St. Katherine Drexel Regional Fraternity
Regional Spiritual Assistant
St. Francis of Assisi Friary
1901 Prior Road
Wilmington, Delaware 19809
tel: (302) 798-1454 fax: (302) 798-3360 website: skdsfo email: pppgusa@gmail.com
October 2025
Assisi Compilation #72 – #74
72 – HE KNOWS THE THOUGHTS OF A CRITICAL BROTHER
1 – As they considered his holiness, the brothers were amazed and praised the Lord who had provided for his servant, especially because it was winter and such things were not available in that area.
– Unless there is within us what is above us, we shall soon yield to what is around us.
2 – Blessed Francis was travelling with a spiritual brother from Assisi who came from a great and powerful family. Because he was weak and ill, blessed Francis rode on a donkey. Feeling tired from walking, that brother began to think: “His parents were never at the same level as mine, and here he is riding, while I’m worn out, walking behind him, prodding the beast.”
– Preach to the poor with your hands before you preach to them with your lips.
3 – While he was thinking this, blessed Francis got off the donkey and said to him: “No, brother, it’s not right or proper for me to ride while you go on foot, for in the world you were nobler and more influential than I.” The brother, stunned and ashamed, fell down at his feet and, in tears, confessed his thought and then said his penance.
– The chief exercise of prayer is to speak to God and to hear God speak to you in the depths of your heart.
4 – He was greatly amazed at his holiness, for he immediately knew his thought. In fact, when the brothers petitioned the Lord Pope Gregory and the cardinals in Assisi to canonize blessed Francis, he testified to this before the Lord Pope and the cardinals.
– My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
73 – HE BLESSES A BROTHER AT GRECCIO, KNOWING HIS WISH AT A DISTANCE
5 – A brother, a spiritual man and a friend of God, was living in the lace of the brothers of Rieti. One day he got up and came with great devotion to the hermitage of the brothers of Greccio, where blessed Francis was then staying, out of a desire to see him and receive his blessing.
– Let me be a little kinder and blinder to the faults of those around you.
6 – Blessed Francis had already eaten and had returned to the cell where he prayed and rested. Because it was Lent he did not leave the cell except at mealtime and returned to the cell immediately afterward. The brother did not find him and grew very sad, attributing this to his sins, especially because he had to return that day to his own place.
– Pride has a way of concealing my faults from myself.
7 – The companions of blessed Francis consoled him, and he had not gone more than a stone’s throw away from the place when, by the will of the Lord, blessed Francis came out of his cell and called one of his companions, who was travelling with him as far as Fonte del Lago. He said to him: “Tell that brother to look back toward me.”
– Today’s opportunities erase yesterday’s failures.
8 – And when he turned his face to blessed Francis, he made the sign of the cross and blessed him. That brother, rejoicing both in body and spirit, praised the Lord who fulfilled his desire. His consolation was so much the greater because he saw that it was the will of God that the saint bless him without being asked by him or others.
– How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of you? This is the test.
9 – The companions of blessed Francis, and the other brothers of the place, were amazed, considering it a great miracle since no one had told blessed Francis about the arrival of that brother.
– When we learn to see the invisible, the we will learn to do the impossible.
10 – And neither the companions of blessed Francis, nor any other brother would have dared approach him unless he had called them. This was true not only there but everywhere blessed Francis stayed to pray, for he wanted to remain so removed, that no one would go to him without being called.
– O God, help us to be masters of ourselves that we may be servants of others.
74 – HE CORRECTS THE BROTHERS OF GRECCIO FOR AN ELEGANT TABLE-SETTING; THE VISIT OF CARDINAL HUGOLINO TO THE PORTIUNCULA; PRAISE FOR THE PEOPLE OF GRECCIO
11 – One day a minister of the brothers came to blessed Francis who was then staying in that same place, in order to celebrate the feast of Christmas with him.
– Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
12 – It happened that the brothers of that place on Christmas day itself prepared the table elaborately because of that minister, covering it with lovely white tablecloths which they obtained for the occasion, and vessels of glass for drinking. Blessed Francis came down from the cell to eat, and when he saw the table set on a dais and finely prepared, he went secretly and took the hat of a poor man who had arrived there that very day, and the staff he carried in his hand. He called one of his companions in a whisper and went outside the door of the hermitage, unnoticed by the other brothers of the house.
– Treat a child as though he already is the person he’s capable of becoming.
13 – Meanwhile the brothers came to the table, especially because it was sometimes the custom of the holy father that, if he did not arrive immediately at mealtime, and the brothers wanted to eat, he wanted them to go to the table and eat. His companion closed the door, remaining next to it on the inside.
– Trust to the known God the unknown future.
14 – Blessed Francis knocked on the door and he immediately opened it for him. He entered with his hat on his back and with staff in hand, like a pilgrim. When he came to the door of the house where the brothers were eating, he called out to the brothers like a poor man: “For the love of the Lord God, give alms to this poor, sick pilgrim.”
– Prayer is an expression of who we are. We are a living incompleteness that calls for fulfillment.
15 – That minister and the other brothers recognized him at once. The minister told him: “Brother, we are also poor, and because we are so many, we need these alms we are eating. But, for the love of that Lord you invoked, come into the house, and we will give you some of the alms which the Lord has given us.”
