Catholic and Enjoying It!
Started watching it this weekend. A really great treatment of St. Francis of Assisi that rescues him from both the Buttercup Twirling Hippie caricature and the Crazed Enemy of the Hierarchy caricature. He was as, Bishop Barron makes clear, a Radical Disciple of Christ who saw his Catholic faith as the epitome of that, not as something apart from or against that. He was that rarity: somebody who found Christianity difficult, but tried it anyway rather than leaving it untried. He didn’t just approve of kissing lepers as a noble idea: he did it.
He is not just an attractive figure, he is also a terrifying one–sprinkling ashes on his food, rolling in the snow as a penance, eagerly desiring the sufferings and humiliations of Christ so that he can also share in his glory.
He has no trouble with walking into a Muslim camp to evangelize the Sultan. But unlike so many modern Catholics who talk about evangelism while eagerly calling for war, he proposes to throw, not Muslims, but himself into the fire in his fathomless trust of God. His modern disciple, our Holy Father, likewise fearlessly went to Muslim lands while everybody was worried for his life.
And, of course, he was a poet in the troubadour tradition, a man who literally died singing. To have only composed the Canticle of the Sun would be enough for most of us, but it was just a piece of his legacy to us. I’m grateful for Bp. Barron bringing him back to me again. Looking forward St. Thomas Aquinas next!
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