It's the Feast of
XIX Sunday after Pentecost - Rosary Sunday,
2nd Class, with the color of
White. In this episode: the meditation: "The First Espousals", today's news from the Church: "In Flüeli, Pilgrims Kept Vigil Beside St. Nicholas", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
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Sources Used Today:
- "The First Espousals" — From the Assumption to Advent
- "In Flüeli, Pilgrims Kept Vigil Beside St. Nicholas" (FSSPX.news)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
Today is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, but this year it also falls on Rosary Sunday, which gives us a perfect excuse to look at a side of Francis we don't talk about nearly as often: his deep love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Francis is usually remembered for poverty, the stigmata, and maybe a bird or two.
But one of the deepest threads running through his spirituality was his love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Francis lived before the Rosary had developed into exactly the form Catholics know today, so we shouldn't picture him walking around Assisi with a modern five-decade rosary. But Marian prayer was everywhere in his life.
And one little chapel became especially important.
Early in his conversion, Francis discovered a crumbling church outside Assisi dedicated to Saint Mary of the Angels. We know it better as the Portiuncula. Francis repaired it with his own hands and came to love the place so much that it became the spiritual home of the entire Franciscan movement.
He wanted his friars close to Mary.
According to his early biographer Thomas of Celano, Francis had an almost indescribable love for the Mother of Jesus because, as he put it, she "made the Lord of Majesty our brother."
That's such a Franciscan way of looking at Mary.
He loved her because she gave us Jesus.
Francis composed prayers in her honor as well. In his *Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary*, he piles title upon title upon her: Holy Lady, Queen, Mother of God, Virgin made Church.
And his Marian devotion became part of the DNA of the Franciscan Order.
Later Franciscans became some of the strongest defenders of the Immaculate Conception. Blessed John Duns Scotus provided the theological explanation that became enormously influential in the Church's understanding of the doctrine. Franciscans also helped spread devotions such as the Franciscan Crown, a seven-decade rosary meditating on the Seven Joys of Mary.
So there's a beautiful connection this year with Saint Francis's feast falling on Rosary Sunday.
Francis didn't see devotion to Mary as something competing with devotion to Christ. Quite the opposite.
Mary fascinated him because everything about her pointed toward Jesus.
And perhaps nowhere is that clearer than at the end of his life.
When Francis knew he was dying, he asked his brothers to carry him back to the Portiuncula.
Back to Saint Mary of the Angels.
Back to the little chapel dedicated to Our Lady where so much of his vocation had begun.
There, lying near the tiny church he loved, Francis died on the evening of October 3, 1226.
For all the enormous basilicas, paintings, statues, and stories that later surrounded him, Francis chose to finish his life beside a little chapel of the Blessed Virgin.
That's not a bad image for Rosary Sunday.
Stay close to Mary.
Because Francis understood exactly where she always takes us.
To Christ.
Saint Francis of Assisi, devoted son of Our Lady and joyful brother of Christ, pray for us.
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