Getting ready

To help you get ready for this exciting weekend, here are two items that you might want to read to get a better understanding of Pope Benedict XVI's thought on St. Francis of Asisis:

• Sandro has a fine examination of Pope Benedict XVI's thought on St. Francis of Assisi (from 11 September 2006).
• The Holy Father's comments on the Seraphic Father to the priests of Albano on 31 August 2006 and the Holy Father's letter to the Bishop of Assisi on 2 (or 4?) September 2006.

And if you haven't yet read these pages [shame on you!], His Holiness mentions St. Francis in his Jesus of Nazareth on pages 77-79. Considering the Beatitudes, Pope Benedict suggests,

But it may be a good idea - before we continue our meditation on the text - to turn for a moment to the figure whom the history of faith offers us as the most intensely lived illustration of this Beatitude ["Blessed are in the poor in spirit"]: Francis of Assisi... Francis of Assisi was gripped in an utterly radical way by the promise of the first Beatitude, to the point that he even gave away his garments and let himself be clothed anew by the bishop, the representative of God's fatherly goodness, through which the lilies of the field were clad in robes finer than Solomon's (cf. Mt 6:28-29). For Francis, this extreme humility was above all freedom for service, freedom for mission, ultimate trust in God, who cares not only for the flowers of the field but specifically for his human children. It was a corrective to the Church of his day, which, through the feudal system, had lost the freedom and dynamism of missionary outreach. It was the deepest possible openness to Christ, to whom Francis was perfectly congifured by the wounds of the stigmata, so perfectly that from then on he truly no longer lived as himself, but as one reborn, totally from and in Christ....

It is above all by looking at Francis of Assisi that we can see clearly what the words "Kingdom of God" mean. Francis stood totally within the Church, and at the same time it is in figures such as he that the Church grows toward the goal that lies in the future, and yet is already present: The Kingdom of God is drawing near... [emphasis mine]

What the Holy Father says this weekend will surely be just this good!