“O Florence, recall what I have told you so many times: to renew yourself first. The first principle stands unchanged: that you fear God and observe His law so that you may gain from Him the light of grace, and blessed would you be should you do it, for then everything would go well. But avarice and the love of honors and high rank, which you hunt after, do not allow you to have this light, nor does it permit you to accord with the angels who inspire you and summon you to the good; but once you have this light that I am talking about, you will not care any longer about honors or possessions…
And next, I have exhorted you to love the common good, and not your own, and to be united in charity; and toward this goal…O Florence, God will provide for you if you want to do good…However, you would have to make provision, in the first place, that within your city religious practice is holy and good, and that superfluities and polyphonic songs which are full of lasciviousness are removed, and that everything is done with simplicity and devotion, and [that you] have saintly preachers and saintly religious and abandon those who do not follow in the ways of God…Let us pray to God that His will may be done in His Church.”
Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) excerpt from Aggeus, Sermon XXIII (Florence, God’s Chosen City) on 28 December 1494.
Savonarola was a Dominican friar (a.k.a. traveling preacher) who called God’s people (in Florence, Italy in this instance) to “renew” themselves first in the dark days of the Italian Renaissance. Sound familiar? Here was his message, which appears as relevant today as it was just before the Reformation: renewal starts with each of us, is empowered by God’s grace, and requires us to abandon avarice and honors. We are to love the common good, and live generous lives focused on charity toward others rooted in the belief that God is our Provider while resolving corporately in our churches to live with simplicity and devotion.
Father in Heaven, through us and by Your grace, renew Your Church today in our cities through our charity, simplicity, and devotion. Do this, I pray, along with numerous brothers and sisters, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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