The St. Katharine Drexel Region of the Secular Franciscan Order

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 2026

Dear Sisters and Brothers in St. Francis,

On the evening of 3 October 1226, at the little church of Saint Mary of the Angels, a great silence fell upon the Franciscan brotherhood. Francis of Assisi, the poor man who had chosen to follow Christ in poverty, humility, obedience, and perfect joy, had completed his earthly pilgrimage. He had embraced the Gospel not merely as a book to be studied but as a life to be lived. Now the man who had become father, brother, guide, and spiritual light to thousands of men and women had passed from this world into eternal life. The news of his death could not remain within the walls of the Portiuncula. It had to be carried to the brothers scattered throughout the world. Brother Elias, then Vicar General of the Order, assumed the painful responsibility of announcing the death of their beloved founder.

The letter traditionally known as the Encyclical Letter of Brother Elias on the Transitus of Saint Francis begins with an extraordinary cry of grief: Before I begin to speak, I sigh. The words immediately reveal that this is not simply an administrative communication. It is the lament of a son who has lost his father, of a disciple who has lost his master, and of a religious family that has suddenly been deprived of its visible center. Early Franciscan tradition records that Elias sent a letter of consolation throughout the Order, and the letter presents Francis’s death simultaneously as a profound sorrow and as a reason for Christian joy.

This tension between mourning and joy is at the heart of Christian spirituality. The Church mourns death because death is painful and because human love makes separation painful. Yet Christian faith refuses to regard death as the final word. Saint Paul declares, For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). The Christian does not rejoice because death itself is desirable, but because Christ has entered death and transformed it from a prison into a passage. For Francis, this passage was the culmination of an entire life spent following Christ crucified.

Brother Elias therefore does something spiritually important. He does not tell the brothers simply, “Francis has died.” He interprets the death. He invites them to understand what has happened through the mystery of Christ. Francis’s death cannot be separated from the life he lived. The true  significance of his final hour is already contained throughout the lifetime experience of his conversion, his poverty, his service to lepers, his love of the Eucharist, his obedience to the Church, his fraternity, his preaching of peace, and finally his conformity to the crucified Lord.

The early Franciscan sources describe Francis’s final days as a kind of Gospel drama. Thomas of Celano tells us that when Francis knew death was approaching, he desired to return to the Portiuncula, the place where his vocation had become so clear to him. On the way, he blessed Assisi. At Saint Mary of the Angels, he asked the brothers to sing the praises of God. According to the Franciscan tradition, even when his body was weakened by illness, Francis continued to praise God and encouraged his companions to do the same. He asked that the Passion according to Saint John be read to him, recalling the Last Supper and the suffering of Christ.

There is a profound symbolism here. Francis began his Christian journey before the crucifix of San Damiano, hearing Christ call him to repair His Church. At the end of his life, he surrounded himself with the Gospel of Christ’s Passion. The beginning and the end of his vocation meet at the Cross. The man who had spent his life gazing upon Christ crucified now prepared to enter into the mystery of the Crucified One. What was impressed on his heart at San Damiano, was impressed on his body at La Verna.

Saint Paul writes, I bear the marks of Jesus on my body (Galatians 6:17). In Francis, the Franciscan tradition saw this verse expressed in a remarkable and literal manner through the Stigmata. Brother Elias’s letter famously announces that Francis appeared as one crucified, bearing in his body the wounds of Christ. The letter describes the wounds in the hands, feet, and side as signs of the Passion.

The spirituality of St. Francis makes it clear that the stigmata were not simply miraculous signs. Their deepest meaning was conformity to Christ that Francis sought throughout his life. Francis did not seek extraordinary experiences for their own sake. Once he discovered where true wealth could be found, his entire life was a movement toward becoming more like Jesus. The stigmata were understood by the early Franciscan tradition as the visible manifestation of an interior transformation that had been taking place for years.

This is why the letter of Elias connects the death of Francis so closely with the wounds of Christ. Francis did not merely die as a holy man; he died having configured his life to the pattern of the Gospel. Saint Francis had understood the words of Christ, If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24),  not as an abstract command but as the program of his life.

His poverty was a participation in Christ’s poverty. His humility was an imitation of Christ’s humility. His service to lepers was an imitation of Christ’s mercy. His fraternity reflected Christ’s gathering of disciples. His love for creation reflected his praise of the Creator. His suffering became a participation in the Cross. His death became a final surrender into the hands of God. His Journey Into God was now complete and fulfilled. Now he saw in the clarity of eternal light the One Whom he sought in the cloud of faith and by Whom he hoped to be embraced and Whom he hoped to embrace in the encounter of Eternal Love Who is God.

Francis himself had already expressed this spirituality in his writings. In his Testament, he looks back upon his conversion and says that when he was living in sin, “it seemed too bitter” to see lepers, but that the Lord Himself led him among them and gave him mercy. His entire vocation is therefore interpreted as grace. Francis does not present himself as the author of his own holiness. God acted first, and Francis ecstatically said “Yes”.  This is what I want. This is what I seek, this is what I desire with all my heart.

This is important when reading Elias’s announcement. The letter is ultimately not a celebration of Francis as an isolated heroic individual. Its purpose is to point beyond Francis toward God. The miracle, the wounds, the holiness, the fraternity, the conversion, and the apostolic fruitfulness all belong to the action of divine grace. God is at work in us, through us, with us, for us.

The death of Francis therefore becomes a lesson in the Christian meaning of life. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). Francis had spent his life allowing the seed of the Gospel to die to self so that Christ might live in him. His physical death did not end that fruitfulness. In many ways, it intensified it. After his death, his example spread throughout the Church with extraordinary force.

