“At one time Francis gathered some five thousand Friars in an open plain for something akin to a camp meeting among the Brothers. Saint Dominic and several other prominent people had come to watch the event.
At one point Francis rose and delivered a moving sermon concluding with the command that the Friars not have “any care or anxiety concerning anything to eat or drink or the other things necessary for the body, but to concentrate only on praying and praising God. And leave all your worries about your body to Christ because he takes special care of you.”
Hearing this, Dominic was distressed at the seemingly imprudent order. However, within a short period of time people from all the surrounding towns began arriving, bringing with them generous supplies of food. A great celebrative feast followed as the monks rejoiced in this provision of God.”
Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) in The Little Flowers of St. Francis trans. Raphael Brown (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1958) 68, as recounted in Freedom of Simplicity (New York: HarperCollins, 1981) 75-76.