By Louise P. Abesa
We are in the Jubilee year commemorating the 800th anniversary of San Francisco de Asis’ transit to heaven. The global celebration touches on the lives of people in all continents. It’s pretty cool to have a little Franciscan experience through time and space.
The Italian stage and film director, Franco Zeffireli, came up with “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”, a biographical movie about St. Francis of Assisi, released in Italy in 1972 and globally in 1973. After his close spiritual encounter with St. Francis while doing the film production, he expressed his sentiments about the saint succinctly in an interview with Messenger of Saint Anthony, Italy: “The only man who has ever arrived near Jesus is St. Francis”.
Mr. Zeffireli later served as the Senator of Catania between 1994 and 2001 (wikipedia.org)
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Fr. Murray Bodo, OFM of Gallup, New Mexico, USA was commissioned by the editor of St. Anthony Messenger magazine, USA to write a book about St. Francis of Assisi. He traveled to Italy and stayed for the spring and summer of 1972 to go around Assisi and other places with Franciscan influence to absorb the spirituality of St. Francis and of St. Clare. He came up with a best seller: Francis: The Journey and the Dream. Fr. Bodo expressed his own spiritual journey profoundly by saying, “When I found Francis, I found Christ”.
In early 1973, across the Pacific Ocean, a fifth grader viewed the movie Brother Sun Sister Moon on the big screen with her family in one of the theaters of Metro Manila, Philippines. Now, that fifth grader is a retired Social Studies teacher at 65 and I would like to share how I find the claim that “to find Francis is to have found Christ” to be palpably true. I have been going to confession and spiritual direction to Franciscan priests for more than two years now (fourth quarter of 2023 up to the present). Their advice has a common tone: to see Christ in others and to bring the love of Christ to those who need it most in a very natural spontaneous way. Back in Metro Manila (2003 onwards) I had the privilege to stay with a relative during the Christmas holidays before she passed on to Our Lord. She was well respected in her parish in Quezon City because she generously helped the Church and yet she lived a very simple life. She was happiest when she was served with fruit salad. She was a Third Order Franciscan.
As I write this piece, I remember the beautiful songs in the soundtrack of Brother Sun Sister Moon. I especially remember the song with the words, “Day by Day, Stone by Stone..” in the last stanza . It is only now, after doing a Google search, that I get to know that the title of the song written by Donovan Leitch is “Little Church” but for some, they want the song’s title to be as the first line in the song goes…”If You Want Your Dream to Be”
If you want your dream to be,
Build it slow and surely.
Small beginnings, greater ends,
Heartfelt work goes purely.
If you want to live life free,
Take your time go slowly.
Do few things but do them well:
Simple joys are holy.
Day by day, stone by stone,
Build your secret slowly.
Day by day, you’ll grow too;
You’ll know heaven’s glory!
I moved to Metro Naga in August 2023 to enjoy a slow-paced life after working in the US for about two years and when the whole world has just started to pick up the pieces from the scourges of the CoVid 19 pandemic. I’m glad to be part of the rebuilding of Metro Naga and of the Archdiocese of Caceres.
A year ago, on October 5, 2025, with the blessing of the parish priest of San Francisco, Fr. Wilfred Almoneda, the Holy Mary Hand Maid of the Lord Praesidium of the Legion of Mary launched the San Francisco Book Barrow in the patio of the southwest wing of the church on Peñafrancia Ave., Naga City.
A month later, in November, the Catechetical Ministry, headed by its vicarial coordinator, Ting Salvosa, and her assistant coordinator, Bebz Pangilinan, allotted a space to accommodate the Legion of Mary’s Book Barrow in their Center. The Book Barrow’s latest project is to help the youth be conscious of how to effectively deal with Artificial Intelligence by honing their reading and thinking skills in line with Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.
Eight hundred years have passed since the transit of St. Francis of Assisi to heaven and the Triune God continues showering His blessings to the world through the saint whose only goal in life was to bring souls to Christ, slowly but surely.
