Fellow St Jude Parishioners:
With all that we have had to cover earlier this month in our newsletters, I did not have the chance to say something about St Francis of Assisi whose Feast Day was the first weekend of this month. So let me share with you some things about one of our most well-known and beloved Saints.
St Francis founded the Franciscan Order which is known for its prayer, aid for the poor and love of the Holy Eucharist. In honor of these great accomplishments of this great saint, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio became our Holy Father in March 2013, he took the name Pope Francis.
St Francis is also known for his love of animals and birds. So we had the blessing of the animals the first weekend of the month, when many of your brought your pets and we did a Covid-safe blessing of each of the animals though the open windows of your cars, in our church parking lot.
St Francis was born in 1181 in the town of Assisi, Italy. He was born into a wealthy family but gave up his life of riches and luxury to serve God. During his subsequent religious life, he sought to find a balance in times of prayer and times of active preaching of the Good News and times of active ministering to the poor.
Given all that he accomplished in his life, and the legacy that he leaves us, it is surprising that he did it all in a such a short period of time, dying at 44 years of age.
You may recall that our St Jude musicians often provide us with the Prayer of St Francis at our masses.
In our current days, when we long for the peace that will finally come with the end to the Coronavirus and the havoc that it has wreaked in our lives, when we long for the peace that will come when the divisions within our society and culture can be resolved, when we long for peace in the face of suffering from loss of jobs and illness… let us turn to the words of this Prayer of St Francis.
Sincerely yours in the love of Christ that St Francis lived out so completely,
Fr Henry
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
