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
June 2026
Dear Sisters and Brothers in St. Francis,
The Lord bless you with His peace!
St. Francis of Assisi stands in Christian history as one of the most luminous witnesses to the mystery of God’s self‑sacrificing love, a love that finds its most concentrated and symbolic expression in the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Although Francis lived centuries before the formal development of the Sacred Heart devotion, his life, spirituality, and writings reveal a profound intuitive grasp of the same truth: that the Heart of Christ is the burning center of divine charity, poured out for humanity in total self‑giving. To contemplate Francis is to contemplate a man who allowed himself to be shaped entirely by the love that flows from the pierced Heart of the Savior, and to contemplate the Sacred Heart is to contemplate the divine source that animated Francis’s radical poverty, humility, and compassion. The two themes, therefore, are not separate but mutually illuminating, each revealing the depth of the other.
Francis’s journey begins with his encounter with the crucified Christ, an encounter that transformed him from a pleasure‑seeking youth into a man consumed by the desire to imitate Jesus in every aspect of life. The moment before the San Damiano crucifix, when Francis heard the words Rebuild my Church, marks not only the beginning of his mission but also the beginning of his lifelong immersion into the mystery of Christ’s suffering love. The crucifix he prayed before depicted Christ not in agony but in serene majesty, yet still wounded, still offering himself. This image profoundly shaped Francis’s understanding of divine love: a love that suffers, a love that gives itself without reserve, a love that remains open even when pierced. In this sense, Francis’s spirituality already contains the essential elements of the Sacred Heart devotion, which centers on the wounded yet radiant Heart of Jesus as the symbol of God’s boundless mercy.
The Sacred Heart is, at its core, a revelation of God’s interior life. It is not merely a symbol of emotion but a symbol of the divine will to love, even unto death. When Jesus’ Heart is pierced on the cross and blood and water flow out, the Gospel of John presents this as the culminating moment of salvation, the moment when Christ’s love is fully revealed. Francis, who meditated constantly on the Passion, understood this intuitively. His writings show a man who saw in the crucified Christ the very definition of love. He urged his followers to look at the humility of God and to contemplate the One who gives Himself entirely in the Eucharist and on the cross. For Francis, the cross was not simply a historical event but a living reality, a present outpouring of divine love that demanded a response of total surrender.
This surrender took the form of radical poverty, which Francis embraced not as an ideology but as a way of participating in Christ’s self‑emptying. The Sacred Heart devotion emphasizes the emptying (kenosis) of Christ, the self‑emptying love that led Him to take on human flesh and to endure suffering for the sake of humanity. Francis’s poverty mirrors this divine kenosis. By stripping himself of possessions, status, and even personal security, Francis sought to imitate the humility of Christ, who though he was rich, became poor for our sake (2Corinthians8:9). Poverty for Francis was not deprivation but freedom—the freedom to love as Christ loves, without clinging to anything. It was a way of making space in his own heart for the love that flows from the Heart of Jesus.
Francis’s love for the poor, the sick, and the marginalized also reflects the compassion of the Sacred Heart. The Heart of Jesus is often depicted as aflame, surrounded by thorns, and pierced, signifying both the intensity of divine love and the pain that love endures. Francis lived this compassion in concrete ways. His embrace of the leper, which he once found repulsive, became a turning point in his conversion. In the leper, Francis encountered Christ Himself, and in that encounter he discovered that true love requires vulnerability, sacrifice, and the willingness to suffer with others. This is precisely the message of the Sacred Heart: that God’s love is not distant or abstract but deeply involved in human suffering. The Heart of Jesus is wounded because it loves; Francis’s heart became Christ-like because he allowed himself to be wounded by the suffering of others.
The culmination of Francis’s conformity to Christ came in the stigmata he received on Mount La Verna. This extraordinary event, in which Francis bore in his own body the wounds of Christ, is perhaps the most striking parallel to the Sacred Heart devotion. The stigmata is not merely a physical phenomenon but a mystical union with the suffering love of Jesus. Francis did not seek the stigmata; he sought only to love Christ completely. The wounds were the divine response to that desire, a sign that Francis had become so united to the Heart of Jesus that he shared in the very marks of His love. The Sacred Heart, too, is a wounded heart, and the wounds are not signs of defeat but signs of love’s triumph. In Francis, the wounds of Christ become visible again in the world, reminding all who see him that divine love is not an idea but a reality that takes flesh.
