St. Francis Eucharistic Devotion
Today is the feast of our Father St. Francis, the Little Poor Man of Assisi who set the 13th century on fire with His unique love for Jesus who “though rich became poor for our sake”. Francis wanted with all his heart to imitate His Lord in His embrace of poverty. He contemplated the poor Christ Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger by His poor Mother. He wept over the naked Savior hanging upon the Cross. And he trembled before the Holy Eucharist that is Jesus stripped not only of His divine glory, but even of His semblance of human form so as to become our Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation. He often exhorted his followers to revere the Blessed Sacrament of the altar and to give flesh to this reverence by providing worthy sacred vessels, clean linens and secure tabernacles. Francis wanted to have nothing for himself, yet nothing was too good for his Eucharistic Lord.
As our bishops call us to renew and revive our devotion to the Lord in His Holy Eucharist, we offer to you a quotation from the writings of our Father St. Francis:
Children, how long will you be hard of heart? Why do you not know the truth and believe in the Son of God? Behold, each day He humbles Himself as when He came from the royal throne into the Virgin’s womb; each day He Himself comes to us, appearing humbly; each day He comes down from the bosom of the Father upon the altar in the hands of a priest. As He revealed Himself to the holy apostles in true flesh, so He reveals Himself to us now in sacred bread. And as they saw only His flesh by an insight of their flesh, yet believed that He was God as they contemplated Him with their spiritual eyes, let us, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, see and firmly believe that they are His most holy Body and Blood living and true. And in this way the Lord is always with His faithful as He Himself says: “Behold I am with you until the end of the age.”
May the love we receive from Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament set our own hearts afire so that we too may kindle a flame that will light and warm our suffering world.
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