When Francis and his first companions went to see Pope Innocent III in 1209, they can have had only a slight idea of what they were beginning. They were not quite as politically naïve as has been supposed – for they did not just pitch up at the papal palace and expect to see the Pope. Through the good offices of their Bishop Guido, they met Cardinal John of St. Paul and went to stay with him. It was this Cardinal who introduced them to the Pope and so smoothed the way to acceptance of their way of life.

Francis and his companions had written in a few words, mostly gospel quotations and a few practical stipulations, what they wanted to be the basis of their way of life. Cardinal John had tried to persuade them to adopt a Rule from one of the older Orders but they had maintained, as Francis later wrote in his Testament that "no-one showed them what they must do but the Lord most high revealed to them the way they should live" The Pope too would fail to persuade the group to adopt an older Rule, but he gave them permission to do two things – to observe the way of life that they had proposed and to preach penance.

In this way Pope Innocent helped the early friars to make their minds up about their vocation.

They were to live lives that literally observed the gospel and they were to go about preaching that gospel and calling others to follow it. What we celebrate today is the continuing power of those two simple aspects of our Franciscan life.

First of all: Observing a way of life: living as witnesses to the power of the gospel.

On this Solemnity of St. George, this aspect is rightly first in our minds. For St. George, long before he was proclaimed Patron of England, was revered as the Great Martyr – the great witness – who gave his life during the Diocletian persecution because, although a soldier, he refused a direct order to worship pagan gods and so was killed for his witness to Christ.
So the first aspect of the Franciscan vocation from the very beginning is that of living as witnesses to the power of the gospel. For Francis and his companions it was blindingly obvious that to be witnesses to the power of the gospel one had to live a way based as literally as possible on that of the gospel – on the example of Jesus and his companions, the apostles.
No subtle gospel exegesis underlay this way of life but a simple, direct reading of the gospel texts and application of them to their lives. So when they read "Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food" (Mat. 10:9-10) - they did literally that.

The power of that daring simplicity continues to haunt us as Franciscans – for there are few of us who have that daring simplicity, no matter how we may hanker after it. But the essence of the insight does continue to inspire us.

Ours is not a way of life that relies on building up reserves of land and finances to assure that our needs are met, but one that looks to the brotherly and sisterly affection of our fellow friars and sisters and of the Christian faithful for the provision of our needs.

So poverty, or as Pope Innocent put it living sine proprio (without anything of our own), and fraternity, caring for the needs of our brothers and sisters, are two sides of the same Franciscan coin. Without fraternity, we would need finances to provide for the needs of each one, with it we can lay open our needs to our brothers and sisters, confident that they will seek to provide for our needs. Conversely, if we fail in fraternity to each other, then we sow the seeds of the destruction of our way of life.

This way of life preceded any approved Rule. The Rule was based on the way of life rather than the way of life on the Rule. Which was why Francis and the early friars could be so adamant that no already established Rule could cover their way of life.  They knew how they were living according to the gospel, what they needed was the Pope's approval for the way of life already sanctioned by their experience of Christ in their life.

This teaches us something else about the Franciscan life – it begins, not with an analysis of legal texts to see how best they should be lived, but with a covenant with God to live the gospel life, using one's talents for the service of others without thought of recompense or reward and accepting no recompense that would give us independence from the support of God's people.

We are celebrating this year then, the seal of approval put on the way of life that Francis had been experimenting with for three years and that his brothers had helped develop as they had joined the gospel living group that gathered around him.

The second aspect of the life that Francis proposed and Innocent accepted was to go out and preach penance. The gospel way of life for Francis and his companions, and perhaps even more so for Pope Innocent, required those living it to reach out to others.

The gospel text from Matthew that quite probably formed part of that first proposal of a way of life, said that the reason the apostles could go out without taking care of their needs was because the labourer deserves his wages. Our part is to be faithful labourers in the vineyard of the Lord, and that labour earns for us the goodwill of all those who are devoted to the kingdom of God.

We enter into a covenant with God – that we will be the faithful labourers in his vineyard and he will ensure that the labourers get the wages they deserve.

Thus the gospel life for Franciscans is not lived for self alone – not so that we can establish cozy communities that protect us from engagement with a difficult world – but it is a life that is defined by our engagement with the world around us. Our communities are not to be fortresses within which we protect values perceived to be lost in the world around, but instead fountain sources in which we live a gospel life, to which we invite those who seek to live that life with us and from which we launch out to a world where the Spirit is at work.

The early companions resisted the temptation of retreating into hermitages as they passed through the Spoleto valley on their return to Rome and instead went out two by two to carry out the mission entrusted to them by the Church.

Despite some spectacular failures, they had a thundering success for they captured not just the spirit of the gospel but also the spirit of the times.
Just 15 years later, they reached our shores and established the way of life here in Britain. Within 50 years of their arrival in this land hungry for the gospel of Jesus Christ, there were 1,500 friars in the province. There are many sociological reasons that one could go into to account for this success. But the principal reason for the success is that God willed it so. When these men committed themselves to being branches of the vine and never allowing themselves to be cut off from Christ, the people of this island responded with enthusiasm.

So today as we celebrate the Solemnity of St. George and in this celebration celebrate the patron of the English, let us remember how it is that Franciscans evangelise. By a way of life committed to gospel principles. By a selfless desire to use our talents for the glory of God without concern for recompense or reward. And by a consistent preaching of God's word – a word that gives life.

Those features continue to underlie the Franciscan vocation to be an evangelising fraternity. If we are faithful to them, then God will continue to be faithful to us and we will, like St. George, continue to be witnesses to his love in this land.