Thomas of Celano, the first major biographer of Francis, wrote only a few years after the saint’s death. His First Life was commissioned by Pope Gregory IX and completed around 1230, giving it an important place among the early historical sources. Celano presents Francis’s final moments as filled with praise. Francis asked the brothers to sing, and he himself joined as far as he could. He even welcomed death as “Sister Death,” because he had learned to receive everything from the hands of God as “gift”.

This is one of the most distinctive aspects of Franciscan spirituality. Francis does not call death “enemy” alone. In the Canticle of the Creatures, he praises God even “through our Sister Bodily Death.” Such language would be impossible if Francis regarded death merely as annihilation. For him, death belongs within the providence of God. It is painful, but it is also a threshold. The creature returns to the Creator.

This attitude becomes even more powerful when placed beside the biblical words, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones” (Psalm 116:15). The death of the saint is precious not because suffering is good in itself, but because the life of the faithful person is finally gathered into God. Francis had given himself to God during life; in death he gave himself completely.

Brother Elias’s letter therefore teaches the friars how to grieve. They are not told to suppress their tears. Indeed, Elias openly invites them to mourn. The beloved father is gone. The one who had carried them spiritually is no longer physically present. They are, in a real sense, orphans.

Yet Christian mourning is never without hope. Jesus Himself wept at the tomb of Lazarus, even though He knew that Lazarus would rise (John 11:35). Christian hope does not eliminate grief; it transforms grief. The tears of the disciples are not a failure of faith. They are evidence of love. But the Christian can weep while still believing that Christ has conquered death.

The letter of Elias embodies precisely this spirituality: sorrow and joy, tears and thanksgiving, loss and hope, death and resurrection. Francis has died, but Christ has not died. The visible father of the brothers has been taken away, but the Father in heaven remains. Their earthly guide is gone, but the Gospel remains. Their community has lost its founder, but its true foundation is Christ.

Francis himself understood this. In his Testament, he directs his brothers back toward obedience to the Rule and to the Gospel. He does not want the Order to become merely a monument to his personality. His purpose is that the brothers continue to live the Gospel. The Franciscan vocation must survive not by preserving Francis as a memory but by allowing his evangelical vision to continue in concrete lives of poverty, fraternity, prayer, mercy, and peace.

The death of Francis thus becomes a question for every Franciscan generation: What does it mean to inherit Francis’s spirit? It is not enough to admire Francis. It is not enough to celebrate his feast. It is not enough to speak beautifully about his love of creation or his poverty. The true inheritance of Francis is a life conformed to Christ.

The early sources repeatedly return to this point. Saint Bonaventure, writing several decades after Francis’s death, describes Francis as a man whose holiness had become an example capable of guiding others toward Christ. Bonaventure records his death as the completion of his earthly pilgrimage and emphasizes the divine confirmation of his sanctity.

The testimony of these early sources allows us to see the death of Francis as the completion of a vocation. His life was not divided into separate compartments called “conversion,” “ministry,” “suffering,” and “death.” All of it was one movement toward Christ. His final suffering belonged to the same journey as his first encounter with the leper. His final praise belonged to the same journey as his first prayer before the crucifix. His final embrace of Sister Death belonged to the same journey as his first embrace of poverty.

There is also something deeply communal about Elias’s announcement. Francis does not die as an isolated mystic. He dies surrounded by brothers. His final concern is not simply his own salvation but the spiritual welfare of those whom God had entrusted to him. Francis blesses his brothers. According to the Franciscan tradition, he forgives them and sends them forth under God’s blessing.

This is significant because Franciscan spirituality is fundamentally fraternal. The vocation is not “Francis alone.” It is Francis and his brothers. It is the Gospel lived together. Francis understood that the brothers would have weaknesses, disagreements, failures, and different interpretations of the future. Nevertheless, he entrusted them to God.

 

Elias’s letter therefore performs an act of spiritual succession. Francis has died, but the fraternity continues. The brothers must now learn to live without the physical presence of the man who gathered them. This is perhaps one of the deepest lessons of the Transitus. Every Christian community eventually faces the experience of losing a beloved guide, founder, parent, or teacher. Faith requires learning to move from dependence upon a human presence toward deeper dependence upon God.

The letter also contains an extraordinary message of forgiveness. Francis, according to the letter’s account, had forgiven the brothers for their faults. This detail is spiritually important. The last legacy of Francis is not resentment but reconciliation. He does not leave his brothers burdened by guilt over what they failed to do. He leaves them with mercy.

That recalls the words of Christ from the Cross: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Francis had spent his life trying to imitate Christ; at the end, the spirit of forgiveness remained central. A Franciscan community can survive disagreements only if it continually returns to mercy.

The Franciscan Rule itself begins with the Gospel. The brothers are those who wish to follow the life and poverty of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the death of Francis cannot be understood merely as the death of an historical founder. It is a test of whether the brothers will continue to follow Christ when the human instrument through which God had guided them is no longer present.

There is also a valuable historical caution. The Letter of Elias has traditionally been received as an early Franciscan testimony, and Franciscan sources and later traditions have treated it as an important witness to Francis’s death and stigmata. Yet modern scholarship has questioned the certainty of its authorship and transmission. Some scholars have argued that the surviving form cannot be established with complete confidence as a document written exactly as traditionally attributed to Elias immediately after Francis’s death. This caution should not prevent spiritual reflection; rather, it should encourage intellectual honesty. Franciscan spirituality does not depend upon refusing historical questions. Faith can respect both devotion and historical investigation.

