Lessons from St. Francis
With Christmas upon us, let’s reflect on the insightful thoughts of St. Francis of Assisi:
It would be considered a theft on our part if we didn’t give to someone in greater need than we are.
Each person should confidently make known his need to the other, so that he might find it. We should love and care for our brother in all those things in which God will give him grace, as a mother loves and cares for her son.
We’re all creatures of one family.
A man truly loves his enemy when he isn’t offended by the injury done to himself, but for love of God feels burning sorrow for the sin his enemy has brought on his own soul, and proves his love in a practical way.
Holy love
But, in the holy love that is God, I beg all, as they overcome every obstacle and put aside every care and anxiety, to strive as best they can to serve, love, honor and adore the Lord God with a clean heart and pure mind, for this is what He desires above all things.
Let us all love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength and fortitude, and with total understanding. He does every good thing for us who are miserable, wretched, rotten, ungrateful and evil.
Let us wish for nothing else. Let nothing else please us, except the one true God, Who is the fullness of Good. Let all of us, wherever we are at every hour of the day, give thanks to the most high and supreme eternal God, Who is without a beginning and an end.
Let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves—and if there’s anyone who does not wish to love them, let him do no harm to them!
We can never know how patient or humble someone is when everything is going well with him. But, when those who should cooperate with him do exactly the opposite, then we will know. A man has as much patience and humility as he has then, and no more.
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