I don’t bring my biography into every piece, but with Francis of Assisi, it would be dishonest to pretend there is no thread. I was baptized on October 4, his feast day, and my grandmother’s devotion made him part of my earliest imagination of what goodness could look like.
Over time, I have come to see how easily Francis is turned into harmlessness, into a saint you can admire without changing anything. But this month, by inviting the public to stand before what remains of him, Assisi points back to the part of Francis that is least convenient: the daily training, the refusal, the long work of not becoming what you oppose.
