RBWords

     These words of Jesus seem a little strange for the feast of St. Francis, but they are not the words that are assigned to the feast where it is celebrated!  They are the ordinary scriptures for Friday in the twenty-sixth week in ordinary time.  However, found in them a description of the conversion of St. Francis!  That moment is recalled as the one in which Francis, a high-living son of a wealthy cloth merchant, got down from his horse to embrace a leper!  It seems to me that in that leper he saw the face of Christ and "listened to him."  The rest, as they say, is history!

     We now have a Pope named Francis and he is challenging us to do exactly what St. Francis did!  He is asking us to see the face of Christ in the poor, the oppressed, the homeless and victims of violence.  Today he will visit Assisi with his new Council of Cardinals.  It is there that St. Francis had the famous vision in which he was told to "rebuild my church which has fallen into ruins!"  St. Francis founded a movement that offered a new vision of Christ's message.  "Whoever listens to you, listens to me!"  What is Pope Francis saying to us?  AMEN