Deacon Matthew Halbach, PhD, president of Franciscan Media, shares insight into his pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. https://lnkd.in/g-zY_ERQ
Pilgrimage post #2 For post #1 click the link below: https://lnkd.in/gi9AvztV This is my first full day in Assisi. We began at the Chiesa Nuova. In the piazza we see these statues of St. Francis’ parents. Notice the chain in his mother’s hand. Francis participated in a regional conflict and was captured and confined as a POW. His father, who was wealthy, chose not to ransom him until a year later. The anger, indignity, and abandonment Francis must have felt is hard to imagine. Upon returning home, Francis began encountering Christ in ways that altered his perception of the traditional roles of father, mother, sister and brother. This would eventually lead Francis to break from his family and go off, on his own and with nothing, to serve his new father, God the Father, and claim his new family: the whole of creation. I don’t know if Francis ever reconciled with his human family, but I do know that this “broken home” experience, along with his rediscovery of God as his Father, formed the context for the kind of saint Francis would become: a wounded healer, with the stigmata as the ultimate sign of this identity. Family division would also set in motion the mission Francis would be about: repairing his new Father’s house, a commissioning he would receive from God at San Damiano. One of the ways Francis went about repairing God’s house was to invite people into that house, into the holy fraternity of the family of God. Rebuilding God’s house, in part, is to make God’s house a home for all. This holy mission is still carried out today, not only by the Franciscans but by anyone who invites others into the Father’s house to be fed, loved, and accompanied. As the President and Publisher of Franciscan Media, my prayer is that, through the creation of compelling, inexpensive, and practical resources for adult evangelization, Franciscan Media will play a renewed role in supporting faith formation in the family, and, in a more general way, extend the invitation to all to come and be a part of Our Father’s house. Ciao!