By Fr. Jude Winkler, OFM Conv.
Anniversaries are not just milestones along the journey of life, counting how many years have passed since the events we are commemorating. Rather, they are moments to remember and celebrate. They are also occasions to think of how that event, whatever it may be, has changed our life forever. They are opportunities to try to regain our initial enthusiasm and joy and also to recommit ourselves to the choices we made many years ago.
We are in the middle of a great anniversary for the Franciscan movement. St. Francis of Assisi lived 800 years ago, and some of the most significant events in his ministry are being celebrated.
One of the first commemorations was the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan Order in 1209. We had the anniversary of the founding of the Poor Clares in 1212. We also had the anniversary of the founding of the Secular Franciscans in 1221.
The 1221 and 1223 anniversaries were of the two rules of life that St. Francis wrote for his friars. The 1223 anniversary also included Greccio, the night when St. Francis set up a living Christmas crèche. This year, 1224, is the anniversary of his reception of the stigmata, the five wounds of Jesus which were imprinted on his body. Next year will be the anniversary of his writing of the Canticle of the Creatures and the year after that of his passing from life here on earth to the home of the Father.
The Stigmata
As far as we know, St. Francis was the first saint to bear the wounds of the crucified Lord upon his own flesh. St. Paul mentions having a “stigmata” but this probably referred to the scars from his frequent beatings and other forms of torture.
St. Francis had gone up to a deserted place on Mt. La Verna in Tuscany, Italy. He wanted to spend 40 days in prayer and fasting in honor of St. Michael whose feast is celebrated on September 29. St. Francis had a profound devotion to the angels for they represented the purity and service to God to which he aspired.
On the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, St. Francis had a vision of a crucified Seraph angel which approached him from the heavens. When that vision ended, St. Francis was found to have the same nail and lance wounds as Jesus had on the cross.
Why This Suffering?
Why would God allow someone who loved Him so much to suffer so much? St. Bonaventure, another Franciscan saint, said St. Francis loved Jesus so much that he came to resemble Him, even in His holy wounds. Just as a couple, which has been married for a long time, begins to look like each other, St. Francis, the lover, came to resemble Jesus, the beloved.
St. Francis always desired to walk in the footsteps of his Divine Lord. This is why he exhorted his brothers and sisters to follow the Gospel every day of their lives. Now, he was a living Gospel.
It is interesting that St. Francis was sometimes rough on his body with his penances. He even had to apologize to his body for all the pain he had caused it to suffer. Now, with the stigmata, St. Francis could be a living image of His Lord. He no longer had to reject his body to be holy for his very body proclaimed the love with which God loves us.
It is no accident that the very next year St. Francis composed the Canticle of the Creatures in which he praises God for all the wonders of creation. St. Francis realized that we did not have to condemn this world in order to become totally spiritual creatures like the angels. He was now a living, breathing proclamation of the fact that all of creation was created good and holy. Certainly, sin has confused our appreciation of that fact, but now that St. Francis had received the stigmata, he could acknowledge that God intended for us to celebrate the wonder of what God had created for us.
Don’t Tell Anyone
Jesus often told those whom He healed not to tell anyone. St. Francis also did not openly share knowledge of what happened. Most friars, in fact, did not know until after his death when Brother Elias, the Minister General of the Order, shared the news.
In spirituality, this was a very good sign. If St. Francis had gone around bragging of the great thing that God had done to him, then he would have been using this gift for his own praise and glory. Instead, he carried his cross (and St. Francis suffered horribly in the years before his death from the stigmata and other illnesses) in silent testimony to God’s grace.
What About Us?
Should we want to suffer like St. Francis and Jesus? St. Catherine of Siena once said that we should not ask for more suffering for there is already more than enough of it in our lives. We should seek healing from those things which afflict us. Yet, there will always be some form of suffering in our lives. Can we make something good come out of suffering? Like St. Francis, we can try to take up our crosses with a spirit of surrender to the Will of God. Furthermore, we can offer our sufferings as a type of prayer for another, saying, “if my suffering could bring any relief to that other person, then I willingly will bear it.” In this sense, suffering becomes a form of love (as it was in the life of Christ and St. Francis) which mystically heals the world.
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