Compassion

 
  
Francis linked his conversion with one quite distinct, concrete experience: his encounter with a leper. He recognized that Assisi was essentially a culture without compassion, and that the social system in which he had grown up was not based on Gospel values. The world in which he had been raised was not rooted in neighborliness but in money, prestige, power, and in the domination of the rich over the poor. So Francis distanced himself from the world and began to develop his alternative culture of compassion (see Test 1-5).

Francis discovered Jesus Crucified, in the throngs of lepers. He discovered the Gospel in the poor, and set himself alongside the great mass of beggars and casual laborers. By doing so, he revealed a brotherly and sisterly Church, and tried to live out its message in the company of the poor and the lepers. This Church was called to continue in the three orders that originated with Francis.

From CCFMC, UL 2, (1.2 Francis’ Alternative Way)