O glorious Saint Francis, who, even in thy youth, with a generous heart didst renounce the comfort and ease of thy father's house in order to follow Jesus more closely in His humility and poverty, in His mortification and passionate love of the Cross, and didst thereby merit to behold the miraculous Stigmata impressed upon thy flesh and to bear them about with thee, obtain for us also, we pray, the grace of passing through our life here below, as though insensible to the ephemeral splendor of all earthly possessions, with our hearts constantly beating with love of Jesus Crucified even in the darkest and saddest hours of life and with our eyes ever serenely raised toward heaven, as though already enjoying a foretaste of the eternal possession of the infinite Good with His divine and everlasting joys. (Raccolta)
