From today’s Scripture: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. ”  — Mt 11:29

Maybe we think of contemplatives as docile. But St. Francis’s friend and dream-sharer was anything but silent. A woman stifled in a noble family, she bucked her constraints, left her wealth behind to follow St. Francis in his devotion to the poor. She responded, like Francis, to the call of Jesus from the cross: “Go and rebuild my Church, which, as you can see, is in ruin.”

Anything but docile, she and the women who followed her founded a clinic in the buildings at San Damiano, where Francis first heard Jesus’ call. To her dying day, she struggled for Church recognition of hers as an independent Order. She is the first woman to write a community’s Rule, approved by the pope just two days before she died. In it she required extreme poverty — not owning any property — for her sisters. The men thought the women couldn’t handle that poverty. Of course, the Poor Clares proved them wrong.

Let us pray: Today, Lord, let me respect the gifts and the self-direction of the women around me. 

Today’s author is John Feister, former Communications Director of Glenmary, now writing a novel set in Appalachia.

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