Today's Lesson St. Francis of Assisi

Today’s lesson is over St. Francis – oops I forgot this is not my on-line class… but I believe that every time we have a chance we should Teach as well as opine.
So……… St. Francis founder of the Franciscan Order. He started questioning faith, and eternity after having been captured and tortured for a year during war. After a night of heavy prayer and confusion he heard a voice call him to:
“Go Francis, and repair my house which you see is falling into ruin”.
At first Francis thought that to mean the physical church but later understood it to be the spiritual church that was facing so much corruption and lack of spiritual leadership.
His father did not accept Francis’s desire to give to the poor and had him taken bound and beaten and placed in a closet - where he was later freed by his mother.
“Having therefore been taken before the biship, Francis stripped himself of the very clothes he wore, and gave them to his father, saying:

"Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only "Oour Father who art in Heaven"

" Then and there, were solemnized the Gospel of the day told how the disciples of Christ were to possess neither gold nor silver, nor scrip for their journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff, and that they were to exhort sinners to repentance and announce the Kingdom of God. Francis took these words as if spoken directly to him, and so soon as Mass was over threw away the poor fragment left him of the world's goods, his shoes, cloak, pilgrim staff, and empty wallet. At last he had found his vocation. Having obtained a coarse woolen tunic of "beast colour", the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, and tied it round him with a knotted rope, Francis went forth at once exhorting the people of the country-side to penance, brotherly love, and peace."

This was an 11th century church that we were told was closed, but later when Stephen and Adriane went up they found it open and snuck in to take some beautiful pictures.

During the Lent of 1212, Clare, a young heiress of Assisi, sought him out, and begged to be allowed to embrace the new manner of life he had founded. Clare at age eighteen, secretly left her father's house and went to the Porziuncola, where the Friars met her in procession. Then Francis, having cut off her hair, clothed her in the Minorite habit and thus received her to a life of poverty penance and seclusion. Clare stayed provisionally with some Benedictine nuns near Assisi . There is still today a small convent that works out of the Chapel of Sta. Clare – they remain sequestered from the outside world and serve in prayer and devotion.

When you walk into Assisi there are several archways each indicating a century. The first is the 11th century. All the houses and buildings in that section are the same way they were in the 11th century. You can do anything you want to the inside – internet, plasma TV – but the outside must never be changed.

This is the view from our Hotel room window...... absolutely breath taking views. It was truly spiritual even for those of us that are not Catholic.

(Quotes for today's lesson came from the Catholic Encyclopedia)