Thankfully Having Thanksgiving

When a certain minister of the friars had come to Francis to celebrate the feast of Christmas with him in the friars’ dwelling at Rieti, the friars, because of the minister and the feast, laid out the table a little worshipfully and choicely on that Christmas Day, putting on fair and white napery and glass vessels.  But the father, coming down from his cell to eat saw the tables placed on high and so choicely laid out.  Then he quickly went out secretly and took the staff and wallet of a certain poor man who had come near that day, and calling to him with a low voice one of his fellows, went out to the door of the dwelling, the brothers of the house not knowing it.  But his fellow remained near the door. 

The friars in the meantime had sat down at the table, for the father had ordered that the friars should not wait for him, when he did not come right away at meal time.  He stood for a while outside and then knocked at the door and his fellow opened the door for him, and coming with his wallet behind his back and his stick in his hand, he went to the door of the room in which the friars were eating like a pilgrim and a pauper and called out saying, “For the love of the Lord God, give an alms to this poor and infirm pilgrim.”  But the minister and the other friars knew him right away. 

And the minister answered, “Brother we are also poor and since we be many, the alms we have be necessary to us.  But for the love of the Lord whom you have named, enter the house and we will give you of the alms which the Lord has given to us.”  And when he had entered and stood before the table of the friars, the minister gave him his own platter and his own bread as well.  And humbly accepting it he sat down near the fire in the presence of the friars sitting at the table. 

And sighing, he said to the friars, “When I saw the table worshipful and sumptuously laid out, I thought within myself it was not the table of poor religious who daily go from door to door for alms.  For it becomes us, dearest, more than other religious to follow the example of the humility and poverty of Christ, because we are professed and called to this before God and men.  So it seems that I now sit as a Friar Minor, for the feasts of the Lord and of other saints are rather honored with the want and poverty by which those saints conquered heaven for themselves, than with the elegance and superfluity by which they may be made distant from heaven.” 

The friars were ashamed, considering he was speaking the pure truth.  And some of them began to weep greatly, seeing how he was sitting on the earth, and that he would correct and instruct them in so holy and pure a way.  For he admonished the friars that they should have such humble and decent tables that by them the worldly might be edified.  And if any poor man should come and be invited by the friars that he might sit as an equal beside them, and not the poor man on the earth and the friars up high.

                        -Mirror of Perfection, Section II, Chapter 20

On the surface, it seems as if there is nothing wrong with having a grand feast with fancy settings and a gourmet meal.  After all, all the earth is the Lord’s and He has given it to us to enjoy and to glorify Him.  Jesus himself participated in feasts to such a degree that he was called a glutton.  And the kingdom of God is to be celebrated in feasts and glory.

But Francis’ point should not be missed.  He is not exactly saying that feasts should not be had, but that no feast should be had to such a degree that a poor person would be uncomfortable to join in such frivolity.  If our feasting is such that a poor person cannot participate, then it is not worthy of Christ.  Jesus said, “When you give a dinner, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and you will be blessed for they do not have the means to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:13-14)  To be a follower of Jesus is to have all of your activities shared by the most needy of this world.  If we set up part of our lives to not be shared by those in need, then we are not, in that way, living the life of Jesus.  And should not our feasts, parties and holidays, the very representatives of the Kingdom of God, be most like the love of Jesus?

Next time you have a party or feast, be sure to invite the homeless, needy, separated, outcast, immigrant and hopeless and so allow your very celebration to represent the coming kingdom of Jesus.