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Sep 6 – XV Sun of Pentecost / S Liberato of Loro Piceno
Description
Sources Used Today:
- "The Resurrection of the Widow's Son" — From the Assumption to Advent
- "The Hymn of the Society of Saint Pius X" (FSSPX.news)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
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Blessed Liberato of Loro Piceno is one of those medieval Franciscan figures where the history is a little hazy, but the tradition surrounding him gives us a beautiful glimpse into the earliest generations after Saint Francis.
Liberato lived in thirteenth-century Italy and came from Loro, in the Marches, the region facing the Adriatic Sea. Some traditions identify him with a nobleman named Liberato da Loro who gave up wealth and status to enter the Franciscan life.
And this was still very early Franciscanism.
Saint Francis had died only a generation before. His memory was fresh. Friars were still trying to figure out exactly what it meant to live his radical ideal of poverty after the order had expanded across Europe.
Liberato wanted the simplest version possible.
He withdrew to a small hermitage at Soffiano, in the wooded hills near Sarnano. There he lived with other friars in prayer, fasting, manual work, and the kind of poverty that had characterized the first companions of Saint Francis.
The place itself is worth imagining.
No great monastery.
No elaborate choir stalls.
Just a few friars living in the hills, trying to pray and stay out of everyone's way.
One reason Liberato became remembered is his connection with an extraordinary medieval book, the Little Flowers of Saint Francis. A friar named Liberato