San Damiano Crucifix

Made in Italy

One of the places Francis frequented was the church of San Damiano, a tumbling down, deserted chapel half way down a steep hill outside the walls of the city. In this decrepit place hung a large, almost life size painted icon of the Crucified. This summer day in 1206, Francis was walking in the vicinity of San Damiano when he felt an interior tug of the Spirit to go within to pray. Obeying the inner voice, Francis descended the worn staircase into the dark, smoke blackened vault and fell on his knees before the familiar icon, his own spirit alert to what the Lord might wish to convey.Almost imperceptibly, the eyes of the icon opened and the head nodded forward toward Francis. Somehow the movements seemed not startling but rather perfectly natural. From the Crucified spoke a tender, kind voice, a voice a parent might use in addressing an obedient but rather uncomprehending child. "Francis, don't you see that my house is being destroyed? Go, then, and rebuild it for me."Only with the passage of time did Francis slowly come to realize that the message to rebuild God's house went beyond the three Assisian chapels which Francis repaired. God was calling Francis to rebuilt the Church itself, by becoming a unique and radical witness for Christ, in poverty, simplicity, and humility. In the same vein, Christ calls all penitents to rebuild the Catholic Church. Rebuild it by witnessing to the truth of the faith, by living lives centered on God and devoted to neighbor, by being people of prayer and selflessness. Not easy goals but the San Damiano cross portrays pictorial guideposts on how to do these very things.