Presence of St. Francis of Assisi

I can't believe that such people like St. Francis exist.  Way too perfect to be true.  My mind was called back to him again as I read my Facebook from Buddy Couvion, an alumnus of Southeast Un.  He quoted St. Francis:  "It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is preaching."  I had never heard that quote but it is oh, so true.   I know a lot of his quotes:  "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love." "No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm.  You have no enemy except yourselves." "Where there is injury, let me sow pardon."   He has pages of quotes on the web.   But his life speaks so much more than his words to me. 

He put together, by sheer force, an order called the Franciscans and took a vow of poverty and stayed with it.  I'm not planning to take a vow of poverty--unless the bottom falls out of the stock market.  I have been there, in that land of worry about how to pay the electric bill, and I hope I never am there again.  Here was a man who deliberately took this vow, didn't seem to waste time worrying about where the next meal was coming from, and talked others into not-buying into the same thing.  Now that was a heck of a man!   His walking was preaching!   I'm not saying that I wouldn't have loved to be around him.  He loved life and nature and laughter --he was just not into the trappings of it all!

And to put the final icing on the cake --he talked his cousin, Clare, into coming into the project with him and forming an order for women called Poor Clares.   And then he talked another male cousin into coming into his order!   When you can get your family to make a commitment to something that does not have possibilities for making them rich or giving them some political advantage, wow, that is something!  They had to know that he believed in this with all his heart!

Forgive me, St. Francis, I am headed to Macy's for their sale!  But on the way, I will find a way, sincerely, to let my walking be my preaching.  Alas, I am afraid it already is!