Homily 2/13/00
Father Brian Timoney

The year was 1182, and naturally, different time, different place, different circumstances from today, and yet there were certain things in the society of that day that very much remind us of our own. But, first of all, the millennium had passed, that first millenium, and in spite of all the great predictions that the world would come to an end in the year 1000, it didn't. The other thing that kind of reminds us of today is that there were all kinds of weird cults going around. And then a great war had been fought (They called it a crusade.) a great war in the middle east to free a small country from an oppressor, from an invader. And then, of course, the trade was wonderful. Everything was booming. Merchants were making a fortune. And people had enough leisure to be devoted to the arts. Science was making great progress.

In that year, 1182, Giovanni was born, Giovanni de Bernadonne. He grew up to be a young man who became a leader of a group of, you might say, rowdy, wealthy young gentlemen, who spent a lot of time in the bars drinking. And then when the bars closed, they'd go around the town singing the songs that Giovanni had written, in imitation of the French troubadours of the day. He was very much taken with everything French, all of French culture, the way they dressed and the songs they wrote and so forth, so much so that his friends gave him a nickname. And Giovanni became "Francesco," Frenchman, "Frenchie" we might say today. And so that's the man who's known to us today as Francis of Assisi, the only saint that I know of that goes by his nickname.

Well, as he grew up, when he was about 19, there was a war between Assisi and the city of Perugia. He fought in that war. They lost. He was captured and put in prison. And there he had some time on his hands to reflect and think about his life and ask himself some deep questions about what he was doing with his life. He began to pray. And then, when he was released from prison, he continued that. And he found this little broken down chapel outside the city and he went there very often to pray. And, one day, while praying, there was this crucifix, and the figure on the crucifix spoke to him and said, "Francis, rebuild my church." Well, he thought that the figure meant that he was to get stones and brick and mortar and fix up this broken-down church. Of course, later on, he realized that the message was, "Rebuild My church, the global church of God." He gave a lot of money to the poor, but not yet totally associated in his heart and spirit with the poor. And, one day, he was out riding and he came across this leper. Now leprosy in those days was a very, very much feared disease. It was a horrible, horrible disease, incurable in those days. And Francis was repelled by the thought of going near this leper, yet he remembered today's gospel, that Jesus TOUCHED the leper and healed him. So, Francis said to himself, "Well, now, here's the test. Here's the test." So, he got off his horse. He went over. He put the money directly into the leper's hand, and then he took the hand and he kissed it, a very emotional event for him, a turning point really in his life, where he felt really associated with the poor and the sick and the deprived and the marginalized.

Shortly after that, he needed money to give to the poor, so he took some very rich cloth from his father's storehouse. His father was a very wealthy merchant. He took this cloth and he sold it and he gave the money to the poor. Well, at that point, his dad said to himself, "That's it. I've had it with him. I'm not going to stand this anymore." And, so he brought him to court, accused of stealing. Well, the court consisted actually of the bishop and all the townsfolk gathered around in the main square and there it was that Francis made this dramatic gesture. He took off all his rich clothes. In fact, he stripped himself totally naked. The bishop ran and wrapped his cloak around him. And he laid all his clothes at the feet of his father, as much as to say, "That's it. I'm finished with this life. I'm now turning over to a new life, a life of total poverty, total poverty, a life of complete simplicity, a life of complete trust in the providence of God.

Well, almost everybody in the town thought he'd gone absolutely crazy, all perhaps except one young woman who really admired him for the simplicity of his life, for his committment to God. She herself had begun a strong prayer life. So she decided to follow his example, and, one night, she'd arranged this with Francis, she stole away from her home (She was from one of the wealthiest families in Assisi.) and Francis helped her to get to a convent. And later on, she founded her own community. We know them now as the Poor Clares. She, very shortly, found that same extraordinary freedom of spirit that Francis had found in giving up everything, in the simplicity of life that he was now living, a freedom of the spirit. And she spent the rest of her life praying for the success of his preaching because that's what Francis now did.

He went out preaching. He was not a priest. He was never ordained a priest. He went around preaching, and soon there were huge crowds coming to listen to him, even though the message that he had for them was not really a very palatable one. He certainly preached about the love of God, but he also talked about the style of life that was being led at the time, the culture of his day, a culture that was very much founded on greed and extraordinary extravagance. People were judged by the size of their bank account, by the richness of the clothes that they wore, by the number of servants that would follow them down the street. This was the culture that Francis was preaching about.

Well, I think for us today the question would be, "What would Francis preach about today, if he were standing here, what would Francis be saying to us?" I think very much the same message, the futility of seeking happiness in wealth and power and position, that the happiness that we all seek can only be found by putting God first in our life, and that the Gospel calls us to a certain simplicity of life, a simplicity of life that will allow us to have time for God, time for our families, time for other people.

And I found it intriguing, last Thursday morning, when I opened the Chronicle newspaper, to see a whole article about the fact that, just yesterday, they were going to hold a seminar down in the Santa Clara Convention Center, a whole seminar on how to simplify your life. And the writer of the article, and I quote, said, "The movement of voluntary simplicity is still gaining converts, drawn to what supporters call a deliberate contemplative way of life. It offers the tantalizing hope of finding a balance for those trying to keep up with the relentless pace of cutting edge technology." And then someone else commented on this, "Well, God bless the organizers of this convention. And I wish them luck. But, the big emotional drive in America today is to climb the ladder of financial success, to build trophy homes and drive modern-day stagecoaches." And then they go on, "As most know by now, voluntary simplicity is about discovering what is enough in our life and giving away, or better still, recycling the rest. It is not about poverty, deprivation, or living like Mother Theresa, although she is not a bad role model." And I would suggest to you this morning that Francis and Clare are not bad role models either for us today. In fact, I think that it is their message of simplicity, of simplifying our lives, that makes them so attractive to people today, and makes them amongst the most respected and honored and beloved of all of our saints. And, of course, their great love of the beauty of nature and of all of God's creatures, that also we find very, very attractive. What many people don't realize, however, when they look at their lives of extreme poverty and deprivation and simplicity, they don't realize that they were extraordinarily joyful people. They had an extraordinary joy in the beauty and the grandeur of nature and of all God's creatures, of all God's people. And I think they would want us to have the same kind of joy in all of our lives and joy in all of the creation of the Lord. But they would say to us that such joy, such contentment, does not come from a frantic effort to follow some false standard that's being set by other people, but rather by trying our best to follow the standards that we find in the Gospel message in the life of Jesus, in the lives of people like Francis and Clare.

It can hardly be doubted, I think, that the free, uninhibited, sane, God-centered spirit that we see in Francis and Clare is even more relevant in our day than it was in their own. And I'm sure we would all pray for each other that some of that wonderful free spirit may be part of our lives as well. And, I was reflecting this morning, when I heard of the death of Charles Schultz, that it would be nice to see him meeting Francis. I think that they were both that same kind of kindred spirit, free, wonderful, free, beautiful spirit. God bless you all.