Deacon Dave's Homilies & Reflections: An Experience in Assisi

Homily for the Solemnity of St. Francis of Assisi, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020.

Click here for the Audio Version of this Homily

Today I am going to do something I really never do in a homily. I am going to talk about myself. Better put, I am going to share with you a life-changing experience I had about 12 years ago when I was blessed to be able to go to Assisi for a couple days. I think God will forgive me for being a bit self-focused in this reflection since it is, ultimately, in honor of the Saint of Assisi, the patron of our archdiocese whom we are honoring today and who has, for over 800 years, been called the “most Christ-like man to walk upon earth.”

I was in Italy to visit my son and was traveling in the company of 4 other family members. We had a free weekend and so we took a vote as to where to spend it. I was the sole dissenting voice against going to Assisi. And I was adamant about not going there! I had absolutely no interest whatsoever for St. Francis or his preserved medieval town of Assisi. I did not want to waste time that could be better spent, in my opinion, seeing the beauty and tasting the deliciousness of my family homeland! Needless to say, the vote was 4 to 1 and I lost!

Sitting shotgun in a Fiat I glanced out the window as we approached the walls of ancient Assisi. And that’s when it hit me, completely unexpected and totally out of the blue. I was overcome with an interior force compelling me to be silent. If you know me then you know that “silent” is never ever a word anyone uses to describe me! But I could not help it. I could not speak. I did not want to speak. For the next 2 days I hardly spoke to anyone even my own family, who at first thought I was a bit ticked off. But they soon came to realize that this was something so much more than a person not getting his way! They could tell that something had come over me.

I spend my time in Assisi walking throughout the town from sunrise to sunset meditating at the various places that were sanctified by St. Francis. And as I did I learned many and various things about this amazing saint.

• I went to the site where Francis was born and then to the dungeon where his father imprisoned him 20 years later because he thought his newly-converted son has gone mad. They are both located in the massive house which was their family home.

• I stood in the town square before the very spot where Francis and his father had it out with one another in front of the Bishop and citizens of Assisi, culminating in Francis being disowned and causing him to proclaim that God alone would now be his father.

• I knelt before the famous San Damiano Crucifix that spoke to Francis, giving him his mission of rebuilding the Church. And I had the gift of being there almost all by myself which is very unusual in the popular pilgrim site of Assisi.

• I walked out into the fields on the outskirts of town where Francis and his growing band of companions began to live among lepers and the outcasts; where they began their common life of poverty and simplicity, dressing in the robes with knotted rope belts that would forever become the distinctive sign of a Franciscan.

• I hiked the trail from the main streets of Assisi out to the Convent of San Damiano where St. Clare and the first Poor Clare nuns lived. Since it was early in the morning, I was able to spend time alone, kneeling in prayer upon the tiles where the body of St. Francis was brought so that Clare could pay her last respects. It was also the place from where she passed from this life.

I ended my 2-day walking pilgrimage at the tomb of St. Francs in the great Basilica of Assisi. And it was so appropriate that this is also where my gift of silence ended. But the question that remained to be answered was: What did God want to teach me by this experience? Well, I learned first of all that St. Francis is so much more than a nature lover or a stone statue decorating someone’s garden, which is all he was to me before I arrived at Assisi.

I came to understand that Francis was a flesh and blood man and not just some kind of religious super hero from Catholic storybooks. He was exactly like you and me and absolutely no different by nature. He had to fight against his selfish tendencies in order to love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. He distrusted himself as the best source of wisdom and turned instead to the Gospels, to Christ, for light and direction. And when he heard the Word of God, he lived it to the best of his ability. He didn’t make excuses allowing him to pick and choose his own style of Christianity.

Shortly before he died St. Francis said, “I have been the most unholy of men and if God can work through me, then he can work through anyone.” Francis was not a virtuous or exemplary man before his conversion. But he was totally won over to Christ by the fact that God had become human. And even more deeply moved by the fact that Jesus freely gave up his life for him on the cross. He was head over heels in love with Christ in the Eucharist because through this sacrament he was able to become one with the God who became flesh out of love for us. And that, really, is the message of St. Francis.

I did not know it at the time, but God had one more surprise in store for me as a blessing from Assisi. You might know that St. Francis was not a priest, but was a deacon; and it was soon after returning to the States that I was asked to enter formation to eventually be ordained, like St. Francis, a deacon of Jesus Christ. I had gone to Assisi with no interest in St. Francis, but I left there with a devotion to the Poverello (which is his nickname in Italian, it means “Little Poor Man”) that has never decreased. I hope to one day meet him in Heaven and say “thank you!”