Even with this caution, the themes associated with the letter are strongly confirmed by other early Franciscan witnesses: Francis’s final praise, his reading of the Passion, his acceptance of death, his blessing of the brothers, his desire to return to the Portiuncula, and the early Franciscan testimony concerning the stigmata. The tradition surrounding his Transitus is therefore much broader than one document.

Perhaps the most beautiful lesson of all is that Francis teaches us how to die by teaching us how to live. He did not suddenly become prepared for death on the evening of 3 October 1226. He had been preparing for death every day by surrendering himself to God. He had practiced dying to pride, dying to wealth, dying to selfish ambition, dying to comfort, dying to revenge, and dying to the desire for control. That is why his death could become praise.

Saint Paul writes, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). These words can fittingly be placed beside the final hours of Francis. His race was finished. His earthly pilgrimage was complete. The poor man of Assisi had nothing left to possess except Christ.

And so Brother Elias’s announcement is ultimately more than an obituary. It is an invitation to conversion. It asks the brothers – and it asks us – what remains when the things we depend upon are taken away. What remains when health disappears? What remains when reputation disappears? What remains when possessions disappear? What remains when even those we love most must leave us? Francis’s answer is not “what remains” but “Who remains”?  And the answer is Christ!

The final spiritual message of his Transitus is therefore not simply, “Francis has died.” It is, “Francis has passed over into the Lord.”  His “Journey Into God” is complete. The Franciscan understanding of death is not centered upon disappearance but upon passage. The saint has completed his journey from the world into eternity, from following Christ in faith to seeing Him in glory.

For this reason, the death of Saint Francis is also a proclamation of hope. The wounds of the Crucified Christ became signs of resurrection. The poverty of Francis became spiritual richness. His weakness became strength. His death became witness. His departure became a new beginning for the Order.

None of those who gathered at the Portiuncula the night of 3 October 1226, mourning his passing, could not yet have known how widely the Spirit of the Poverello – the Franciscan charism – would have spread. They could not foresee the millions who would one day look to Francis as a model of Gospel living, peace, fraternity, care for creation, and love for the poor. But the seed had been planted. The words of Christ remain true: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24).

Francis had fallen into the soil of poverty, humility, suffering, and love. On 3 October 1226, that grain entered the darkness of death. But in Christ, darkness was not the end. The seed entered the earth so that its fruit might continue.

Therefore, when we contemplate Brother Elias announcing the death of Saint Francis, we should allow ourselves to hear both voices contained in the announcement. We hear the voice of mourning: “Our father is gone.” But we also hear the voice of faith: “He has gone home to Christ.” We hear the cry of human loss, but beneath it we hear the song of Resurrection.

Francis died as he had lived: poor, grateful, reconciled, praising God, surrounded by his brothers, contemplating the Passion of Christ, and entrusting himself entirely to divine mercy. Surrounded by his brothers, and “Fra Jacopa” who arrived just in time to see, greet, bring him the cookies he requested and so enjoyed, and the tunic she made for his burial.

This woman was the woman who had a “friar’s” heart and Francis’ unconditional permission to enter the friary. Even in dying, Francis never forgot the “gentilezza” (courtesy) of a good friend who never forgets a good faithful friend, Jacopa.

His final lesson is therefore simple and profound: live so completely in Christ that death becomes the final act of praise.

May the spirit that animated Francis continue to animate all who bear his name. May we learn from him to embrace the poor, forgive our brothers and sisters, love the Church, cherish creation, carry the Cross, and rejoice in the gifts of God. And when our own hour comes, may we be able to repeat the prayer that expressed the whole life of Francis: “Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart.”

May the Lord give us the grace to live faithfully, to suffer courageously, to forgive generously, and finally, like Francis, to welcome Sister Death not as the end of our existence but as the doorway through which we return to the Father.

For “neither death, nor life…nor things present, nor things to come…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Francis has passed from our sight, but the Gospel he lived remains. His voice has fallen silent, but his life continues to preach. His body rests in Assisi, but his witness travels wherever men and women choose the Gospel over wealth, fraternity over division, mercy over judgment, peace over violence, and Christ over self.

This is the deeper meaning of Brother Elias’s announcement. It is an announcement of death, but even more profoundly, it is an announcement of hope. The father of the brothers has died, but the Father remains. The earthly journey has ended, but eternal life has begun. The disciple has followed the Crucified One through suffering and death and now, by the mercy of God, into glory.

And so we mourn Francis.

And we rejoice for Francis.

And above all, we praise the God whom Francis loved,

served, obeyed, and proclaimed throughout his life.

To Him be glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving, now and forever.

Amen

Peace and Blessings

Fr. Francis A. Sariego, O.F.M. Cap

Regional Spiritual Assistant

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

August 2026

Dear Sisters and Brothers in St. Francis,

The Lord give you His peace

Through the gift of His presence in the beauty of creation

And in the wonderful image and likeness

Of our Creator in each one of us!

The Canticle of the Creatures stands as one of the most enlightening gifts that Saint Francis of Assisi offered to the Church and to the world. It is not merely a poem celebrating the beauty of creation. It is the song of a man whose heart had been transformed by grace, purified through suffering, and enlarged by forgiveness. It was composed near the end of Francis’ earthly life when blindness, illness, misunderstanding, and physical weakness had become his daily companions. Humanly speaking, he had every reason to lament. Yet instead he praised. His song emerged not from comfort but from communion, not from success but from surrender. It teaches every Franciscan that genuine praise does not ignore suffering but embraces it through trust in the goodness of God.

