Resplendent Stars On A Dark Night (Bede)

Homily - Resplendent Stars On A Dark Night (Bede)

• AS A YOUTH, he was expansive and highstrung, a lover of luxurious dress. 

• HE WAS ACCUSTOMED to invite to magnificent banquets the friends he had chosen from among the fashionable and pleasure-loving young men of the town.

• HE WALKED THROUGH the streets with them, singing gaily. 

• BUT EVEN AT THAT TIME he became known for the integrity of his moral life, his correctness in conversation, and his utter disdain of wealth.

• AFTER AN INPRISONMENT, which was followed by a long illness, he felt himself, not without a certain sense of astonishment, completely transformed.

• HOWEVER, IN ORDER TO FLEE from the hands of God, he took on a military mission.

• BUT ON THIS JOURNEY he felt himself commanded by God in unmistakable terms to return to his hometown and learn there what he must do.

• AFTER MUCH WAVERING and many doubts, through divine inspiration and through having heard at solemn Mass that passage from the Gospels which speaks of the apostolic life, he understood at last that he, too, must live and serve Christ “according to the very words of the Holy Gospels.” 

• FROM THAT TIME ON he undertook to unite himself to Christ alone and to make himself like unto Him in all things.

• IN “ALL HIS EFFORTS, public as well as private, he turned to the Cross of Our Lord, and from the moment he began to live as a soldier of Christ, the divers mysteries of the Cross shone round about him.”

• TRULY HE WAS a brave soldier and knight of Christ because of the nobility and generosity of his heart; 

• TO ENSURE that neither he nor his disciples were ever to be separated from Our Lord, he always had recourse to the Gospels as to an oracle whenever he had to make a decision on any matter. 

• THE RULES OF THE ORDERS founded by him were made to agree most scrupulously with the Gospels, and the religious life of his followers with the life of the Apostles. 

• FOR THIS REASON at the very beginning of his Rule, he wrote: 

• “THIS IS THE LIFE AND RULE of the Friars Minor, to observe the holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ”;

WITH THESE SOLEMN WORDS Pope Pius XI commended Saint Francis of Assisi to the sons of the Catholic Church!

• TO BRING LIGHT TO THE PEOPLE of this world....

• AND TO LEAD THEM BACK to the pure ideals of the wisdom of the Gospels:

• THERE APPEARED, 
• in the Providence of God
• Saint Francis of Assisi:

• He “shone as the sun”;
• “As a resplendent star on a dark night, 
• like the morning which spreads itself over the darkness.”

Saint Francis of Assisi: Pray for us!

O Lord Jesus Christ, Head of the Mystical Body: Have mercy on us again!

Be gracious unto your Church, Make of us, Sons of Lights, And send us forth into the Darkness that now descends over And that has arisen within your vineyard;

Make us sons Like unto Francis today; Resplendent stars In this dark night, 

That like the morning which spreads itself over the darkness The Light of your Holy Gospel Might shine forth again!

IN THE NAME of the Father, And of the Son, And of the Holy Ghost. Amen!

— — — — — 

Sources: 

Pius XI, Rite Expiatis 

13 April 1926

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11ritex.htm