Sermon preached on 2nd Sunday before Lent at the Principal Eucharist, Holy Trinity Brussels, Gen 1; Romans 8, 18-25; Matthew 6, 25-34.
The Revd Canon Leonard Doolan (Athens)
I wonder if any of you remember the great Franco Zefferelli film on the life of St. Francis.
There is a simply wonderful scene when Francis goes to Rome, to the Lateran Palace, to petition the Pope (played of course by the great actor Sir Alec Guinness) for permission to found a simple poor community of men and women who could gather round Francis in prayer and acts of charity for the poorest in his local society.
Francis’s father was a wealthy cloth merchant who had sent his son off to the Holy Land as a noble Crusader. He returned from there badly wounded and very sick. It is while he is in recovery that he has his conversion to a new way of being Christian – a different way to his wealthy upbringing. It also means that Francis has some good connections, so he uses a fellow former Crusader, now a lawyer at the Papal court, to write the petition for Francis in the very best of jurisprudential Latin.
His turn comes round. He is ushered by his lawyer friend into the audience chamber, passing armed guards as he makes his way. He kneels before the Pope who is seated on a throne some dozen or so steps up. The great Papal tri-corona, triple crown, hovers majestically over Sir Alec Guinness’s head.
To left and to right of Francis are rank upon rank of Cardinals, Archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, abbots, and ecclesiastical lawyers . They all know inside out the protocols of the Papal chamber. They look with disdain and incredulity on this petitioner, dressed in a simple habit.