Francis learned to see creation not as an object to possess but as a family to receive. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and finally Sister Bodily Death were not poetic devices created for literary beauty alone. They were expressions of a profound spiritual vision. Francis no longer stood above creation as its master. He stood within creation as a brother. Everything that existed pointed beyond itself to the Creator, and everything reflected something of God’s generosity. To call the sun “Brother” and the earth “Mother” was not sentimentality. It was an acknowledgment that all creatures have their origin in the same loving Father.

Yet there is a remarkable movement within the Canticle that deserves particular attention. After praising the visible elements of creation, Francis unexpectedly turns toward human relationships. He blesses those who forgive. Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love and bear infirmity and tribulation. This verse is not an interruption of the Canticle. It is its climax. The harmony of creation reaches its fullest expression when human beings are reconciled with one another. The beauty of the sun and the stars finds its fulfillment in the beauty of mercy. Francis understood that a fractured human heart cannot fully join the song of creation until it has learned forgiveness.

Forgiveness is therefore not simply one Christian virtue among many. It is the restoration of creation’s original harmony. Sin introduced division into the world. Humanity became separated from God, from one another, from creation, and even from itself. Every refusal to forgive deepens these fractures. Every act of mercy becomes a participation in God’s work of recreating the world. The Canticle invites us to hear that work taking place around us continually. Every sunrise proclaims the faithfulness of God. Every stream speaks of His generosity. Every gentle breeze whispers His tenderness. But perhaps the clearest proclamation of God’s presence is found whenever one wounded heart forgives another.

Francis did not write these words from theory. His entire life had become an apprenticeship in forgiveness. Long before he embraced lepers, rebuilt churches, or gathered companions around him, he had known the wounds of family conflict. His relationship with his father, Pietro Bernardone, remains one of the defining stories of his conversion. Pietro was a successful cloth merchant, ambitious for his son and eager that Francis should inherit both his business and his social standing. Francis, however, found himself increasingly captivated by another inheritance. The Gospel awakened within him desires that no earthly wealth could satisfy.

The conflict between father and son became public and painful. Pietro believed Francis had betrayed his family, squandered property, and dishonored the expectations placed upon him. Francis had sold cloth and given the proceeds to repair the Church of San Damiano. Pietro demanded restitution and sought legal judgment against his son. Before the bishop of Assisi, Francis did something extraordinary. He returned not only the money but even the clothes he wore. Standing naked before those assembled, he declared that from that moment he could say only, Our Father who art in heaven, for he no longer belonged to Pietro Bernardone but entirely to God.

This dramatic gesture has often been remembered as the moment of Francis’ radical poverty. Indeed, it was. Yet it must also be understood as an act of freedom from bitterness. Francis did not reject his father because he hated him. He surrendered everything because he wished to belong wholly to Christ. There is a profound difference between renunciation born of anger and renunciation born of love. Francis did not spend the remainder of his life condemning Pietro. He did not define himself by his father’s rejection. He did not carry resentment as a hidden possession after relinquishing every visible possession.

The temptation would have been understandable. Few wounds cut more deeply than those inflicted within families. The longing for parental approval remains one of the strongest desires of the human heart. To be misunderstood by one’s own father can become a lifelong burden. Yet Francis refused to allow that wound to become the center of his identity. His identity rested instead in being the beloved son of the heavenly Father. Because he discovered this deeper sonship, he became capable of forgiving the earthly father who had failed to understand him.

Forgiveness does not erase memory. Francis undoubtedly remembered every painful conversation, every accusation, every misunderstanding. Forgiveness transforms memory by removing the poison that would otherwise continue to flow from it. The past remains, but it no longer dictates the future. The wound remains visible, yet it becomes a place where grace is revealed rather than resentment.

The traditions surrounding the final years of Pietro Bernardone suggest that reconciliation did eventually occur. Whether every historical detail can be verified is less important than recognizing the unmistakable direction of Francis’ heart. Nothing in his life suggests lingering hostility. Everything points toward mercy. The man who embraced lepers, reconciled feuding civic leaders, and blessed those who forgave for love of God could hardly have excluded his own father from that mercy. Francis’ life itself became the commentary on the verse he later inserted into the Canticle.

This should speak powerfully to every Franciscan today. It is possible to profess poverty while remaining rich in resentments. It is possible to embrace simplicity while carrying complicated grudges. One may wear the habit, recite the Divine Office, serve the poor, and yet preserve old injuries within the heart. Francis would recognize such contradictions immediately. True poverty includes surrendering the illusion that we possess the right to nurse hatred. Forgiveness becomes one more form of evangelical poverty because it relinquishes our claim to revenge and entrusts justice to God.

The Canticle reminds us that creation itself never ceases giving. The sun does not withhold its light because humanity has sinned. The rain does not refuse the fields because people have become selfish. Water continues to serve. Fire continues to warm. Earth continues to nourish. All creation reflects the lavish generosity of God. Human forgiveness participates in that same divine generosity. We forgive not because others deserve it but because God continues pouring His goodness upon those who have not deserved it, including ourselves.

This does not make forgiveness easy. Francis never suggested that mercy ignores suffering. The verse about forgiveness is joined immediately to bearing infirmity and tribulation. The two belong together. Only those who have suffered know the true cost of forgiving. Cheap forgiveness denies pain. Christian forgiveness acknowledges pain fully while refusing to let pain have the final word. It is not passive resignation. It is active participation in the Cross of Christ.

Francis understood that the Crucified Lord remained the measure of every act of forgiveness. The one who prayed before the crucifix at San Damiano spent his life contemplating the God who forgave while being rejected. Christ did not wait until humanity became worthy before extending mercy. He loved first. He forgave first. Francis learned that every disciple must enter the same pattern. To forgive is to imitate the crucified Christ, whose love proved stronger than violence, betrayal, and death itself.

