The power of Holiness

The Christian vocation is to be holy - when we are holy we become a living sermon to those around us, almost irresistibly attractive. St Francis of Paola, celebrated today, is an example of this.

St Francis of Paola crossing the Strait of Messina on his cloak. Church of Francesco da Paola (Turin) by Charles-Claude Dauphin

Although we are in Lenten violet, today is the commemoration of a saint – Saint Francis of Paola.

The story of St Francis of Paola begins some two-hundred years before his birth, with the story of another St Francis – of course St Francis of Assisi. This is because Francis of Paola’s parents, poor, hard-working, pious people, had a great devotion to this other more famous Francis. They had been married for some years, but had been unable to have a child, so they prayed for the intercession of Francis of Assisi – promising to dedicate their first-born son to the glory of God. They had a son, naming him Francis after the great Saint Francis, and went on to have two other children. 

This is not the only time that Francis of Assisi touched the life of his namesake. As a child he became sick – he might have even gone blind. Again his parents turned to St Francis – promising that when he was old enough, their son would go for a year to a Franciscan friaries. He recovered, and when he turned thirteen he duly went to the convent of the Franciscans in San Marco Argentano – he was a devoted follower of St Francis’ rule, and when his year in the convent was done, he went with his parents to Assisi and to Rome on pilgrimage.

This is where the story of Saint Francis of Paola really begins – because at just fifteen years’ old he went to live as a hermit – dedicating himself to prayer and penance, eating little but herbs and donated food, and living in solitude for six years.

Then something curious happened, as happened to the other great saints who resolved to live as hermits, like Anthony of the Desert and Benedict of Norcia – two other men who had heard about Francis came to live with him, wanting to copy the way he lived his life. Francis had the local people build a chapel, and three cells, and the three men lived as brothers, singing the divine praises, hearing the Mass celebrated by a local priest, and living an austere life of penance. The three were the first members of a new religious order, which Francis of Paola named after his patron – the Hermits of St Francis of Assisi. In 1454, some twenty-two years after young Francis of Paola shut himself away from the world, he got permission to build a larger monastery, and in 1467, the order gained its first priest – a man who had originally been sent by the Pope to inspect the order. The hermits were re-named the minims – meaning the “the least” – like St Francis of Assisi’s Friars Minor, they were to be marked by exceptional humility.

The Minims also had a special charism from their founder. Because, by the time Francis of Paola was alive, the custom of fasting during Lent had gone out of fashion – most people didn’t bother. So the Minims were to adopt a special fourth vow, in addition to poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Minims would fast, abstaining from meat and all animal produce altogether, all year round. An example of heroic virtue, to inspire in the Church a spirit of fasting and penance – to call people back, after they had fallen away from observing the times of fast.

This extraordinary holiness eventually led Francis of Paola to France, at the request of a terminally ill Louis XI, and was with the king when he died. He became tutor and guide to his successor Charles VIII, and eventually to his successor, Louis XII. He died in France, on the eve of Holy Week, urging his brothers to keep up the rigour of their religious life, especially their vows of abstinence.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

This is, of course, a verse about the end of all things – the resurrection, when the dead will rise from their graves, and yet the Lord says the hour is not only coming, but is now here. What does he mean?

He means that those who hear His voice, who hear Him here and now, who hear Him as he speaks to us through revelation and through the preaching and teaching of the Church, will be called out of the death of Sin and into the new life He promises.

One of the ways people come to hear Christ’s voice is in the example of those people who live lives of extraordinary holiness – who for no other reason than the love of God alone devote themselves to Him completely and live their lives in perfect obedience to Him.

St Francis of Paola, like his namesake Francis of Assisi, is one of those men who was called to extraordinary holiness, to be a living breathing sermon bringing people to Christ. The kind of man who simply wanted to be alone with God, but whose holiness brought him to the side of three successive kings of France.

Very often, we can fall into a deep despair at the state of the world or the state of the Church. If we let them, our worries can consume us – and we can become bitter, or mistrustful, or unkind, looking around and seeing only corruption and blaming others for the state of the Church or the world.

St Francis of Paola is one of those Saints whose life is a testament to a genuine Christian response to crisis, as God speaks through Isaiah to the people of Israel in the first reading

I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, […] saying to the prisoners, “Come out”, to those who are in darkness, “Appear.”

Our vocation is to be holy ourselves. Our vocation, whether religious, or priestly, or consecrated, or as lay people, is to be holy. To find the life of Jesus Christ in the Gospels and in the examples of the great saints who went before us, to copy them, and to adapt them to our own situations. Just like Francis of Assisi was an example to the parents of Francis of Paola, and to Francis himself, just as Francis of Paola was an example to his Minims, just as the Minims were to the people they lived among, let the great saints be an example to you, so that you can inspire others with your holiness.

Because a single person, living a life of extraordinary holiness, is a covenant to the nations – calling prisoners out of the bondage of sin. Instead of worrying about the world out there, or the crisis in the Church, follow this advice St Francis of Paola gave to a man he healed, who asked how he could repay God – go and sweep clean your own room.