Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 4th October 2022

Last night I took part in a meeting of Christians Together in Ewyas Harold and District, to give its full title, until recently Churches Together, and when I was a young priest, Council of Churches. Belmont belongs to this group, as we once had a church in Ewyas Harold, dedicated to St John Kemble and because we are a rural parish, outside the city boundaries. It brings together Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics and Methodists and is a wonderful opportunity to work and pray together. It’s amazing how truly united we are in our love of Jesus and our desire to be his disciples and proclaim his presence in our world, following the example of St Francis of Assisi, whose feast all Christians celebrate today. He was born in 1181 and died in 1226 and was canonised just two years after his death. 

I have always had the greatest love for St Francis ever since I was a small boy and constantly visited the places associated with his life with my Italian grandmother and my aunts, uncles and cousins. He became very real to me, a beloved friend and companion. One place in particular I adored was a small chapel, with early medieval frescos, on farmland owned by my great uncle and aunt, Zio Beniamino and Zia Annunziata, just outside the village of Valfabbrica on the banks of the river Topino, halfway between Assisi and Gubbio. Here Francis would spend the night in prayer when walking from one town to another, and there was a large stone he apparently used as a pillow. I just loved lying there and imagining I was San Francesco. Of course, I was only allowed to take a siesta there, never spend the night. Forgive me sharing a personal memory, so dear to my heart. 

 Our Gospel reading from Luke, (Lk 10: 38-42), is the famous account of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary. “Jesus came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha who was distracted with all the serving said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered: ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.’”

Although not the Gospel for the feast but for the feria, nevertheless it helps us understand the person and vocation of Francis, who was both a contemplative, blessed with the stigmata, and very much a man of action, a missionary, who preached the Gospel to the poor, not in the official language of the Church, but in the vernacular they spoke and understood. He wrote simple poems and hymns with which they could learn the truths of the Christian faith and come to know Jesus and Our Lady. He invented a visual aid in the Christmas crib. He rejected riches, power and influence in favour of the way of Christian discipleship, the poverty of Jesus and the way of the Cross. May we learn from him and follow his example as best we can.