There is another dimension of forgiveness that Francis quietly teaches. Forgiveness also restores our ability to praise. Hearts consumed by resentment cannot truly sing. They may recite prayers, but their praise remains restrained by the weight of unresolved anger. The Canticle emerged from a heart that had become spacious enough to include every creature because it excluded bitterness. Praise and forgiveness belong together because both arise from gratitude. The forgiven person becomes forgiving. The forgiving person becomes joyful. The joyful person becomes capable of praising God in every circumstance.

Our contemporary world often encourages another path. We are taught to preserve grievances as badges of identity. Injuries become defining narratives. Social divisions deepen because forgiveness appears weak or unrealistic. Francis offers a radically different witness. Strength is revealed not through domination but through mercy. Freedom is found not in winning every conflict but in surrendering hatred. Peace begins not with changing others but with allowing Christ to heal our own hearts.

Franciscan fraternity depends upon this truth. No community can survive without forgiveness. Differences in personality, misunderstandings, failures, disappointments, and human weakness inevitably arise wherever people live together. The question is not whether conflicts will occur but whether mercy will be stronger than conflict. Francis knew this from experience. Even among his beloved brothers there were tensions and disagreements. Yet he continually recalled them to humility, mutual service, and reconciliation. The fraternity existed not because everyone was perfect but because everyone depended upon the mercy of God.

The same applies to the wider human family. When Francis crossed battle lines to meet the Sultan, he demonstrated that dialogue begins with seeing another person first as a fellow creature loved by God. Forgiveness creates the possibility of encounters that fear would otherwise prevent. It breaks the endless cycle in which injury produces retaliation and retaliation produces deeper injury. Mercy interrupts history’s habit of repeating violence.

As Franciscans contemplate the Canticle today, we may ask ourselves whether our praise extends as far as Francis’ praise. It is easy to bless God for beautiful sunsets. It is more difficult to bless Him through those who forgive. Yet Francis deliberately included them because he knew that reconciled humanity is among God’s most beautiful creations. Every act of forgiveness becomes another verse in the ongoing canticle of creation. Every restored relationship adds another harmony to the song of the universe.

Francis’ forgiveness of Pietro Bernardone becomes especially significant because it reveals that holiness begins close to home. It is easier to forgive humanity in the abstract than particular people whose words have wounded us deeply. The father who misunderstood him represented not merely one difficult relationship but the deepest personal trial of Francis’ early life. By forgiving there, Francis learned to forgive everywhere. The grace received in one relationship expanded until it embraced all creation.

The Canticle concludes by praising those who endure in peace and those whom Sister Death finds living in God’s grace. There is profound wisdom here. Death cannot frighten those who have already surrendered resentment. They have died daily to pride, vengeance, and possessiveness. They have learned that nothing truly belongs to them except the love they have received from God and shared with others. Such people can welcome Sister Death because they have already entered the freedom of the Kingdom.

Francis leaves us not simply with beautiful words but with a demanding invitation. He asks us to look upon creation with reverence, upon suffering with trust, upon enemies with mercy, and upon God with unending praise. He reminds us that forgiveness is not separate from contemplation but one of its highest expressions. The contemplative heart sees the world as God sees it, and God always sees beyond sin toward redemption. To forgive is therefore to participate in the very vision of God.

May we learn from Francis that every creature points us toward the Creator, every wound can become a place of grace, every relationship can be touched by mercy, and every act of forgiveness restores something of the original harmony for which creation longs. May we discover that the Canticle is not only a hymn to the beauty of the world but also a summons to become instruments of reconciliation within it. Then our lives, like the life of the Poor Man of Assisi, will become living songs in which Brother Sun shines more brightly because hatred has been relinquished, Sister Water flows more clearly because bitterness has been washed away, and every human heart becomes capable of joining the eternal praise of the Father through the Son in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

What a wonderful legacy we have been left in the charism of the Poverello of Assisi! If only we would realize the power that what we believe has in transforming each person! Charism is a “gift” that is freely given by God to envelop us with His love and encourage us to let go and let God lift us above and beyond the mundane and enter an experience that only grace can offer.

Peace and Blessings

Fr. Francis A. Sariego, O.F.M. Cap.

Regional Spiritual Assistant

NB-There is no reliable source to date that speaks of a formal forgiveness and acceptance of forgiveness between Francis and Pietro. Francis’ actions speak of a forgiveness granted by his interaction with all creation, people included, thus, even to his father who in the sources seems never to have formally asked or accepted forgiveness of his son.

 

 

 

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

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

February 2026

Dear Sisters and Brothers in St. Francis,

May the Lord grant you peace!

In the Spring of 1207, while in the woods of Monte Subasio, Saint Francis was accosted by several thieves. They asked Francis who he was and he replied simply, I am the herald of the great King!  We know the story: they stripped him of his tunic, threw him into a ditch, and went away amused at the self-aggrandizing words of this “lunatic”.  Francis was untroubled at the harsh treatment given him. Our Seraphic Father truly an example for all his children-to-be got up and cheerfully continued his way.  Eccentric to say the least! … but truly in love with God and life so that even harsh treatment could not destroy the inner peace and joy he was discovering more deeply every day.

