Until yesterday, "Assisi" was a whisper—a burning desire shared by some "Faith and Light" communities in different countries. But as 1978 begins, that whisper becomes a call. We can now hear the voices of those coming toward us, waiting for us to take a step in their direction. Are we ready?
Word reaches us from Belgium, Switzerland, and beyond: communities there too are preparing for this pilgrimage with trust and enthusiasm.
To set out for Assisi is to advance together, humbly and simply, following the example of Saint Francis. It is to try to understand one another. It is to gather and share our stories, to talk, to express the joy of being together.
On the road to Assisi, each "Faith and Light" community becomes the voice of all the hopes and needs that rise today—more urgently than ever before—from the hearts of millions of people toward truth, justice, and peace. This yearning for those values is the hope of the Gospel itself, which teaches us to seek a kingdom of truth, justice, love, and peace—the kingdom Jesus taught us to ask the Father for: "Your kingdom come."
Who among us does not thirst for a life better spent? Who does not want to live fully, more and more intensely? And yet time slips away. Our loves do not keep all their promises. Our lives so often fall into monotony and boredom. We are always searching for happiness, joy, love, life. Always wanting more, never tiring of the search. Yet also never satisfied! Because this passion for living constantly crashes against the limits of our weakness and our wounds.
When all words have failed, we feel the need to cry out. Blessed are those who can cry out the depths of their hearts this way before a brother!
Is not Francis a universal brother? He too was a troubled soul who stumbled against hard realities: his father, a Church slow to change, a world still bound by feudalism, and especially his brothers who came to share his vision with him.
He faced struggles too of poor health and an anguished heart.
Yet the image of him that remains is of a man who, more than any other saint in history, achieved in himself a great reconciliation of the world—a man for whom every living creature was a brother: the Bishop, the Podestà of Assisi, the Knights he met on the road, the humble villagers, the donkey driver who led him to La Verna, the bandits who left him naked in a ditch, the lepers of course, the Sultan and his theologians, but also the stones and plants of creation.
For Francis, the universe was a whole. He drew all of it into encounter with the one who is the highest Good, the Universal Good—the God of Jesus Christ.
"Behold, I make all things new"
(Rev. 21)
This new universe is what the risen Christ establishes—a universe where love triumphs over hatred, where life triumphs over death, where the wolf becomes Brother Wolf again.
Tear down the barriers? Francis shows us it's possible!
The pilgrimage to Assisi aims to be a sign, a prophecy—better yet, an anticipation of that universe transformed by the risen Christ. And we go to Assisi because our hearts burn with this hope.
Luis Sankalé, 1978