This reflection on St. Francis is SO beautiful and REAL, I had to copy it and paste it here. It reminds us of the fragility, the brokenness, the humanness of the saints - in a way that the retelling of their lives has glazed over. The saints too often become to us these figures of unattainable perfection, yet their lives were lived in the same way that ours are - in darkness, in suffering, and in the joy of Christ.
Perhaps we should all endeavor to read the autobiographies of the saints (especially St. Therese, of course!), so that we see the real nitty-gritty behind the end result. The happy ending doesn't encompass all the agony of life, all of the work and effort that goes into the end result, and thus makes it seem easy, happy and effortless. Yet, while we are caught up in the midst of suffering, it is much more difficult to see how God will ever make anything of us. But let us trust that He will, because He has told us that He wills eternal life for each of us. :)
THE REAL FRANCIS
There you stand, O prophet of God
Placid in the sun-drenched garden
And never in the cold dank cave
Or bleeding amidst the thorns.
There you stand, poised and sanitized
Air-brushed with the birds
Who once opened their beaks to praise their Maker
And then stood silent to hear His Holy Word.
Why do you too stay silent
Exiled to sacred niche and abandoned
Upon some plaster pillar?
You who glowed naked ashen upon the barren earth
Now need vigil light and fresh white linen?
What is the weak reason everyone loves you?
And who are you, you little wounded man
That everyone crowns your weary wet head with gold?
Are you not a lion now made mascot or lapdog?
Your bitter life has been made palatable
And burlap garb soft to the touch.
Marketed for the masses
You stand sweet and surreal upon the tattered page.
How do you feel being everyone's plastic saint?
Pulled this way and that
Like puddy shaped
and shoved into the mold of many little minds.
Everyone: old-timers and new-agers,
Left wing liberals and right wing Republicans,
Industrious Amish and lazy agnostics,
Catholic school kids and Protestant preachers;
Yes, the whole lot of us who make up life;
Communists, ecologists, vegetarian, veterinarians, silver-haired hippies and bow tied bankers,
Everyone owns you as no one knows you.
Yet God knows you, you broken tiny man.
And you know Him, do you not?
Resting in crib or burning on a cross,
Hidden behind wafer and wine and Holy Word.
So, as you now stand, pale and listless
so too my poor soul,
far from the sharp thorns and the bright snow
Where you found your Christ.
Yes, you who stumbled along Assisi's stone streets,
And wept while staggering like a drunken man,
Speak to me, a sinner, who feasts on rich fare.
Speak to me of the poor God - of GOD!
Will the real Saint Francis please kneel down?
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