Prayer of St Francis of Assisi before the Blessed Sacrament

St Francis of Assisi († 1226) had for the Most Blessed Eucharist a most ardent reverence. In the Letter to All Clerics (1220) he solemnly wrote: «We must kiss the places where the words of the Lord and his Most Holy Body are preserved.» In the Admonition I (c. 1224), he taught that «seeing the bread and the wine with bodily eyes, we must believe and hold for certain that it is the living and true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.» To this ardent devotion is associated a Prayer before the Crucifix of St Francis — recited in 1206 in the Chapel of San Damiano before the crucifix that spoke to the Saint, and attested by his earliest biographers (Thomas of Celano, First Life) — and which can also be beautifully prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, because the Crucified and the Eucharistic are the same Jesus.

Most High and glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart;
give me right faith,
certain hope,
perfect charity,
sense and knowledge, Lord,
that I may do
your holy and true command.

(Prayer of St Francis before the crucifix of San Damiano, 1206)

Lord Jesus Christ, living and true in the Most Blessed Sacrament, I adore you with the same love with which St Francis kissed the places of your Body and of your Blood. Grant me the reverence of the Seraphim before the Tabernacle; the silence of the Angels before the Host; and the faith of the humble Poor Man of Assisi who recognised in the smallness of the consecrated bread and wine your real, true and substantial presence.

«Let man reverence, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult, when Christ, the Son of the living God, is upon the altar in the hands of the priest.» (St Francis, Letter to the Order).

Amen.