The Passion: Saint Francis’s Ordinary Subject of Meditation

Source: Jacques d’Autun, Capuchin preacher (d. 1678)

One should not be surprised that Saint Francis spoke only of the Cross; it was his highest and most sublime Philosophy. All objects presented him with its image: he could not see lambs being led to the slaughter without at the same time recalling the most gentle and most innocent Lamb, JESUS CHRIST, who had been put to death in order to give life to sinners. And filled with compassion for these poor animals, which were its figure, he even gave up his cloak to ransom them.

Passing one day through the March of Ancona, he met a peasant who was carrying two lambs to sell; and having learned that those who would buy them intended to have them slaughtered, he gave a brand-new cloak, which had been given to him as alms, to save their lives. For after paying their price, he returned them to the villager on the condition that he would neither kill them nor sell them again.

Passing from Ancona to Aximo, he met a shepherd leading a flock of goats, with a single sheep among those coarse animals. His heart was immediately moved, and touched with compassion he said to his companion: Thus was the innocent and most gentle JESUS among the Scribes and the Pharisees; let us, for love of Him, deliver this poor sheep from such bad company. But having nothing with which to pay its price to the shepherd, the Servant of God wept bitterly—not for the sheep, but for Him whom it represented.

A merchant, having learned the cause of his tears, paid the shepherd for the sheep, who gave it to the blessed Father; and he entrusted it to the Religious Sisters of Saint Severin. Thus this great spiritual man drew from all sensible objects an image of the Passion of Jesus Christ; thus through compassion he shared in His sufferings. And as though he had already been transformed into Him who was to suffer, when he read or heard of the mortal wounds of His Passion, he also shared in the delights of His glory; for he found all consolation and his joy in the meditation of the sufferings of the Savior.

One day, when he was extraordinarily afflicted by the pains caused by his continual illnesses, he was urged to think of some pleasant object to distract him from the severity of his suffering and obtain some relief. “Know, my brothers,” replied the Servant of God, “that I have nothing sweeter or more pleasant than the remembrance of the Passion of my Savior, which is the ordinary subject of my meditation; and if I were to live until the end of the world, I would need no other reading.”