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Audio Course:  St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author:  Br. William Short 

Francis marks the beginning of his new life with the sign of meeting the leper. Those suffering from leprosy in the thirteenth century lived a radical poverty. They were “dead,” with funeral services celebrated over their still living bodies. Their property was confiscated; their family ties, friendship and social relations were broken. They lived by the gifts of others.

“The Lord led me among them”—Francis attributes this leading to the Lord. “What was bitter to me became sweet.” Francis finds among the lepers a quality, “sweetness,” which he usually attributes to God’s presence.

And he wishes to stay among them, to be with “persons looked down upon, among the poor, the weak, the sick and the lepers, and those begging on the side of the road.” Among these, the persons looked down upon, Francis wishes to live. They are like Jesus “who was poor, and a guest, and lived by begging, himself and holy Mary the blessed virgin, his mother.”

In the poor, Francis sees the image of Christ, the Image of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is poor in his birth, poor in his life, and poor in his death. And he wants to be in the world as one “looked down upon, needy and poor.”

Francis embraces the leper, and with that gesture embraces the “holy Lady Poverty,” and her sister, “holy humility.” He does this out of a profound intuition that, through giving away everything, he will share in a truly divine activity; he will be accepting his true identity as made in the image of the poor God. “God created and formed you to the image of his beloved Son according to the body,” Francis said, “all spiritual and bodily things and ourselves were made to your image and likeness.”

With his discovery of God’s poverty, Francis knows his own identity as made in God’s image, and recognizes his connection with all creatures—like him, they are images.

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