Francis of Assisi, the Knower and the Least of God, always had clear in his conscience the importance and necessity of the contemplative life, tempered by work that keeps idleness at bay and conforms to Christ. He demanded this for himself and for his brothers. He went so far as to say that serving his brothers was worth more than any stay in the hermitages, where he himself loved to go when he could.

We read in his writings:

«And I worked with my own hands, and I want to work; and I firmly want all the other brothers to work as befits honesty. Those who do not know, let them learn, not out of greed to receive the reward of work, but to set an example and keep idleness at bay» (FF 119).

Furthermore: «We are convinced that [...] those who live differently in hermitages have been reproached a great deal. Many, in fact, transform the place of contemplation into idleness and the hermit's way of life, instituted to allow souls perfection, reduces it to a place of pleasure [...] Certainly this reproach is not for everyone. We know that there are saints [...] who follow excellent laws in the hermitage» (FF 765).

Even among the friars there was discussion about whether to live in contemplation or action, in fact in the Major Legend it is written:

"While, firm in their holy purpose, they faced the Spoletana valley, they began to discuss whether they should spend their lives among the people or dwell in solitary places.

But Francis, the servant of Christ, not trusting in his own experience or that of his own, entrusted himself to prayer, in order to insistently seek what the disposition of the divine will was on this point.

He was thus enlightened with an answer from Heaven and understood that he had been sent by the Lord for this purpose: to win souls for Christ [...] And so he chose to live for all, rather than for himself alone, spurred on by the example of the One who deigned to die, He alone, for all men" (FF 1066).

But love for prayer and listening to the Word always accompanied his actions and those of his brothers.

"The tireless dedication to prayer [...] had brought the man of God to such clarity of spirit that [...] he scrutinised the depths of the Scriptures with a clear and acute intellect.

He read the sacred books and kept tenaciously imprinted in his memory what he had once assimilated: for he continually ruminated with affectionate devotion what he had listened to with an attentive mind" (FF1187).

The Poverello and Clare of Assisi had well understood that at the basis of their lives was the choice of the good part that no one would ever take away from them.

Listening to the Word and the relationship with Jesus were the driving motives behind every gesture, which took its flavour from being with God and with faith.

Clare, in fact, in a letter to her spiritual daughter, Agnes of Bohemia, writes:

«The love of Him makes one happy, contemplation restores, kindness fills. The gentleness of him pervades the whole soul, the memory shines sweetly in the memory» (FF 2901 - letter four).

Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus  (ref. Lk 10:38-42)

Francis, the Little One of God, often instructed his brethren not to be servants of the weeds sown in the world by the evil one, not to follow his perverse and anti-Gospel logic. He recommended that they live the Word sown by Christ. 

We find, in fact, in his writings:

«All those who [...] walk after evil concupiscence [...] and do not observe those things which they have promised to the Lord and serve [...] the cares of the world and the preoccupations of this life: these are prisoners of the devil, whose children they are and do the works; they are blind, for they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ. They do not have spiritual Wisdom, for they do not possess the Son of God, who is the true wisdom of the Father» (FF 178/4).

Also, as he explained to the Supreme Pontiff to whom he went for approval of the Rule, the children of God have nothing to fear:

«There is no need to fear that the children and heirs of the Eternal King should die of hunger; for they, in the likeness of Christ, were born of a poor mother, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, and were begotten, by virtue of the spirit of poverty, into a poor religion.

For if the King of Heaven promises to his imitators the Eternal Kingdom, how much more will he provide for them those things which he bestows without distinction on the good and the bad» (FF 1064).

«The good field is the world; the good seed, these are the children of the Kingdom. Whereas the tares are the sons of the wicked» (Mt 13:38)

Tuesday of the 17th wk. in O.T.  (Mt 13,36-43)