The photo above captured a happy moment of my first pilgrimage. We are standing at the steps of the Temple of Minerva in Assisi, one of the oldest structures of the city. Every time I see this, I remember the Spirit that carried us to Rome and Assisi. My heart overflows with gratitude for the gift to be with the Saints in these holy places.

I have been to Assisi three times in my life. And every time, I prayed at his tomb, praying that I could imitate Francis’ beautiful heart. Francis did not always start off poor. He was once a soldier.

A significant moment in the young soldier’s life was his meeting with Christ in the Church of Saint Damian. Christ spoke to him three times, saying, “Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins.” Francis rebuilt the church building. Pope Benedict XVI gave an account of this moment:

“At that moment St Francis was called to repair the small Church, but the ruinous state of the building was a symbol of the dramatic and disquieting situation of the Church herself. At that time the Church had a superficial faith which did not shape or transform life, a scarcely zealous clergy, and a chilling of love. It was an interior destruction of the Church which also brought a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements. Yet, there at the centre of the Church in ruins was the Crucified Lord, and he spoke: he called for renewal, he called Francis to the manual labour of repairing the small Church of St Damian, the symbol of a much deeper call to renew Christ’s own Church, with her radicality of faith and her loving enthusiasm for Christ.”

Francis rebuilt the church building as a symbol of a more significant and radical renewal within the Church. Pope Innocent III dreamed of Francis rebuilding the Church. In his dream, he saw a friar upholding the Church building, preventing it from collapse. Pope Benedict XVI notes that Francis renewed the Church not as a renegade but in communion with the pope. The pope said:

“The two realities go together: the Successor of Peter, the Bishops, the Church founded on the succession of the Apostles and the new charism that the Holy Spirit brought to life at that time for the Church’s renewal. Authentic renewal grew from these together.”

This genuine renewal of the Church begins with each of us. It is through our inner conversion and a renewed love for the Eucharist. Francis said:

“Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult, when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest. Oh stupendous dignity! O humble sublimity, that the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread.”

May Christ renew his Church through us as he once did through the Poverello of Assisi. In this renewal, the Church continues to be a light to the nations.