«He began to praise God and spoke of the Child to those who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem» (Lk 2:38)
Francis of Assisi considered Holy Christmas the feast of feasts. From there, in fact, had started the salvific parable of a merciful Father who wanted to "unroll like sackcloth" his divinity and humanity through the Gift of his Son.
That is why he infinitely praised God and spoke of the Child and the salvation He brought to all men at every opportunity, opportune and not opportune.
The depth of his prophetic spirit, received by Grace, made him capable of going beyond the immediate with refined inner insight.
In the Treasury of Sources we find particularly significant passages:
"The man of God stood before the manger, filled with pity, sprinkled with tears, overflowing with joy.
The holy sacrifice is celebrated above the manger and Francis, Christ's Levite, sings the holy Gospel.
He preaches to the people and speaks of the birth of the poor king and, in naming him, calls him, out of tenderness of love, the 'Child of Bethlehem'.
A virtuous and sincere knight who had left the scholastic militia and had become very attached to the man of God, Mr John of Greccio, claimed to have seen, inside the manger, a beautiful sleeping child, whom the blessed Francis, holding him with both arms, seemed to rouse from sleep.
This vision of the devout knight is rendered credible by the holiness of the witness, but it is also substantiated by the truth it indicates and confirmed by the miracles by which it was accompanied.
For the example of Francis, re-proposed to the world, had the effect of reawakening faith in Christ in numb hearts; and the hay from the manger, preserved by the people, had the power to heal sick beasts and drive away various other diseases.
Thus God glorifies his servant in all things and shows the efficacy of holy prayer with the probing eloquence of miracles" (FF 1186).
And Clare herself, the first plant of the Seraphic Father, in her stupendous Testament, while entrusting all her present and future daughters to the custody of the Lord Cardinal, expresses herself thus:
"For the love of that Lord, who poor at his birth was placed in a crib, poor lived on earth and remained naked on the cross, may he take care to make this little flock of his observe - this which the Most High Father, through the word and example of our blessed father Francis, generated in his holy Church precisely to imitate the poverty and humility of his beloved Son and of his glorious Virgin Mother [...]" (FF 2841).
Francis and Clare of Assisi: two stars of the firmament that illuminate the salvific Mystery of a God made flesh, who came to give Himself to every person and reality that claims salvation.
30 December - sixth day between the Octave of Christmas (Lk 2:36-40)
