Feast of St. Francis

October 4 is a special day to the Franciscan friars, sisters and lay people associated with the St. Francis Inn. Francis lived 800 years ago, but it is amazing how relevant his renunciation of possessions and power in medieval Italy is today in the United States and other consumer cultures. The Franciscans have two celebrations in his honor. The first occurred on the evening of Oct. 3. It is called the "Transitus" and celebrates Francis crossing over from life to eternal life. We went to the Motherhouse of the Franciscan Sisters of Philadelphia. They have a beautiful stone residence south of Philly near the Delaware border. The order was founded by Bishop (St.) John Neuman, and at its peak had 1500 sisters. Today there are about 450. We sat in their beautiful darkened chapel, and the Paschal candle was taken in procession to the front. Then an unlit candle, representing Francis, was carried forward and lit. Various sisters read parts of the Francis' biography depicting his last few days on earth and we sang a song written by one of the sisters that told of his life. Finally, when the part relating Francis' actual death was read, the candle was extinguished, but then a light was passed to each of us (we had tapers like on Holy Saturday)and we represented the followers of Francis. Francis heard the voice of Christ from the crucifix in San Damiano church, who said, "Repair my house." Francis came to realize that this did not mean just the physical building, but the people of God who needed attention. In 1206 they were the lepers and beggars. Today they are the homeless, those with AIDS, the immigrants, and others that our society casts out.
On Sunday, we started our day, as always, with the Eucharist. Br. Fred had decorated the altar beautifully with autumn flowers and pumpkins, gourds, etc. Mark, Barb and Sr. Mary led the music, including a rousing final hymn that was "Canticle of the Sun."
At the meal, we let the guests take home a whole dessert (an entire cake, pie, box of cookies, etc) as well as gave each child a book of his choice.
Finally, at 5:30 we had our own community meal. Mark made 12 lb of mashed potatoes, and I made broccoli casserole. We had a huge number of desserts as well.