St. Francis Brings Forgiveness and Help to the Leper and Outcast

A detail from a painting by Giovanni Cimabue, in the lower level of the Basilica at Assisi.

The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi in San Francisco

Francis Brings Forgiveness and Help
to the Outcast

Lessons from the Life of Saint Francis of Assisi, Part 4

After accepting his call to live the Gospel, during the years of 1207-1209 Francis dedicated himself to a life of prayer and solitude. One day, in a singular moment of personal conversion, Francis encountered a leper. In his age, lepers were forced to ring a bell wherever they went and to cry out the warning: “Unclean!” Society had embedded in Francis an incomparable loathing for persons afflicted with this class of illness. He had always feared both the disease itself and the horrible disfigurement it wrought. Customarily he reacted to lepers with repugnance and anxiety. Like so many of his contemporaries, his personal revulsion affected the further humiliation of these afflicted persons and added to their suffering.

Nonetheless, in a decisive moment of illumination, Francis suddenly perceived in this leper the embodiment of God’s beauty, a human being to be loved and cared for tenderly. By embracing the leper, the Saint learned to embrace all people just as Jesus did. As a community, the friars nursed and bathed the lepers, beginning the Franciscan tradition of special attention to the poor and outcast.

When Francis learned to understand and cherish each individual person as a unique reflection of God’s creative genius, a true attitude of human concern and compassion began to form within him. Through grace, Francis turned his initial revulsion at the sight of a leper into a personal triumph over judgment, bigotry, and false assumptions. This impulse led, in turn, to a movement of peace that would affect legions of people for centuries.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, you gave your servant Francis
the insight and courage to cherish every human person.
We feel too weak and uncertain,
too sinful and unprepared to follow in his footsteps.
Help us all to respond to the challenge to create peace and to accept
one another according to the light of the Gospel.
We ask this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Previous Lesson | Next Lesson