In the year 1224, St. Francis withdrew to the Mount of La Verna to mark the “small Lent” from the feast of the Assumption (August 15) to the feast of St. Michael (September 29). On the night of September 17 (approximately, the sources say “a few days after the feast of the True Cross” September 14) a six-winged Seraph appeared to St. Francis, bearing the crucified Christ, who impressed upon Francis the stigmata: wounds in his hands and side. These were a sign that Francis had fully embraced the cross in imitation of his savior.
As we conclude our own Lenten season and enter the holy Triduum of Easter, I offer the following prayer to St. Francis of Assisi, given by Pope John Paul II on September 17, 1993, the feast of the Holy Stigmata.
O Saint Francis, stigmatized on La Verna,
the world longs for you
as an icon of Jesus crucified.
It needs your heart, open for God and humanity,
your bare and wounded feet,
your pierced and pleading hands.
It longs for your weak voice,
strong with the power of the Gospel.
O Francis, help the men and women of today
to acknowledge the evil of sin
and to seek cleansing from it in penance.
Help them to free themselves
from the very structures of sin
which oppress society today.
Arouse in the awareness of those who govern
the urgent need for peace between nations and peoples.
Pour into the young your zest for living;
help them balk the snares
of the many cultures of death.
To those who have been offended
by wickedness of every kind,
communicate your joy, O Francis,
in learning to forgive.
To all who are crucified by suffering,
by hunger, by war,
open once again
the door of hope.
Amen.
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