8 Vol. LIX, No. 1 Magnificat the same thing. And that is how God makes saints. And it takes saints. There is no shortage of commentaries on current events. What is lacking on earth are saints. It takes saints like Saint Francis of Assisi. At the very beginning of his conversion he embraced a leper, because in him he perceived the image of the suffering Jesus. He said to himself: This man is a living, tangible manifestation of Jesus scourged, ascending Calvary, all bloody, covered in spittle and filth. When he embraced this leper, he saw only Jesus. The thought of Jesus’ Passion, of His sufferings, nourished his soul, nourished his prayer, nourished his contemplation, nourished his thought. He was so permeated by the Passion of Jesus that God imprinted the stigmata upon his flesh. Jesus told us at the very beginning of the Community: “Stand in spirit unceasingly at the foot of the crucifix, at the foot of the Cross where I, your Saviour, am nailed. Meditate continually on My Passion and you will not be so cowardly.” Contemplate, meditate on My Passion, My sufferings, the ignominies, the scorns I endured, and you will not be so cowardly. The Franciscans have the Shrine of La Verna in Italy where Saint Francis received the stigmata. Here at the Monastery, we have the mountain dedicated to Saint Francis, sanctified by the visit of this Saint who manifested himself there to our Father John Gregory, with Jesus suffering His Passion. Father John himself suffered the Passion there. Saint Francis called us my little brothers of the earth. This year, to mark the 800th anniversary of the stigmata of Saint Francis, we will be honoring our heavenly brother in a special way in this place that Heaven itself designated for us. Every Friday since the beginning of the Community, one of our Fathers has invariably made the Way of the Cross on the mountain. Some of our Sisters have also been doing so for several years. My brothers, this year we will be making a very practical gesture. More of us will be going to the mountain every week to make the Way of the Cross, in small delegated groups. Jesus, our model At Christmas we saw Jesus, the Word of God, come down from His Heaven to take on human form. The Almighty left Heaven to come to an animal food trough, a foulsmelling stable. That is where He was born. Was that not doing violence to Himself? I like to remind you of the story of Caesar, acting as if he were almighty, ordering a census of the entire known world. And The humble St. Francis chapel at the top of Via Crucis The ascent to Calvary
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