Saint Francis, Ezra, and Nehemiah
In his Life of St. Francis, Saint Bonaventure recounts this significant day in the life of il Poverllo, “One day when Francis went out to meditate in the fields he was passing by the church of San Damiano which was threatened with collapse because of extreme age. Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray. Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation as he prayed. While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord’s cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times, ‘Francis, go repair my house, as you see, it is falling into ruin.’” Francis thought God wanted him to physically rebuild the collapsing church building, so he started making repairs to the structure. Over time, Francis realized that God wanted him to rebuild the entire Church around the world through prayer, poverty, and peace.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the only completely historical books in the third section of the Hebrew Bible or the Ketuvim (Writings). In English Bibles, they are usually split into two, with the book of Nehemiah appearing as a separate book from that of Ezra, but in the Hebrew tradition, the two are one book, entitled Ezra. In the anachronism Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, Nehemiah is simply the second part of Ezra.
Providentially, Ezra and Nehemiah came on the scene in Jerusalem to restore the worship of the “God of heaven” and to safeguard the sanctity of Zion and God’s people. The return from Babylonian Exile along with 5,400 articles of gold and silver taken from the temple seven decades earlier, began a trek for the once captive people to make the long journey to Zion. The year was ca. 536 B. C. Worship was restored at Jerusalem with the preliminary restoration of the Temple that began early upon their arrival in Jerusalem (Ezra 3). The foundation was laid with great ceremony with old men weeping for the lost glory of the first Temple. Resistance to the building project arose from the Samaritans and work on the structure stopped for nearly sixteen years. Finally in 520 B. C. the rebuilding of the Temple began again in earnest and was completed in 516 B. C. (Ezra 5).
A thousand years before Francis, Nehemiah the prophet was once the wine cupbearer (Gk. oinochoos) and favorite servant of King Ataxerxes I of Persia. He sought the permission of the king to return to his homeland, the ancestral land of the people of Israel, which took place twenty years after Ezra had arrived in Jerusalem, around 468 BC. Despite similar opposition, Nehemiah rebuilt the city’s walls in less than three months. Nehemiah would refer to the once majestic Jerusalem as a city lying in “waste” (Neh 2:17). Unlike prevailing earthly wisdom, though, the walls of Jerusalem were not rebuilt first, but rather the Temple was.
Inspired by the lives and work of Saint Francis, Ezra and Nehemiah, in the spiritual life, authentic restoration begins in building the temple of the heart before the work of building the walls of life. Often we seek to build walls of protection without the help of God and, so, we struggle and fail. The heart must first be restored to proper worship and the temple of the mind must be enlightened by God’s grace in order for thought to become the foundation upon which spiritual life rises up. Wisdom begins with the heart being established with trust in God and not trust in worldly things. Building the temple or rebuilding the Church is done by affirming the presence of the Lord. Church or temple is a place of holiness and purity, which provides a space of security and safety. Those returning former captives first put their trust in the Lord. Their faith and courage confronted with opposition and discouragement overcame both and led them to rebuild the Temple. Our faith and courage will lead us in the challenges of life to build the temple of God upon a transformed heart.
St. Francis of Assisi, Francesco Bernardone, was endowed with great riches and all that anyone could have ever wished for, as his wealthy and influential family was able to afford anything he would have desired, just as the prophet Nehemiah had nothing lacking as the servant of the ruler of Persia. Then, Saint Francis’ work, too, remains contemporary as the present generation labors to spiritually rebuild the Church by means of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Nature and dignity 