Minister’s message:

Just about the only thing most people know about Francis of Assisi is that he talked to the birds, writes Rev James Gatherer.

Churchgoers also know the popular hymn based on his famous prayer, ‘Make me a channel of your Peace’.

Francis’ life spanned the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries. He was born into a very wealthy family, but after what he called his ‘conversion’, standing before a crucifix, he renounced all his possessions.

In fact, he stripped himself of his of his wealthy garments in a public square in his home town, Assisi. For the rest of his life, he and his followers longed, prayed and worked for a life of simplicity – a lifestyle without luxury or privileges.

For the Franciscan brothers this meant no private possessions at all. Francis saw that many poor people without these things, seemed to live happier, more fulfilling lives than the ambitious rich. He spoke of a simple life not shaped by money or power but by love and mutual concern.

As his hymn says: ‘It is in giving of ourselves that we receive’.

Poverty in our modern western world is seldom a matter of blissful simplicity, as present-day
Franciscans recognise. For too many it is a matter of poor diet, over-crowded rooms, rough
sleeping and unemployment.

The call of today’s followers of Francis is that those who are better-off should ‘live more simply, so that others can simply live’. Christians follow a Master who said that he came with ‘good news for the poor’
and believe that many of us today can be that good news.

• Photo: Sculpture of St Francis at Lake Maggiore. Image by Paskvi from Pixabay