s textile shop.

Two years before his death, during a time of fasting and praying on Mount Alverna, Francis received the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Jesus, on his body. 

Francis practiced poverty because he saw the Lord Jesus as poor.