This Easter Season ‘Let St. Francis Speak to You’ by Sister Marsaia Kaster

Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity Sister Marsaia Kaster offers this Easter Season reflection in the spirit of St. Francis.

Holy Week and the Easter Season is uniquely beautiful and poignant time for us. We celebrate the wondrous love of our Triune LORD poured out for us sinners and the miracle beyond  all imagining – the Resurrection of the Son of God, our Savior and LORD, Jesus Christ.

St. Francis Speaks to His Followers Today:  Pray with me: “We adore You, O Christ…”

When Francis was still  “in the world”  he was riding a horse near Assisi one day when he  saw a leper close by.  Nothing repulsed Francis more than the sight, filth, and smell of a leper. But in that moment Francis fought his revulsion; dismounted, embraced the leper with love. Francis remounted his horse. He looked back but he saw no-one.  He was changed to the core of his being. Francis realized that the leper had been Jesus, Who became an outcast for us.  Isaiah wrote “Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him), no looks to attract our eyes; a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, a man to make people screen their faces; he was despised and we took no account of him…burdened with the sins of all of us…”

Francis was so drawn to this “Leper” Jesus that he spent long days, weeks, months caring for lepers and for others in need of God’s healing and acceptance; and pursuing Him – worshipping and reverencing Him in the Word and Eucharist, admonishing his followers to adore Jesus always present in all the Churches of the world. There is a short prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi,  that we’ve prayed over and over again during the Stations this Lent: “We adore You, O Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches in the whole world, and we bless you, because by Your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the world.”

St. Francis was entranced with this Christ and in 1224 he passionately begged Jesus to share with him, His sufferings and the fullness of love for us with which He had endured His Passion.

In this Holy and Joyous Season:

1. If I am concerned about sharing faith with all people, will I adore Jesus many times a day, using Francis’ little prayer “We adore You, O Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches in the whole world, and we bless you, because by Your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the world.”
2. Francis was so overjoyed at the great gift of suffering and love that God gave him in the gift of the stigmata, that He composed a prayer (The Praises of God) full of all kinds of lovely names for God. What “love”- names would I like to call the LORD? Samples might be:  You are peace, You are my joy. You are my hiding place.  My life-saver. CAN YOU MAKE A LIST—one for each day?