How did Francis experience Easter

Español

We know from Franciscan sources that the Saint of Assisi lived the days of the most important week of the liturgical year, especially the Easter Triduum, with great spiritual intensity, preparing himself conscientiously throughout Lent. Suffice it to recall, as an example, the so-called Office of the Passion of the Lord (although we could cite other texts by the saint), with which Francis seems to want to answer the following question: How can we approach the mystery of the Lord Almighty, who humbles himself to the point of washing the feet of his disciples and accepting the torment of the cross for us, for our good?

The answer is found precisely in that interweaving of texts that is the Office of the Passion, a veritable mosaic composed of verses from different psalms, with quotations from the New Testament, and with no small number of personal additions. Reading between the lines, we can glimpse how Francis lived the Passion of his Lord, which was his very Passion: with the sentiments of the Son in his dialogue with the Father (always preserving the mystery of this relationship!), with profound gratitude, with awe, with reverence, with a spirit of adoration, with overflowing joy. 

Saint Clare did not miss this precious mosaic that Francis had been composing little by little, along his own path of faith, to the point of "memorizing the Office of the Cross, just as the cross-lover Francis had composed it, and reciting it frequently with devout affection like him," we read in her Legend.

Francis burst into tears as he recognized that the world, and each person with it, was mysteriously being saved through a Love that allowed itself to be crucified. That's why he would say to a peasant who one day encountered him sobbing near Santa Maria della Porziuncola: "I weep for the passion of my Lord, for whom I should not be ashamed to go wailing aloud throughout the world." Healing tears, we could call them, very characteristic of men and women who have achieved a great familiarity with Christ.

Get this image, now on sale