Hosea 2: 14-23

Perhaps one of the best known Holy Fools was Francis of Assisi, a saint known even to Protestants. Born into wealth and privilege, he pursued poverty, because Jesus was poor and because Jesus loved the poor. He stressed poverty so strongly in order to become closer to God. He took the greatest joy in destitution. G.K. Chesterton described Francis’ love for ordinary people when he wrote “What gave him his extraordinary personal power was this: that from the Pope to the beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was never a one who looked into those brown burning eyes without being certain that Francis was really interested in him; in his own inner individual life from the cradle to the grave; that he himself was being valued and taken seriously, and not merely added to the spoils of some social policy or the names in some clerical document.”[4] Francis heard his call from God as he stood in an abandoned church, “Francis, go repair my house, which is falling into ruins. His passion became leading the church back to Christ. He was considered foolish by many, even many within the church, and yet his wisdom is remembered and repeated all over the world today...