Denver Catholic

OPINION I 7 DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER I JULY 31, 2013 REAL LIFE CATHOLIC CHRISTOPHER STEFANICK Who is St. Francis? Part 2 Below is Part 2 of a two-column series on St. Francis of Assisi. Part 1 ran in the June 5 Denver Catholic Register (http://read.uberflip.com/i/136163). The more St. Francis gave up, the more he was flooded with a newfound joy. The one who owns nothing counts everything as a blessing! Once approached by robbers at his simple camp in the woods he announced to them, "I am the herald of the great King!" They took almost everything from him, but they couldn't take his beaming joy and charity. He went off praising God. He started a ministry serving the poor, especially lepers. He rebuilt that little chapel, walking through Assisi begging for stone and mortar. There he heard the Gospel reading to give up everything, preach, and take nothing for your journey as you go (Luke 9). He took it literally, as a commission given to him. So he gave up the little remaining he had, took on the poorest robes he could find (which the Franciscan habit of today is based on) and began to preach to the people of Assisi, who had begun to see that Francis was the real deal. Without any recruiting or organizational skills, he began to gather followers. Their rule of life? The Gospels. Each of his followers was initiated by going to the town square and giving everything they owned to the poor, lived in little huts around the Church he'd rebuilt, and went out from there to preach and serve the needy. Soon they numbered in the thousands and Francis' preaching ministry spread throughout Italy and beyond. Francis' life was marked by too many miracles to count, the most notable of which is his stigmata. Deep in prayer on Sept. 14, feast of the Triumph of the Cross, he received a vision and then woke up with the five wounds of Christ on his body, which were seen by all and well documented. Toward the end of his life, sick and growing blind, he wrote his famous hymn of joy, the "Canticle of the Sun." As his body wasted away in illness, he was brought back to the beloved chapel where his vocation began and where the huts of many of his friars had been assembled. As a last sign of faithfulness to what he called "Lady Poverty," and a final rejection of the vainglory he once lived for, he requested that he be stripped bare and laid on the floor of the chapel. There he had the Passion of Christ read to him. He was overjoyed that he was able to remain faithful to Lady Poverty until the end. It hadn't been easy for him. He told his closest followers: "I have done my part. May Christ teach you to do yours." He sang Psalm 141, and at the last line, "bring my soul out of prison," Francis breathed his last. When you're about to fight, your hands and feet get cold. That's because the blood is pulling back from your extremities to where it's needed most: the heart. The Church is in the fight of her life in countless ways all over the world: from religious intolerance in the Middle East and the communist countries of Asia; to a growing relativist inquisition in the West; to the continuing cleanup after the wake of scandals worldwide; to bureaucratic nightmares and political entanglements in the Vatican. In the face of all these fights, we have a pope named Francis. A man who is trying his best to focus all his energies back on the heart of Christianity, preaching the Gospel, renouncing the world's vainglory, and serving the poor. I'm putting my money on his strategy. Let's follow his example. Visit speaker and author Christopher Stefanick at www.RealLifeCatholic. com. Stefanick's column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Denver Archdiocese. CATECHETICAL CONGRESS 2013 Open The Door Of Faith "Training day for all Catechists" Send a group from your parish! Space is limited Featuring these inspiring Speakers: Keynotes: Weigel From Page 4 into the LGBTQ agenda—Lesbian/ Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Questioning). This borders on blasphemy; it is certainly idiocy; and it is guaranteed to make America enemies around the world. Still, it must be admitted that Secretary Clinton's speech was not idiosyncratic. Reducing religious conviction to another lifestyle choice while ignoring the community-forming aspects of religious conviction and those communities' impacts on civil society is of a piece with broader secularist currents in America. As Dr. Farr's brave testimony suggested, those misconceptions are making a hash of both domestic policy (the HHS mandate and the marriage debate) and foreign policy. George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel's column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Denver Archdiocese. Phone: 303-715-3215. Kathy Hendricks: "Opening the Door to the Catechist's Soul" Ben Akers: "Living Faith in the Deserts of Today's World" Workshops: JoAnn Padgett: "Catechesis of the Good Shepherd" Greg Willits: "The New Evangelization and You" Sr. Ann Cassidy: "Mary and St. John Bosco, hope for the young" Mass celebrated by Archbishop Samuel Aquila! Saturday, August 24, 2013 - Donation $20.00 (lunch included) From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Renaissance Hotel (3801 Quebec St. - Denver) For more information and registrations go to: www.archden.org/evangelization or call 303-715-3260. Sponsored by: Offices of Evangelization and Family Life Ministries and Hispanic Ministry

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