BLESSED DIDACUS JOSEPH OF CADIZ, PRIEST, First Order

Didacus-Joseph Lopez Caamano, baptized Joseph Francis, was born in Spain in the year 1743 and made profession in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in the year 1759. After his ordination he exercised the ministry of preaching throughout Spain with great success and was called “a second Paul.” Always imbued with a great love for the cross, he combined apostolic activity with contemplation in the marvelous way. His death occurred in the year 1801.

From the letters of Blessed Didacus Joseph to his spiritual Father, Francis Xavier Gonzales
(El director perfecto el dirigido santo [Seville 1901] 126, 210, 280, 287f)

My only concern is to do what God wants of me

My spiritual father, will I be fortunate enough to effect here on earth the triumph of the holy Cross and of him who is humbly crucified? Will the day ever dawn when this monster of iniquity will love his God and bring all the world to love God?

The sins of men always weight heavily upon me, undoubtedly because I do not consider the gravity of my own sins. One day in choir with the community as I was meditating on this I was eager to be relieved of this burden. Suddenly the great seriousness of my obligation of expiation was vividly and effectively impressed upon me as I recalled what my Lord Jesus Christ, though sinless, took upon himself and endued for the sins of others. I am in the habit of recoiling from this obligation whenever temporal disasters befall my fellowmen.

How forcefully the words you frequently use in your letters strike my heart, that I am called to be “A Capuchin, a missionary and a saint!” I cannot read these words without being moved by a delightful and wonderful force deep in my heart.

From: Proper Officds of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds in the Liturgy of the Hours

St. Clare of Assisi writes...

If you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12).
Weeping with Him, you will rejoice with Him;
dying on the cross of tribulation with Him,
you will possess heavenly mansions with Him
among the splendor of saints and in the Book of Life (Phil 4:3; Rev3:5)
your name will be called glorious among the peoples.

St. Clare of Assisi
The Second Letter to Agnes of Prague

THE RULE - Chapter Two –The Way of Life - 7

The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order
Chapter Two –The Way of Life


7.
United by their vocation as “brothers and sisters of penance,” and motivated by the dynamic power of the gospel, let them conform their thoughts and deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel itself calls “conversion.” Human frailty makes it necessary that this conversion by carried out daily.

St. Francis writes...

And the Lord gave me such faith in churches that I would pray with simplicity in this way and say: "We adore You, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Your churches throughout the whole world and we bless You because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world."

St. Francis of Assisi,
The Testament 124-125