His response to the brigands was based on a profound conviction that the Lord had spoken to him from the Cross of San Damiano charging him to rebuild my Church, for as you can see it is falling into ruin.  St. Francis understood these words literally. His “job” was to rebuild churches. He was the divinely-appointed ecclesiastical architect and general contractor. Actually, it is not far-fetched to give him these titles.  The day would come when he would be the “architect” of a whole new way of life and build the Family of the Penitents of Assisi with the lives and love of those “living stones”, who eventually would follow the example of the Poverello of Assisi. The Providence of God would take care of his needs. The good people of Assisi and so many others would be the all-providing hand of God for this young “penitent” who had embraced his fears, kissed the leper, and given all that possessed him back to the world.  He threw himself with abandon into the loving arms of his Father in heaven.

St.  Francis was a “man on a mission”, a mission yet to be defined, but one that he did not hesitate to begin, leaving all the specifics up to God.  How wonderful our lives would be if only we would be that trusting of God!  We trust human beings, erratic as they or we can be, and yet we find difficulty trusting God, Whose love is everlasting! (Psalm 136).  Go figure! The work of rebuilding churches with the sweat of his brow and strength of his own limbs caught the attention of many, especially the elite of Assisi society. Francis, as they, was accustomed to be catered to in his whims, though there was a tender spot in his heart for those less fortunate on the lower rung of the social ladder.

Whatever the reason, it seemed he captured the attention of everyone.  All were aware of Francis.  He had caused excitement and consternation among the populace of Assisi. True leadership seems to demand a definite response: yes or no, accept or reject, adhere or detach, follow or leave.  Any who encountered Francis Bernardone, and knew of his previous life as the fair-haired-son of the self-made wealthy merchant, could not remain indifferent to the transformation before them.

Except for the presence and support of an unknown friend, St. Francis was relatively alone in the first years of his new life.  No doubt there were many questions and personal difficulties he would have to overcome.  He struggled with the “demons” within and the difficulties without, as any of us do during a lifetime. With the help of divine grace, he sought to become the new wine and new wineskin (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39).  He did not seek to establish a new Order in the Church, but to establish order in his life.  His cheerful character and determination, his acceptance of voluntary poverty to avoid the entanglements that our possessions so often cause us, his deep love and concern for the “refuse” of society numbering himself among them, were only a few of the characteristics of this “new person” Francis was becoming more decisively each day. And these all served as “magnets” that attracted so many in those first few years to follow his example.  They too would eventually become “heralds of the great King”.

Emphasizing the word “herald” is important.  Heralds were trusted people charged with a given mission.  They spoke in the name of the other. They did not wield the authority. They did however yield to the authority of God’s Word. They spoke in the name of One whose words were to be repeated verbatim, and to Whose Word they were to be conformed.

Jesus Himself speaks of the attitude of His “heralds”.  He tells us not to worry when we are questioned regarding the >Good News= we are commissioned to proclaim to the world.  Speaking in the name of Jesus and witnessing our allegiance to Him, Jesus tells us: Do not be afraid of what you are to say or how you are to say, the Spirit of my Father will be speaking in you (Matthew 10: 19).  Because the heralds were trusted people entrusted with the words of their master, an integrity and credibility were bestowed upon the herald by the mere fact of the office they fulfilled and by the one whom they were delegated to represent, and in whose name, they delivered their message.  A herald spoke from a source beyond himself.  He spoke with certainty. Thus, the herald spoke with unquestionable authority. In this sense, St. Francis was a true herald. He proclaimed the words of the Master and lived them.

In the First Life of St. Francis written by Blessed Thomas of Celano, we read that in winter (February) of 1209: Francis went to another place, which is called the Portiuncula … When on a certain day the Gospel was read in that church, how the Lord sent his disciples out to preach, the holy man of God, assisting there, understood somewhat the words of the Gospel; after Mass he humbly asked the priest to explain the Gospel to him more fully … Francis, hearing that the disciples of Christ should not possess gold or silver or money; nor carry along the way scrip, or wallet, or bread, or a staff; that they should not have shoes, or two tunics; but that they should preach the kingdom of God and penance, immediately cried out exultingly: This is what I wish, this is what I seek, this is what I long to do with all my heart.  The holy father, overflowing with joy, hastened to implement the words of salvation, and did not delay before he devoutly began to put into effect what he heard. … For he was no deaf hearer of the gospel … He then began to preach penance to all with a fervent spirit and joyful attitude … His word like a blazing fire, reaching the deepest parts of the heart and filling the souls of all with wonder… In all his preaching, before he presented the word of God to the assembly, he prayed for peace saying, May the Lord give you peace … Many who hated peace, with the Lord’s help wholeheartedly embraced peace.  They became children of peace. (1 Celano, 21-24)

God=s word was no idle spiritual devotion for Francis. It was the guiding factor in his life. As God spoke, so Francis sought to do. When our Seraphic Father heard the words of the Gospel on that grace-filled day, his concerns and questions were answered. It seemed as though God Himself were saying to Francis: ‘Abandon worries and concern for tomorrow in the hands of the One Who provides for every moment and without Whom nothing can be. Trust. Do not be afraid=. He preached this profound message to others more by actions than by words. His simplicity and childlike trust in the Providence of God attracted others to follow his example.

Friars and Sisters who lived in formal religious houses and monasteries gave a powerful witness of total detachment. There were also men and women, our brothers and sisters, who could not leave their families and/or responsibilities in society. They deeply desired and sought to live this powerful witness to the gospel life in their daily secular experiences.  They became the yeast kneaded into the dough, the light placed on a candelabra (Matthew 13:33).

