Conformities --- May we be made conformable to the death of the Son, and thus share also in His resurrection.

On this day in 1224, St. Francis was fasting and praying in one of his favorite retreating places, up on Mt. Alverna, when he had a vision of his beloved Lord crucified; a vision that drew him so deeply that, when the vision went away, it now only left him glowing with love and joy in his heart, but it also left him physically marked, even the body joining in on the union with the Lord Jesus his Beloved in everything.

And, also conformed but in less dramatic fashion, this is also the feast day of St. Robert Bellarmine, the heroic Jesuit scholar, bishop, and doctor of the Church; and of St. Hildegarde of Bingen, the holy abbess and polygenius. Pray to God for us.
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