10/04/2002 
Rome, Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere

The Memory of St. Francis of Assisi

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Dear brothers and sisters,

on the day in which we celebrate the memory of Saint Francis it is important to gather around him after having read the Gospel of the Beatitudes. Francis, after many centuries, testifies to us all, in this world of ours made of complexity and many difficulties, that it is possible to live the Gospel. Scandal for the learned, children of a time that makes us all learned! In fact, even among the Christians, we are not all persuaded that it is truly possible to live the Gospel. It is an ideal, but reality is different. We all have thought it, or we think it sometimes: there is something more complex than the Gospel.

Francis, today, is preaching among us: to live the Gospel is possible, rather, it is a great gift that God has made to men without merits. Perhaps �as he seems to suggests with firm belief but also without speaking too loud- this is the moment to live the Gospel, to make up one's mind and live the Gospel. That's why we have to leave, as the rich young man, the many riches we have inside in order to follow the Lord. 

The problem is not to succeed, to assert oneself, to have, to prevail, to be recognised�This is often our logic. It is our riches, behind which�between greed and sadness- we waste most of our time. But isn't this all natural? How can we go against our personality, our nature, our deepest will? In fact, we are so ill with arrogance, we feel so much owners of our lives, that we end up considering this all as a deep nature. A destiny, a nature� The destiny of arrogance and pride. And arrogance is always sad. 

Francesco says: "We ought not to be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but rather we ought to be simple, humble and pure. And let us hold our bodies in opprobrium and contempt since through our own fault we all are wretched and putrid, fetid�" so writes Francis to the faithful of the earth. "We ought never to desire to the above others, but rather we ought to be slaves�". Francesco presents himself as the humble, and suggests to the Christians to be humble. Because of this advice he feels a stranger among us. But he is offering us a key. 

Humility is the key to cross the door and get out of the suffocating walls of pride and sad arrogance. Humility is the key to free myself from the walls which seem to protect me, but which on the contrary confine me, and most of all offend those who clash with them. They clash with the wall of my grim face, of my words dominating everybody, of my thinking only of myself, of not giving space to the others, of my humanity so inhospitable and tragically protagonist.

This is the wall against which our friends clash, but also many people we do not even know and whom we do not even notice. In fact, as the apostle says, we do the evil we do not want.

Humility is the key to use in order to get out of these walls. It is the key of freedom. The Gospel gives this key to each of us, let us be careful not to lose it! There is no other way to be free but to be humble. Francis presents himself as the humble brother, the one who does not ask for himself, who does not affirm himself, but who lives the Gospel as the decisive word of his life. Francis recommends to live the spirit of the Gospel, which starts with humility: "And those religious have died by the letter (2 Cor 3:6), who do not want to follow the spirit of the Divine Letter, but rather desire only to know words and to explain them to others". This is one of those admonitions which have been passed to us and which bring to us as an ancient recording of the life of the Saint of Assisi. We must take the Gospel seriously, we must take seriously that word which God has given to us: we must trust God by taking the Gospel seriously in our life. For this reason, with courage and strength, we must open the door of life with the key of humility. Francis says in the Admonitions: "Where there is patience and humility, there (is) neither wrath nor disturbance" 

Humility allows us to approach the Gospel with respect: that book among the many things, bigger and more beautiful, but which are worth nothing. And Francis goes on: " We are His brothers when we do the �Will of the Father who is in heaven�. Mothers when we carry him in our heart and body by means of love divine and a pure and sincere conscience; we give birth to Him through holy work".
In fact the heart of being Christians lies not in a particular "doing", but in being humble and faithful disciples: from this springs a doing which is deeper than any other doing. For this reason the Beatitudes can be lived, for this reason the meek people, even if meek, will inherit the earth, and it will not be the strong and the great to inherit it.

But to be meek and humble does not mean to be sad. Our world is often sad when it takes for joy the glorification of the self. It is the sadness of that rich young man who sees his dreams shattered and who feels the attachment to his riches. Tommaso da Celano, one of the biographers of Saint Francis, writes that the Saint was convinced that gladness was the safest remedy against evil: "The devil rejoices, especially when it can take away from the servant of God the gladness of the spirit. He carries some dust which he tries to scatter in the cracks, however small, of conscience�but if the gladness of the spirit fills the heart, the snake tries in vain to inject its moral venom�On the other hand, if the spirit is melancholic, desolate and crying, it is very easy for it to be overcome with sadness or taken away by frivolous joys." Sadness opens the heart to evil. Gladness drives away the evil from the heart.

What would Francis say if he came among us? He would perhaps use with us the same words he addressed to a brother who had a sad and melancholic face: " God�s servant ought not to show himself sad and gloomy to the others, but always with a serene look. Think of your sins in the loneliness of your room�but when you return among the friars abandon sadness and conform to the others". And he would say also: "The friars ought not to show themselves sad and gloomy on the outside as some hyprocrites, but they must show themselves happy in the Lord, merry and suitably graceful." Yes, he does say graceful, using this word so courteous and feminine also for his friars. Humility means not to assert oneself, but to be cheerful, merry and graceful.

Let us then take the Gospel seriously, with humility, and let us endeavour to live its words. The key of humility will free us from the melancholic and sad walls of ourselves. The word of the Gospel will lead us through the ways of the world. Francis had understood that it was useless to point out the mistake in the others, to use harsh words; also great reform programmes are not so useful in the end, but we must begin to reform ourselves by starting with the Gospel. There is a great transformation force which develops from a Gospel truly lived.

We all are convinced that there is a great need of new orientation in this time, almost of a profound reform. Our world needs such reform, our world is throwing away, as in folly, the great good of peace; overcome with avidity or victimization, it is throwing away so many riches, which would mean the possibility of a better world. But such reform, or such new orient