Both Christ and St. Francis show us that they suffered what we suffered, but they suffered in love, and that makes all the difference. And the love is in the surrender of my will to God’s will. St. Francis was once asked what kind of death he wished to have: a quick and sudden death or a slow, lingering death in which he can prepare for his passage into heaven. His answer was, “I want whatever death God wants for me.”
That is the ultimate love; that very act is itself the love song.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “The Great Surrender: Embracing ‘Sister Death’”
by Murray Bodo, OFM
