The Missionary Call

Dear Friends,

Peace and all good be yours!

This week’s gospel points us to the missionary call at the heart of Franciscan life and ministry: Jesus summons the twelve and sends them out, two by two. I dedicate this week’s letter to the story dating from the year 1228 composed by Thomas of Celano, which describes what happened when St. Francis first heard these same words…

“One day the gospel was being read in that church about how the Lord sent out his disciples to preach. The holy man of God, who was attending there, in order to understand better the words of the gospel, humbly begged the priest after celebrating the solemnities of the Mass to explain the gospel to him. The priest explained it all to him thoroughly line by line. 

“When he heard that Christ’s disciples should not possess gold or silver or money, or carry on their journey a wallet or a sack, nor bread nor a staff, nor to have shoes nor two tunics, but that they should preach the kingdom of God and penance, the holy man, Francis, immediately exulted in the spirit of God. ‘This is what I want,’ he said, ‘this is what I seek, this is what I desire with all my heart….

“Immediately, he took off the shoes from his feet, put down the staff from his hands, and…made for himself a tunic showing the image of the cross, so that in it he would drive away every fantasy of the demons….As for the other things he heard, he set about doing them with great care and reverence.  For he was no deaf hearer of the gospel; rather he committed everything he heard to his excellent memory and was careful to carry it out to the letter…”

Siempre Adelante!

Fr. Dan Lackie OFM, Pastor