Rector's Rambling - October 3, 2010 - St. Michael & St. Francis

Today we are celebrating the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. The feast day actually occurs on September 29th, but it is an important enough feast that it has an “octave” assigned to it – which means that it can be celebrated for 8 days! We are celebrating it on the Sunday within the octave.
It is an important feast day because there is a lot of misunderstanding about the ministry of angels and who they are in their created order. Keeping this feast day allows us to give thanks to God for their creation and their ministry, as well as be informed about who they are and what they do (and who they aren’t and what they don’t do) so we can dispel the myths and mis-information surrounding them.
Today, being October 3rd, it is also the Eve of the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. We will celebrate this THIS EVENING AT 4:00 PM with an Evensong in the garden, and Blessing of Pets. Be sure to come back and bring your pet to be blessed! We will also offer later a separate Franciscan Service of The Transitus.
St. Francis lived in the 13th century in Italy. The son of a middle class cloth merchant, “Frenchy” chased after military glory in hopes of elevating his and his family’s status by earning knighthood. Instead, God used him to renew the Church.
After a conversion experience in which Jesus told him to “rebuild my Church”, Francis embraced absolute poverty in order to preach the gospel without being attached to property concerns. Many others were attracted to his way of life and joined him. Three modern religious orders are the fruit of his call – The First Order Franciscans (brown robed friars living together in a community), Second Order semi-enclosed nuns (the Poor Clares), and Third Order men and women following a rule of life, but living in the world with their families.
Although the rule of life has changed over the years, the charism (“spirit”) lives on in the Franciscan vocation.
~ Additional information is available at www.FODC.net