OCTOBER. 4 - FEAST OF ST. FRANCIS

                   OCTOBER  4  - FEAST  OF  ST. FRANCIS

It has been some time since I posted a blog since I deliberately decided to attend to my health and regain the many hours of lost sleep which was the offshoot of my writings. Despite my effort to discipline myself in regard to my needed sleep, I often let go and continue writing my blog into the wee hours of the morning. It got to the point that I was no longer sleeping at night such that it triggered my failing health. Hence, early this year, I decided to give up blog-writing! 

But today, October 4, 2015, after participating in the blessing of the new statue of St. Francis in the grounds of the Holy Spirit Church in Fremont, California, something awakened in me the desire to write about Assisi, Italy. Thrice have I visited Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis whom I have considered my "guardian angel" and one of my favorite saints. His spirit lives on in the unassuming medieval atmosphere of the village not tainted by even neon store 
signs nor graffiti of any sort. The cobblestone streets of yore still record the simple life of the people there who, to me, talk in whispers, as if afraid to disturb the solemnity with which St. 
Francis blessed the town. His biographers claim that he bestowed 
special blessings to Assisi before he met his Creator. 

It was in Assisi that I learned from Sister Lu, a fellow pilgrim during my first visit in 1996, that we should give a name to our 
Guardian Angel. Hence, I named my Guardian Angel, Francis, which eventually became personified in St.Francis, himself.

It was in Assisi that I fully realized the great difference between reading about the life of a saint and "experiencing" a bit of the life of a saint in the very place where he was born and lived his saintly existence. It emphasized the enormous insight and value of a pilgrimage to me.

It was in Assisi that the Lord showed me again, as in other times, too, what being close to Him really means...because in my third visit there, our tour bus was delayed for hours by a freeway construction along the way to Assisi. We arrived at night when the Basilica of St. Francis was already closed. The tour guide was adamant in not changing the departure time at 8:30 the next morning. I argued with him about the necessity of extending the stay for another hour since the Basilica of St. Clare which lie at the end of the hill need to be visited, too. While he relented in extending the time, he completely disregarded the itinerary re St. Clare's basilica. But I knew that an Assisi would be incomplete without a trip to