Homily for the Rosary Rally Mass on the Solemnity of St. Francis of Assisi
October 4, 2025; St. Mary’s Cathedral
LEA AQUÍ LA HOMILÍA EN ESPAÑOL
Introduction
It is a happy coincidence that our Rosary Rally this year coincides with the celebration of the patronal saint of our Archdiocese. On this feast of St. Francis of Assisi – having the highest rank, that of Solemnity, for us in the Archdiocese of San Francisco – we celebrate the prayer that is the biblical meditation on the mysteries of our salvation in the lives of our Lord and our Lady. The question, though: did St. Francis himself ever pray the rosary?
It is not impossible. Recall that he and St. Dominic were contemporaries, both founding communities with a new and reformed vision of consecrated life: mendicant friars. And we know from our tradition that it was St. Dominic who received the rosary from our Lady. But certainly, repeated formulaic prayers counted on a set of beads were a method of meditation from the earliest centuries of the Church, so it is certainly quite possible that St. Francis prayed something like the rosary as we know it today.
St. Francis and Our Lady
What we do know for certain is that he had a great devotion to our Lady. And this should not surprise us. Remember his great love for the Christmas crèche. He invented it, after all! He had a great devotion to the mystery of the Incarnation, to portray our Lord in his humanity and all the lowliness that goes with that. And he tried to repeat it in his own life, striving to live out perfectly our Lord’s teaching in the passage from St. Matthew’s Gospel we just heard proclaimed: that it is the childlike who gain heavenly wisdom, not the wise and learned in worldly ways. This is the easy yoke and light burden that our Lord promised to those who are of pure mind, heart and motivation, and St. Francis teaches us this with the example of his life.
We see love for our Lady also displayed in the famous prayer he composed to her, his classic “Salutation to our Lady.” In this prayer he greets her with great acclamation: “Hail His Palace! Hail His Tabernacle! Hail His Dwelling Place!” Hail our Lord’s tabernacle: St. Francis’ great love and deep understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation also moved him to have the greatest of devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, where our Lord continues this mystery, coming down from heaven and taking on flesh for us in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
St. Francis was, indeed, consumed with zeal for reclaiming a proper reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. His outrage over the sloppy manner in which the Blessed Sacrament was treated and Mass celebrated comes through loud and clear in his letters to the clergy, excoriating them for dirty linens and chalices, and lack of attentive reverence in the celebration of Mass. For the little poor man of Assisi, love of lady poverty did not mean cheap quality of furnishings for Mass and disregard of details in rendering worship to the Almighty. Quite the contrary: it was a betrayal of the vocation of the priest. Only the best for God!
St. Francis and the Church
His incarnational spirituality also led him to see in our Lady the image of the Church, as he prays to her in his Salutation: “You have been made the Virgin Church and chosen by the most Holy Father in heaven.” He understood this teaching first expounded upon by St. Ambrose nearly 800 years earlier, and reaffirmed at the Second Vatican Council nearly 800 years later. As the Council teaches, the Church, like our Lady, is also both Virgin and Mother: under the guidance of the Holy Spirit she preserves us in the pure teaching of her Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus Christ; and in giving birth to new children for God’s Kingdom in the saving waters of Baptism, and nurturing them by the sacraments and handing on that teaching, she engenders new life as a mother (cf. LG 63-64). Our Lady is also the first disciple and model of all disciples, and so Francis sought to imitate her, his mother, in the way she responded to God’s call in her life.
This is truly the response of all great protagonists in God’s plan of salvation for the world, going back to the very beginning. We heard that beginning point in our first reading, the call of Abraham, our Father in Faith: “Go forth from the land of your kinfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” Abraham followed God’s lead, and God fulfilled His promise to him to make of him a great nation and to give him a name that would be great and a blessing. Truly all the communities of the earth find blessing in him, because, as the Book of Genesis tells us: “Abraham went as the Lord directed him.”
Did not our Lady do the same? In serving as the Virgin Mother of God’s Son, she went places no human being could, all because of her fiat, her response of faith: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” And St. Francis strove to do likewise. He left all of his claims to wealth, fame and glory, famously returning it all to his father and departing from his family home to live in union with lady poverty, and go wherever the Lord directed: the rebuilding of God’s Church by the renewal of holiness in her members. Francis, though, understood the boundaries: he knew that God would not direct him out of the Church. He always maintained communion with the Church, for apart from our mother we cannot be joined to our Father in heaven.
Conclusion
It has been said that St. Francis was the most perfect re-presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ since he walked on this earth. Again, his devotion to the Incarnation. And this did, indeed, reach its perfection at the end of his life, which gives reason for the second reading, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: “I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.” That word “marks” means marks in the sense of a brand, brand marks, what is used to mark an animal as belonging to its owner. The word in Greek, stigmata, is an allusion to this gift of Christ’s wounds that Francis received at the end of his life. His whole life, though, was an offering to his Lord, and the gift of the stigmata was a culmination of that in the form of a physical: St. Francis belonged uniquely to Jesus.
As for Francis, so for us, even if we are far, far away from his degree of holiness of life. But the same principle applies: only by maintaining communion with the Church can we follow God’s lead in our own life: cultivating deep devotion and reverence for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, always receiving worthily and reverently, especially through frequent recourse to the sacrament of Penance; and cultivating likewise deep devotion to our Blessed Mother, the first and model disciple, and keeping fidelity to the teachings and sacramental life of the Church, of which, as Virgin and Mother, Mary is the image and model.
If we do, we will bear the brand marks of it in our lives: by our personal witness we will show that we belong uniquely to our Lord Jesus Christ as members of his Body, the Church. And we have our Lady, St. Francis, and the whole company of saints to intercede for us and spur us onto victory. May our greatest joy be to live in their company: here and now in this life, and perfectly forever in the next.
