Rome, Italy, Jun 17, 2007 / 10:28 am
The Holy Father noted that Assisi, eight centuries ago, “could harldly have imagined the role which Providence had assigned it.” It is the event which the Holy Father celebrated in Assisi today that gave it that role: the conversion of St. Francis.
“After twenty five years of a mediocre and ‘dreaming’ life, stamped by the search for worldly joys and vanities, he opened himself to grace, entered within himself, and gradually recognised in Christ the ideal for his life”, the Pope said.
Describing his journey to Assisi, Benedict revealed that he had “paused, with particular emotion in the little church of San Damiano, where Francis heard from the Crucified One the ‘programmatic word’: ‘Go, Francis, rebuild my house.’”
Regarding this call the Holy Father said, “It was a mission which began with the full conversion of his heart, in order to become, then, evangelic leaven cast forth into the Church and society.”