In his Testament Francis states that the sight of lepers made him feel sick. But one day, as he was riding outside the town of Assisi, he met a leper on the road. Face to face with the leper, Francis experienced a challenge of grace. He realized that how he reacted to the leper was how he reacted to Christ himself because in the leper he experienced the presence of the Lord. His experience was similar to the experience of Saint Paul on the Damascus Road. Francis could easily have greeted the leper, perhaps given him money and wished him well without even getting off his horse. But Francis felt this was not enough. Instead he got off his horse and kissed the leper. In his Testament Francis said of this incident: 'What had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I delayed a little and left the world'. To appreciate the significance of this incident we must remember that Francis was a young, educated citizen of Assisi. His father was a cloth merchant and Francis had travelled with his father to France to buy cloth. He was ambitious for glory and was popular with the youth of Assisi.
We can presume that since his father was a cloth merchant Francis wore fine clothes. A leper was an exact opposite of Francis. A leper had no place in society, was not allowed to enter a town and his or her ambitions were completely thwarted by illness. Yet it was in a leper that Francis experienced the Lord and this experience became the dominant influence in his life. In the next reflection we can see how this experience became the basis of Francis' spirituality.