The Gospel is a call offered to everyone willing to listen and to follow.  The more we faithfully listen to the Word within, the better we are empowered to respond to a world that surrounds us. Give priority to God and trust in His all-providing and all-loving Presence, and life will be fulfilled beyond your desires. The famous statement of St. Iraeneus: The glory of God is the human being fully realized. Is a powerful and encouraging reminder of grace that builds on nature. Conformed to the Person of Christ is the ultimate realization for a Christian who in, with, and through Him (Doxology after Eucharistic Prayer) lets go of everything and lets God “take over”.

As spiritual children of our Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, let us remember the power the Word of God exercised in his life and that should exercise in our own.  St. Francis expected the Rule, Testament, and the life of the Gospel as origin and consequence to be lived “without gloss”.  Let us read the Word and listen to It with our heart. When necessary, ask clarifications, as St. Francis did, to enlighten you that you may better understand what the Lord is saying to you through His Word.

St. Francis is that man with a disarmed heart, as he was called by the Sicilian Bishops several decades ago. Stand disarmed before human beings and disarmed before God and His Eternal Word.  Francis wanted the brothers to live not only the Rule and Testament but also the Gospels without gloss. “Gloss” only mitigates and/or even changes the meaning as it is written by the author. Following our Seraphic Father’s example, let us always have an open and disarmed heart to the challenges God’s Word may offer us.  As Heralds of the Great King, we proclaim His Word. Let the words of the Divine Word Incarnate enter your heart as He speaks to each of you personally. Matthew reminds us so powerfully in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:  Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven (Matthew 5: 3-12). He reminds us: Do not be afraid. It is I (John 6: 20).

If only we realized the beauty of our Franciscan Vocation and the heights of holiness we could achieve following the example of St. Francis of Assisi! We would be able to eradicate from our lives and fraternities all that does not speak of Franciscan humility and charity.  This is not “pie-in-the-sky” religiosity. Our Franciscan charism offers us the foundation for a life worth loving and living.  Love must come first if we are ever to really live. Love of who we are must come first. The Church in Her leadership has always praised our Franciscan spirit and encouraged the sisters and brothers to live it fully. For this to be effective in our lives, remember the words of St. Francis that tell us how to live the life we accepted “without gloss”.

Let us let the Word take hold of our lives.  Whatever God says to us in His most holy Word, let us say with Saint Francis: that is what I want with all my heart.  Let the hope, trust and optimism that has its source in the Lord Himself (cfr. Romans 15: 13)  overflow into the lives of all whom we encounter and to whom we minister.

May God bless you; may Our Lady and good St. Joseph guide, guard, and protect you; and may our Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi and our Holy Mother St. Clare look over each one of you, his spiritual children, and your loved ones with loving care.

 

Peace and Blessings

Fr. Francis A. Sariego, O.F.M. Cap.

Regional Spiritual Assistant

 

Happy Lent 2026

 

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

 

December 2025

Dear Sisters and Brothers in St. Francis,

May the Infant Jesus grant your heart the Peace you desire.

May His Star enlighten your mind with the splendor of His Truth.

May His Love consume your heart so that it beats solely for Him.

Peace, Truth and Love are independent attributes and virtues that have an effect on each other.   Taken together, they have the ability to fill a soul with real and lasting Joy.  When we enter this ‘three-step program’, we have an insight to understand a little more the depths of the Christmas Joy we wish one another.  Most people want to be ‘happy’, and there is obviously nothing wrong with being happy.  Happiness is a wonderful experience.  Happiness often brings with it a sense of elation, relaxation, optimism, and more of those ‘good feelings’ we all enjoy.

Regretfully, this sensation is not permanent. Unless there is Joy in our heart and soul, happiness is only a passing moment with no real lasting effect except that of regret that it did not last longer.  It leaves a yearning for the ‘feeling’ to return.  When we follow the ‘process’ of that simple Christmas, Peace-Truth-Love, a more lasting Joy enters our heart and soul. It is this Joy that Christmas and the Mystery of the Incarnation help us to acquire. When we understand how the Eternal Word, equal to God from all ages, entered human history so that humanity could enter the timelessness of God’s Love, we lay the groundwork for the Peace-Truth-Love of God to possess us.  God Himself offers us insights into all this through His own inspired Word.

Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear …  Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm! … The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. (cfr. Isaiah 7: 4-15) For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; upon his shoulder dominion rests.  They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and forever peaceful. (Isaiah 9: 5-6) … who brings glad tidings announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation … (Isaiah 52: 7)

Do you remember how prevalent it became for us to hear the word ‘Shalom’, the Hebrew word for ‘Peace’, extended to others at the moment of the Sign of Peace during Mass?  Our own Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi made the word ‘peace’ his own particular greeting: The Lord give you peace!  When we reflect upon what peace means to us and pray for it, most often what we ask for is tranquility of soul or cessation of some external violence affecting ourselves or others.  This peace is most needed and an appropriate gift to prayerfully request of God.  However, in Scripture, the word ‘Shalom’ that we translate as ‘peace’ has a deeper and more life-altering meaning.  Our ancestors in the faith of Abraham, from whom our Savior descended according to the flesh, used this word to mean ‘completeness’, ‘fullness’, ‘integrity’, and the like.  What flows from this ‘fullness’ and ‘completeness’ is another expression of ‘shalom’.