– The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
16 – When he came in and stood in front of the brothers’ table, the minister gave him the bowl from which he was eating and some bread. Taking it, he sat down on the floor beside the fire, facing the brothers who sat at the elevated table. Sighing he said to the brothers: “When I saw the table finely and elaborately prepared, I considered that this was not a table of poor religious, who go door-to-door each day.
– We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.
17 – For more than other religious, we should follow the example of poverty and humility in all things, because we have been called to this and have professed this before God and people. So, now it seems to me I’m seated like a brother.”
– As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.
18 – The brothers were ashamed at this, considering that blessed Francis was speaking the truth. Some of them began to weep loudly, considering how he was seated on the ground, wishing to correct them in such a holy and simple way. He told the brothers that they have a humble and decent table so as to edify secular people. And if the brothers invite a poor person, he should sit with them, and not have the poor man sit on the ground and have the brothers sit on high.
– Treat people as though they were what they ought to be, and you will help them become what they are capable of being.
19 – When the Lord Pope Gregory was the bishop of Ostia, he came to the place of the brothers at Saint Mary of the Portiuncula, with many knights, monks, and other clerics. He entered the house of the brothers to see their dormitory and, when he saw that the brothers lay on the ground, with nothing underneath except a little straw, no pillows, and some poor coverings, torn and thread bare, he began to weep profusely before them all. “Look where the brothers sleep,” he said.
– Holy persons serve this world by reflecting in it the light of another.
20 – “But we, wretched creatures, enjoy such a surplus. What will become of us?” Both he and the others were greatly edified. He did not see a table there because the brothers ate on the ground. From the very beginning, that place, once it was built, was visited by the brothers of the entire religion more than any other place, for everyone who entered religion was invested there. No matter whether they were few or many, the brothers always used to eat on the ground.
– Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
21 – As long as the holy father lived, after his example and will, the brothers who lived there used to sit on the ground to eat. For blessed Francis found the hermitage of the brothers at Greccio to be becoming and poor and the inhabitants, although poor and simple, were more pleasing to him than those of the rest of the region.
– The liar’s punishment is not that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
22 – For this reason, he rested and stayed there, especially because there was a poor cell, very isolated, in which the holy father would stay.
– What not let Jesus take over my life? He can do more with it than I can.
23 – Many of these people, with the grace of God, entered religion because of his example and preaching and that of his brothers. Many women preserved their virginity and, remaining in their own homes, dressed in the clothing of religion.
– Without love and compassion for others, our own apparent love for Christ is fiction.
24 – And although each remained in her own home, each of them lived the common life decently, afflicting her body with fasting and prayer. Thus, it seemed to the people and to the brothers that their manner of living was not among seculars and their relatives, but among holy and religious people who had served the Lord a long time, despite their youthful age and simplicity.
– The thing to try when all else fails is again.
25 – That is why, with joy, blessed Francis often said to the brothers about the men and women of this town: “Even in a large city not as many people have been converted to penance as in Greccio, which is only a small town.”
– The one who does stay in his littleness loses his greatness.
26 – For frequently, when the brothers of that place used to praise the Lord in the evening, as the brothers at that time were accustomed to do in many places, the people of that town, both the great and the small, would come outside. Standing on the road in front of the town, they would respond to the brothers in a loud voice: “Praised be the Lord God!”
– What is it about human nature that makes it easier to break a commandment than a habit?
27 – Even children, who could not yet speak, when they saw the brothers, would praise the Lord as best they could. In those times they endured an awful scourge which they had suffered for many years. Huge wolves would eat people, and every year hailstorms would destroy their fields and vineyards.
– Pray, and then start answering your prayer.
28 – One day when blessed Francis was preaching, he said to them: “To the praise and honor of God, I tell you that, if each one of you turns away from sin, and turns to God with whole heart, firm resolve, and will to persevere, I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that, in His mercy, He will soon deliver you from the scourge of the wolves and of the hail from which, for so long a time, you have been suffering. He will make you grow and increase in both spiritual and temporal things. I also tell you if you return to your vomit, this scourge and pestilence will return, and more and worse disasters will afflict you.”
– The only person worth envying is the person that doesn’t envy.
29 – Through divine providence and the merits of the holy father, it happened that, from that hour and time, this scourge ceased. Moreover, it was a great miracle when hail came down and destroyed their neighbors’ fields, but did not touch their fields that were next to them.
– No one needs to be loved than the one who doesn’t deserve it.
30 – And for sixteen to twenty years, they began to increase and abound in spiritual and temporal things. Afterwards, however, they began to grow fat and proud, to hate each other, to strike one another with swords even to the point of death, to kill animals secretly, stealing and pillaging at night, and to commit many other evils. When the Lord saw that their works were evil and that they did not observe what was told them by His servant, blessed Francis, His anger flared up and He withdrew the hand of His mercy from them.
– The person with humility never has to be shown his place; he is always in it.
31 – The scourge of wolves and hail returned, as the holy father had said, and many other even worse calamities befell them. The town was entirely burned and, after losing everything they had, they escaped only with their lives. Then the brothers and others who had heard what blessed Francis said, how he predicted prosperity and adversity for them, were amazed at his holiness, seeing all his words fulfilled to the letter.
– It wasn’t the nails that held Jesus on the cross but his love for us.
Peace and Blessings
Francis A. Sariego, O.F.M. Cap.
Regional Spiritual Assistant
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