Letter of Saint Francis to Saint Clare before his death

To the soul that can read mine

and understands its joys and sorrows,

I want to confide these words:

At the dawn of my departure

at the twilight of the path

that I have chosen,

I can finally affirm, completely at peace,

that our wound

in this world,

lies neither in wealth

nor in poverty,

but in our dependence on one of these two layers,

in our imagining that

one or the other can offer us joy and freedom.

It also lies in being convinced that the Most High Lord

needs the suffering of us creatures to open the door of his light to us.

Our wound, finally, is the conviction that He

needs to sacrifice Himself

in the form of His Son

or in human form in order to save us.

Who on earth but ourselves

through purity of heart, can save us?

Truly the Good Lord

has shown me that

there was no ransom,

no sacrifice to be perpetuated.

He taught me, in silence

that it would be enough to come out of ignorance, out of oblivion, and to love.

To love life in every form,

and in all the means that make it beautiful, to love its Oneness

in everything and in every being.

May all this be said,

one day, as much to women as to men;

may it be said and taught better than I have been able to do, without rejecting anything of Water or Fire.

My wish is that there be no more Churches, no more priests, no more monks, none of this:

that there be only the Most High and us, for it is up to each one to meet Him in himself….

Now that the veil is torn,

I want to leave naked as I came into the world.

And I speak not of the birth of my body, but of the true birth of my soul, of the day when it found the courage to

descend deeper into the flesh

to offer myself to the Eternal,

both above and below.”

– Saint Francis