 ST
FRANCIS’ DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART
By John Cooper OFM Cap
We all know St Francis’ story about "perfect joy; it
is a story about virtue and dying to self, well in 1981, Br Joachim
and I been out in Assisi for an evening meal. I had studied under
his gentle guidance at St Bonaventure University, where he had been
a lecturer. As he walked me back to the Capuchin Curia just up the
road a little from the Sacro Convento. I told him of my experience
at La Verna: I had stood alone in the heart of the mountain with
a note that said "Here St Francis meditated on the passion of
Christ" and the deep cleft in the mountain suddenly reminded
me of the spear thrust to the heart of Christ and the thought overwhelmed
me that St Francis had a devotion to the Sacred Heart. As I walked
back up the steps out of the cleft in the mountain side, I tried
to shake off the idea because devotion to the Sacred Heart really
only became a big thing in the 17th Century with the visions of
St Margaret Mary Alacoque.
After La Verna our group of pilgrim friars had gone to the hermitage
of Monte Cassale and in the Choir they had a picture of St Francis
drinking at the wound in Christ’s side and one of the friars
said that St Francis came directly from La Verna to Monte Cassale
after he received the stigmata. I told Joachim that the picture
had struck me as a confirmation of my insight at La Verna.
Finally when I had gone into the Chapel of the Curia of the Capuchins
in Assisi I found a painting of Christ showing his Sacred Heart
to both St Francis and St Margaret Mary. In that moment I surrendered
to the insight because I knew that it was not original to me. Br
Joachim, having heard my story, reminded me that for St Bonaventure "compassion" was
the greatest virtue, and the practice of virtue moulds the heart
as it did the heart of St Francis.
I bid him "buona notte" and went into the Provincial Curia
of Umbria and settled down to sleep content that I was loved by God
and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, while Br Joachim went back to
the Sacro Convento only to find that the friars had shut the gate
for the night. In that moment St Francis in heaven must have laughed
and even God, smile a little. Br Joachim, a Conventual friar was
shut out of the "Convento" and when that happens in Italy
only the morning sun can open the door.
He told me months later that he slept in the field below the "Sacro
Convento" that night. He smiled graciously and without the slightest
annoyance said, "Now I know what perfect joy is like!" But
God loves irony and soon after Br Joachim became a Definitor General
of the Conventual Order and some twenty years after his sleep in
the fields he was chosen to be Minister General in 2001 of the
Conventual Franciscan Order.
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