Saint Francis and the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration

Today in the Holy Rule we read the 6^th degree of humility, ‘for a monk to be contented with the meanest and worst of everything’. It is fitting that we hear these words on the eighth centenary of the death of the Poverello [Little Poor Man] of Assisi, in honour of which the Holy Father has proclaimed this year, until next 10 January, as a Jubilee Year of Saint Francis. As Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration, we have numerous reasons for being devoted to this great Saint. Like so many of the other streams of religious life in the Latin Church, the Franciscan family owes much to the Benedictine source. For instance, the Franciscan holy sites of San Damiano and the Portiuncula were both originally Benedictine foundations (the latter still being rented from the Benedictines for a basket of fish every year!), and it was to Benedictine nuns that Saint Francis first entrusted the young Clare Offreduccio when she fled the world. Many of the practices of religious life adopted in the Franciscan orders as well as in Western religious life in general owe their origin to the monastic tradition as handed on in the Holy Rule.Agostino Carracci, The Last Communion of Saint Francis (16th century)

In turn, it was as a daughter of Saint Francis that Catherine de Bar—our venerable Mother Mectilde—began her religious life among the Annonciades, before Providence led her to the family of Saint Benedict. She surely would have drawn much inspiration in her life of Eucharistic reparation from the spirit of the Poor Man of Assisi, whose heartfelt Letter to the Clergy laments the lack of care shown by priests not only for the Most Blessed Sacrament Itself, but even for the care of the sacred linens of the altar. May Saint Francis teach us, by his joyful detachment from all created things, to imitate the poverty of Our Eucharistic Lord, and may he obtain for us a share in the spirit of adoration with which he taught his sons and daughters to pray: ‘We adore Thee, Most Holy Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Thy churches which are in the whole world, and we bless Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.’