The Sacred Heart devotion, which developed more fully in the centuries after Francis, especially through the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, emphasizes reparation for sin and the call to love Christ in return for His love. Francis lived this long before it was articulated. His life was a continual act of reparation, not in a punitive sense but in a relational one. He sought to console the Heart of Jesus by loving Him with purity, by living the Gospel without compromise, and by drawing others into the same love. His preaching was not harsh or condemnatory but filled with joy, urging people to turn back to God because God is love. Francis understood that sin wounds the Heart of Jesus not because God is offended in a human sense but because sin separates us from the love that God longs to give. His mission, therefore, was to heal that separation by calling people to conversion, reconciliation, and peace.
The Sacred Heart also emphasizes the Eucharist as the living presence of Christ’s self‑sacrificing love. Francis’s devotion to the Eucharist was intense and reverent. He saw in the consecrated Host the same Christ who hung on the cross, the same Heart that continues to pour out love for humanity. He wrote with awe about the humility of God, who hides Himself under the appearance of bread and wine:
Let the entire man be seized with fear; let the whole world tremble;
let heaven exult when Christ, the Son of the Living God,
is on the altar in the hands of the priest.
O admirable height and stupendous condescension! O humble sublimity! O sublime humility!
that the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God,
so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under a morsel of bread.
For Francis, the Eucharist was not a ritual but a relationship, a moment of intimate union with the One who gives Himself entirely. This Eucharistic devotion aligns perfectly with the theology of the Sacred Heart, which sees the Eucharist as the sacrament of divine love, the place where the Heart of Jesus continues to beat for the world.
Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, often seen as a hymn to nature, is also an expression of his understanding of divine love. He saw all creation as a reflection of the goodness of God, a goodness that flows from the divine Heart. The Sacred Heart devotion teaches that God’s love is the source of all life, sustaining and renewing the world. Francis’s joyful praise of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and all creatures is rooted in his awareness that everything exists because it is loved by God. His ecological sensitivity, centuries ahead of its time, arises from his contemplation of the Creator’s love, a love that is generous, overflowing, and self‑giving.
The connection between Francis and the Sacred Heart becomes even clearer when considering his approach to peace and reconciliation. The Heart of Jesus is often invoked as the source of peace, a peace that comes from the healing of relationships, between God and humanity, and among people themselves. Francis embodied this peace in his interactions with others, including his famous meeting with the Sultan during the Crusades. He approached the Sultan not with hostility but with respect and openness, seeking dialogue rather than conflict. This attitude reflects the Heart of Jesus, who seeks to reconcile rather than divide, who loves even enemies, and who desires unity among all people. Francis’s peacemaking is therefore another expression of the divine love that flows from the Sacred Heart.
In contemplating Francis and the Sacred Heart together, one sees a profound harmony. Francis is, in a sense, the human echo of the divine Heart. His life makes visible what the Sacred Heart symbolizes: a love that gives everything, holds nothing back, and embraces all creation. The Sacred Heart reveals the inner life of God; Francis reveals what that love looks like when lived by a human being fully surrendered to grace. The two together offer a powerful vision of Christian discipleship, one that calls believers not merely to admire Christ’s love but to participate in it.
This participation requires transformation. The Sacred Heart devotion invites believers to allow their own hearts to be shaped by the Heart of Jesus, to become more compassionate, more humble, more willing to sacrifice for others. Francis shows that this transformation is possible. He was not born a saint; he became one through continual conversion, through daily choices to love, forgive, and serve. His example challenges modern Christians to examine their own lives and to ask whether they are allowing the love of Christ to penetrate their hearts. The Sacred Heart is not a distant ideal but a living reality that seeks to enter the human heart and make it new.
In a world marked by violence, division, and indifference, the message of the Sacred Heart and the example of St. Francis are urgently needed. They remind us that love is not weakness but strength, that humility is not humiliation but freedom, and that sacrifice is not loss but gain. The Heart of Jesus continues to beat with love for humanity, and Francis continues to inspire those who seek to follow Christ more closely. Together, they offer a path toward healing, reconciliation, and peace, a path that begins in the heart and radiates outward into the world.
May the gentle spirit of our Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi and our Holy Mother St. Clare of Assisi guide our hearts in peace and trust. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, may we all find strength, healing, and renewed hope. In that Heart opened for love of us, may we enter the loving embrace of the Father’s Love and be filled with the gifts of His Holy Spirit to be Pilgrims of Hope in our world.
You and your loved ones will be remembered in my prayers each day. Your intentions will also be with me during Mass. May God’s tender love and mercy surround us all.
Peace and Blessings
Fr. Francis A. Sariego, OFM Cap
Regional Spiritual Assistant
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