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Young Franciscans

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YOUNG FRANCISCANS

Young Franciscans

  • Welcome
  • About
  • Franciscan Vision and Values
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Safeguarding

 

Francis go and build my church

From St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis
One day Francis left the town and went out to meditate in the fields. He was going past the church of San Damiano which was in danger of collapse because of age when he was moved by the Spirit to go inside and pray. There, as he knelt in front of an image of the Crucified he felt a great sense of comfort and his eyes were full of tears as he gazed at the cross. Suddenly, he heard a voice coming from the cross and telling him three times, ‘Francis go and build my house, which as you see is falling down’. Francis was alone in the church and was terrified at the sound of the voice, but the power of the message penetrated his heart and he went into an ecstasy. Eventually, he came to himself and prepared to obey the command he had received, and rebuild the little church, but the message really referred to the universal Church which Christ ‘bought with his own blood’ (Acts 20,28), as the Holy Spirit later made him understand, and which he explained to the brothers.

From a blog by the Sisters of mercy
Repairing the house of Christ involved, first, a radical change in his own lifestyle, from one of economic ease and stability to the minimalization of his personal needs. Poverty involved a leave-taking from a comfortable residence to a lifestyle that presumed physical mobility in imitation of the disciples who followed Jesus. “Repair my house” involved preaching the Gospel to ordinary people—unbelievers and heretics alike, in small towns and villages—who felt alienated from the institutional church. “Repair my house” led to the change from dramatic liturgical ritual performed in Latin in ornate churches to simple re-enactments of Gospel narratives such as the Nativity made available to people in their own local dialects. “Repair my house” became an effort to convert the political and economic exploitation exerted by ambitious clerics upon the poor.

Question: How can Franciscans rebuild the church today?