The Mystery of the Incarnation begins with ‘shalom’.  The Angel Gabriel came to Mary and greeting her said: ‘Shalom’ favored one! The Lord is with you. (Luke 2: 28) This greeting of fulfillment, completeness, wholeness filled Mary with a sense of confusion at why this should be said to Her. The prophecies were now to be fulfilled, the time established had reached completion, the person to enter human history was the Creator/creature in the wholeness of a Person Whose two distinct and total natures were not in conflict but in total harmony with each other. ‘Shalom’, the Angel said to Mary, as an introduction and encouragement to accept the challenge because, with Her consent, the Father would send His Spirit to overshadow Mary. Thus, His Covenant and all the Prophecies would be fulfilled in Jesus, His Incarnate Son, the Word made flesh.  ‘Shalom-Peace’ is anything but an apathetic courteous greeting. It is an eternally packed word that brings harmony and serenity, and leads to acceptance of Truth.

Jesus then said … ‘If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (John 8: 31-32) I have much more to tell you … but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. (John 16: 12-13) Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, Father …  Consecrate them in the truth.  Your word is truth (cfr. John 17: 1-17).  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. (John 18: 37)

Peace of heart and soul is a liberating gift.  Inner peace frees us to be who we were created to be.  There is no longer any need to protect an ‘image’ of what we want others to think of us.  Protective comfort zones are eliminated.  Intimidating precautions and false securities that offer illusory hope are eliminated.  Deceptive images we use to camouflage our real personalities are ‘unmasked’.  A soul at peace is transparent and that person is at peace with him/herself.  Transparency is Truth, and vice versa.  Peace frees us from the need to ‘compete’ with others. Self esteem is rekindled and we accept the fact that You are who you are before God and nothing more (cfr. St. Francis of Assisi).  Truth and transparency, fruits of a person at peace with God, self and others, inevitably leads to Love.

The eyes of the Lord are upon those who love him … He gives health and life and blessings (Sirach 34: 17).  For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts (Hosea 6: 6). Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him … Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him (John 14: 21-23).

Love is a deceptive word.  It is most often used to express an emotional rapport between persons.  While love can be expressed as a ‘fuzzy feeling’ of the senses, true love is something else. When we define love, we have already limited or even destroyed it in our minds and hearts. Peace that leads to transparency is capable of love in its fullness. We know that love is God.  True spiritual love is manifest in the ability to totally surrender ourselves to the other. This surrender is not a submission to another’s dominance. Loving surrender does not count the cost, it supports and encourages. It lives the present, in view of the future, grateful for the experiences of the past.  Love helps us to live in the present, and thus in the Presence of God.

It is a marvelous blessing for anyone to possess Peace-Truth-Love.  To state it this way though, seems so academic. They are academic qualities, virtues, attributes that can be taught, preached, reflected upon.  But what are the practical effects of these three Christmas gifts of the Father to His world in Jesus?  Simply put:

–   Peace calms the heart and soul. It offers the space for serenity within and brings about a certain contentment, tranquility, silence in our personality and demeanor. A peace-full person is usually calm, balanced, thoughtful, patient, prudent .

–   Truth encourages the person to greater transparency, thus, to live a simpler life. A simplicity of lifestyle eradicates all exaggerations, false securities in persons, places, and things.  We are relieved and free to just be ourselves.

–   Love is the last of the three ‘steps’ that challenges us to open our hearts to others. The inner peace and total transparency free us to accept others as we would be accepted.  They become ‘companions on the journey’ who enhance and support us as we do them. They are not obstacles to overcome or enemies to conquer. They are sisters and brothers in God’s great family of creation redeemed in the Blood of the One Whose Birth we celebrate.  In His Blood God’s Covenant with Humanity is ratified and we become truly adopted children.  We are children not of the womb.  We are children of the heart, the Eternal Loving Heart of the Father.

Sisters and Brothers in the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi and our Holy Mother St. Clare, let us accept the greeting as a blessing and a challenge. Let us strive at this Holy Season and throughout the year to seek that peace that only God can give. Let us gratefully accept God’s will for us and the role He has asked we fulfill in our life.  Thus we shall see all others in the same light, ‘blessed’ and ‘challenged’.  May the words of the angels at Bethlehem to the shepherds be in our hearts and on our lips: Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to those on whom His favor rests (Luke 2: 14).

Christmas is a time of gift-giving and gift-receiving.  Recognize the gift we are and are called to be. Thus, we may become a joy-filled, life-giving, sister and brother in the family of the Poverello of Assisi. For this intention and whatever ones you may hold most dear in your hearts, be assured that you and your loved ones will be remembered in a special way in all the Masses I celebrate during this holy season.

Let’s remember that this Advent begins the celebration of the 8th centenary of the Paschal Mystery of our Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi. Aware of his approaching death, he and awaited his encounter with Life Himself, Uncreated Source of Being, GOD.  St. Francis sang his song as he saw with his heart’s eye the immensity God’s creation reborn and transformed in the magnificence of God from Whom all comes and in-with-through Whom all are “reborn”.  Advent/Christmas is the mystery re-presented in liturgy each year for us to journey with the heart and liturgy as of Seraphic Father did. Contemplate with your mind and heart each day. Offer others the gift of your contemplation. The Jesus considered, contemplated, and offered others will be a source unexpected of Peace-Truth-Love.

In the Name of Jesus I wish all of you a Spirit-filled Advent and a Holy and Happy Christmas Season. As you enter the new calendar year with all its expectations and uncertainties, hopes and fears, may your dreams be fulfilled in a world renewed in Jesus and filled with His Spirit. Let us never forget: A Child is born to us! A Savior is given to us! Come, let us adore Him!  Fear not!  It is I!  I have conquered the world!

Blessed and Merry Christmas 2025 and a Happy New Year 2026!

 

Peace and Blessings

Fr. Francis A. Sariego, OFM Cap

Regional Spiritual Assistant

 

Holy and Happy Christmas 2025

Happy New Year 2026

May the New Year be filled with God’s

Peace, Joy and Love.