Our parochial vicar, Father Beres, related at Mass this morning a striking anecdote from the life of St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast the Catholic Church celebrated today.
On one occasion, St. Francis was traveling and arrived in a village where the local priest had fallen into serious sin and was living with his mistress. The villagers asked St. Francis to go straighten the wayward cleric out, and so St. Francis set off for the rectory. The villagers followed, expecting to see the saint sternly rebuke the priest. However, when the priest opened the door, St. Francis simply fell to his knees and kissed the man’s hands, proclaiming that it was enough for him to be able to kiss the hands of someone who touched the Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. The sinful priest was so moved by this, he immediately repented, put his mistress out of the house, and lived the remainder of his life in holiness and chastity.
It seems to me that our current Holy Father, who on his election to the papacy took the name of Francis, has this sort of example on his mind when he speaks about the need for Catholics to exercise mercy as we move through this fallen world.
Besieged by a world in thrall to the heresy of Relativism and scarred by decades of poor catechesis and weak leadership in the Church, many faithful Catholics have an instinctual negative reaction when Pope Francis speaks of the primacy of mercy and the need to embrace with true charity every man, woman, and child in this fallen world. They fear that the cancer of non-judgmentalism has metastasized even to the Throne of Peter, and would take greater comfort in hearing a stridently oppositional message emanating from the Vatican. However, they would be wrong to reject the Holy Father’s example out of hand. Pope Francis preaches a Gospel of Mercy that bears only a superficial resemblance to the weak-sauce “I’m OK, you’re OK” pablum that has been so in vogue both inside and outside the Church over the past forty years.
Pope Francis is calling upon the faithful to imitate his patron as we go about the work of winning souls for Christ. When confronting the wayward priest, St. Francis did not ply him with soft, sweet-sounding words of license and reassurance that, in spite of his sinfulness, the man would still somehow find his way into Heaven. This false doctrine is the tragic zeitgeist of our own times. However, neither did he, as the villagers anticipated and as many orthodox Catholics seemingly long to see our own shepherds do against our present day City of Man, breathe forth a fiery denunciation and warn of the perils of Hell and eternal damnation.
No, all that St. Francis did was show that priest a humble, genuine love and remind him of his dignity and true purpose in the eyes of our loving and merciful God and Father. In a word, St. Francis of Assisi was Christ to that man.
This is the challenge that Pope Francis invites us all to take up. It is to convert the world through Love, not a cowardly sentimentality, but a burning, infinite Love that radiates directly from the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and leaps forth to set fire to the souls of each person we encounter. It is a Love that proceeds from lives lived in holiness, humility, and total dependency on Jesus and surrender to His Holy Will.
If we are to re-evangelize this world that has forgotten the face of Our Savior, we must begin not with catechesis (though that will come), but with charity and holiness of life. This can only come about through lives that are daily immersed in prayer and the sacraments of the Church, lives of continual interior conversion, penance, and true poverty of spirit. We must strive to live, by God’s grace and as near as we are able, in imitation of that of St. Francis of Assisi.
For I through the Law have died to the Law, that I may live to God. With Christ I am nailed to the Cross. It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. – Galatians 2:19-20
St. Francis Supported by an Angel, Orazio Gentileschi, c. 1603. Museo del Prado, Madrid
