VincentWiki:Reflections/33 2007

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

This child is destined ... to be a sign that will be contradicted (Lk. 2:34)

As biographers of St. Francis of Assisi and Giotto's painting have it, Pietro Bernardone’s outrage over his son’s behavior finally led to a public confrontation. Before Assisi’s bishop and onlookers, Pietro disinherited and disowned his son Francesco. The son, in turn, renounced his father and his patrimony, saying (cf.Lawrence Cunningham, ed., Brother Francis: An Anthology of Writings by and about St. Francis of Assisi [Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1977]):

Listen everyone and understand it well: until now I have

called Pietro Bernardone my father; but now that I intend to

serve the Lord I am returning to this man all the money

which has caused him such a bother and all the clothes that

were his property; and from now on I shall say Our Father

which art in Heaven, instead of my father, Pietro Bernardone.

Full Reflection: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C