Seek For Pure And Holy Simplicity

Foreseeing the future, Francis knew through the Holy Spirit and often repeated that many Franciscans, under the pretext of edifying others, would abandon their vocation, that is to say, pure and holy simplicity, prayer and Lady Poverty; they would consider themselves more fervent and more on fire with the love of God because of their knowledge of the Scriptures, whereas precisely because of it they would inwardly remain empty and cold; and they would not be able to return to their former vocation and they had let their time given to them to live in this holy vocation slip by. "And I strongly fear," he concluded, "that what they seem to have will be taken away from them because they have abandoned their vocation."

Saint Francis of Assisi
Legend of Perugia - 70

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