My Encounter with St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, Make me an instrument of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.  O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving, that we receive; it is in pardoning, that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are brought to eternal life. Amen

The summer of my second year of law school I was blessed to clerk for a really great firm.  I was paid a very generous stipend and at the end of the summer, was offered a full time position to begin after my third year of law school.  I was very blessed to be one of the law students not looking for employment my third year; from bar expenses to a stipend while I studied, life was set to be good.

My mom and I decided to take the trip of a lifetime to celebrate my good fortune.  The plan was to take a trek that started in London, went across the Channel to France, down to Paris, continuing on to The French Riviera, to Geneva, Switzerland and the Alps, across the mountains to Italy to see Florence, then Venice, then Assisi, on to Rome, and finally, back to London.  The trip was akin to the grand tour that many Americans went on in the late nineteenth century.  If I remember correctly Amy of "Little Women" fame went on such a trip after Jo made Aunt March exasperated one too many times.

Yes, the trip was all it was cracked up to be, complete with a cast of characters in our tour group with whom Agatha Christie would have had great fun.   We had a funny as hell British tour guide and a charming French bus driver to round out the ensemble.  From seeing topless dancers in the Moulin Rouge to gliding down the Grand Canal to seeing the Sistine Chapel, it was a not-to-be forgotten trip.  Oh yes, and let us not forget the trip to the historic casino in Monaco a la James Bond fame.  Yes, it was indeed THE grand tour.

BUT, more memorable than of these events, either individually or as a group, was the pilgrimage I unwittingly made to the church in Assisi where the Franciscan order was established and where St. Francis acted out the words and deeds of the above prayer on a daily basis.  I say that I made the pilgrimage "unwittingly" because at the time I was going to a Methodist church in large measure because a family member, my Aunt Gene, had insisted I go with her to church.  There, I met a group of wonderful people with whom I sang in the church choir and with whom I had established true friendship, but I would not characterize my life as either spiritual or religious.

When I went to Assisi, I really did not know much about St. Francis. Because I was raised in the Methodist Church and we Methodists didn't study or believe in "saints", I was largely ignorant of the early church and the work of people such as St. Francis.   Hearing about St. Francis from our tour guide,  and reading about what he did by tending to the sick, the poor, the unwanted in the world, and giving totally of himself to others for his faith, deeply and profoundly impacted me.  While I had been in Catholic churches before, I did not know much about the monastic orders.  Yes, I had studied about this in college, but in such a way that the Church was portrayed negatively without much focus on this aspect of the history.

When we went to the Church, we were told the story of how doves come and alight on the statue of St. Francis in the courtyard.  We were then taken into the Church by way of the courtyard and sure enough, doves were alighting on St. Francis' humble statue.  As we were led into the Church, which is quite a simple affair when one compares it with St. Mark's in Venice or St. Peter's Basilica or the myriad other grand French Gothic cathedrals, tears came to my eyes as I thought of the work St. Francis had done in this very place and how seriously he would have taken the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  In many ways, his work in tending to the sick and needy was a precursor to the work of Mother Theresa.  I was moved to find out more about St. Francis and it inspired me to take a fresh look at Medieval history and philosophy.  So much of religious life feels judgmental and hypocritical, but St. Francis felt and still feels like the real deal.  He is authentic, and lived out his words.  He just didn't talk the talk, he literally walked the walk.

And so that brings me to the prayer above.  When I went to Mass this Wednesday, I picked up the book in the pew that tells the order of service and also functions as a hymnal.  When I picked it up, it fell open to the prayer of St. Francis.  The above prayer is a reminder of what Christianity is supposed to be all about.  Love God with your whole heart, and love thy neighbor as yourself.  It's not about you, but about serving others.  So, even though today isn't St. Francis' Saint Day, I remember him nonetheless for being the stirrings of my conversion and for being a beacon of reminding us what our faith is supposed to be all about.