10/04/2026
Lord Jesus Christ,
as You looked upon St. Francis with mercy and love
and set his heart ablaze with the fire of Your Sacred Heart,
look upon us with that same loving gaze.
Teach us, as You taught Francis,
to see the Cross not as punishment,
but as the place where Your love meets our suffering.
When we are wounded, give us faith to place our wounds beside Yours.
When we are burdened, unite our burdens to Your Cross.
When we suffer for others, let our suffering become an offering of love
for Your Body, the Church.
Holy Jesus,
imprint Your love upon our hearts
until we can no longer remain indifferent
to the suffering of the poor, the forgotten, and the wounded.
Give us the courage of Francis
to embrace You in the Cross,
the humility to serve You in the poor,
and the joy to recognize Your presence
even in the places of greatest suffering.
May the fire that burned in Francis
burn also in us—
not merely as devotion,
but as a love that acts, serves, sacrifices,
and gives itself away.
Lord, make us instruments of Your peace.
Where there is suffering, let us bring compassion.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is poverty, solidarity.
Where there is division, reconciliation.
And where there is darkness, let Your love shine through us.
St. Francis,priest and coheir with Jesus in the heavenlies, who bore the wounds of Christ in your own body,
pray that we too may bear Christ’s love in our hearts
and His mercy in our hands.
Jesus Crucified, look upon us with the same gracious love
with which You looked upon Francis.
Set our hearts on fire,
and make our lives an offering of love.
Amen.
Swept up into the mystery of God’s overwhelming love for Christ, St. Francis was a believer inflamed with the love of God.
“His unquenchable fire of love for the good Jesus,” Bonaventure writes, “was fanned into such a blaze of flames that so many waters; could not quench so powerful a love” (see Song of Songs 8:6–7).
Two years before his death, he began a special time of fasting and prayer at La Verna in September of 1224.
On the mountainside, he saw a Seraph with six fiery and shining wings descend from the height of heaven. There appeared between the wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended in the form of a cross and fastened to a cross. Two of the wings were lifted above his head, two were extended for flight and two covered his whole body.
“When Francis saw this, he was overwhelmed and his heart was flooded with a mixture of joy and sorrow. He rejoiced because of the gracious way Christ looked upon him under the form of a Seraph, but the fact that he was fastened to a cross pierced his soul with a sword of compassionate sorrow.”
When the vision disappeared, writes Bonaventure, Francis was left with a “marvelous ardor” in his heart. At the same time, there “was imprinted on his body markings that were no less marvelous.”
These markings were the stigmata, the wounds of Christ crucified.
Seraphs are angels closest to God, burning with love as they bow before God, shouting, “Holy, holy, holy!” Their fiery wings suggest the flaming intensity of God’s love that Christ communicated to Francis, which, in turn, set Francis’ heart afire. The word seraphic is often used to describe Francis’ passionate style of relating to God and is often applied to the Franciscan Order, which is called the Seraphic Order.
Also notable was “the gracious way that Christ looked upon him.” This is something of a repeat of the vision Francis had in the beginning of his spiritual life in which “Jesus appeared to him fastened on a cross. Francis’ soul melted at the sight, and the memory of Christ’s passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart that from that hour whenever Christ’s crucifixion came to mind, Francis could scarcely contain his sighs . . .” (Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis).
This terrible scourge of suffering that humanity faces can be changed into a blessing by being united to the sufferings of Christ. Many people feel that this sublime privilege does not count for them. They are not good enough. Their sickness is not that important. They believe it is a punishment. But Christ wants to take your individual suffering and unite it to his.
Of all the statements about our continuing Christ’s life, none is more astounding than that said by Apostle Paul : “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24).
Francis received the highest proof of Christ’s love and need of him when his body was literally put on a cross with Christ by the reality of the five wounds of the stigmata.
Today, October 4, 2026, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi during a special Jubilee Year that marks the 800th anniversary of his death.
Some excerpts taken from The Stigmata of St. Francis, September 15, 2023
Leonard Foley, OFM
Franciscan Tradition and Resources
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