Homily for Thursday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time - Francis of Assisi

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/100407.shtml

We can tell how much we love something by how much we miss it when it is absent from our lives. I love the Kansas City Royals, and I can tell anyone whenever they ask the last game I went to, and I can speak of excitement about my next opportunity to go watch a game. I can do this mentally, of course, but even my body ‘pines’ for watching baseball; there is a physical or kinesthetic or ‘heart’ knowledge of the thing that I love. I love being in the presence of baseball – Kansas City Royals baseball, specifically.

As Eucharistic people we can tell whether or not the Eucharist is our favorite food by how much our minds and our hearts thirst for the Eucharist, especially when we are absent from the sacrament. Our hunger for the Eucharist even exceeds our hunger to hear God’s word through Scripture, since Jesus Himself in the Eucharist is that definitive word of God. But we get a glimpse of how much we should love the Eucharist by hearing what is was like for the Israelites who returned from exile to be able to listen to the scriptures openly proclaimed once again. They wept for joy, so much did the precepts of the Lord gladden their hearts.

Francis of Assisi taught his followers how to imitate Jesus in poverty – how to follow him without money bags, sacks or sandals. In contemplating the life of Francis, we should realize that our failure to hunger fully for the word of God or for the Eucharist can usually be attributed to our being already ‘filled’ with other things of this world. Francis teaches us through his example of poverty that the things we have take time and energy to use, and it is hard to draw the line between what we own and what owns us. Francis teaches us that the only necessary thing to possess in order to have a good life on this earth is the opportunity to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven with all of our hearts, all of our minds, and all of our strength.