Because of the extraordinary miracles which highlighted his preaching, the people listened to St. Francis' words as if an angel of God were speaking. The extraordinary degree of virtue he had attained, and his spirit of prophesy; the power of his miracles, together with his divine appointment to preach, and the obedience irrational creatures paid him; the profound change of heart in those who heard him, and the fact that he had been taught by the Holy Spirit without the aid of man, and commissioned to preach by the Supreme Pontiff as a result of a revelation, in addition to the rule in which the approach to preaching is laid down, and which was approved by Christ's Vicar, together with the mark of the Great King which was impressed on his body like a seal - these were all so many testimonies which proclaimed before the whole world that Christ's Francis deserved to be respected because of his office, to be believed because of his teaching, and to be admired for his sanctity, and that therefore he preached Christ's Gospel as a spokesman from God himself.
Saint Francis of Assisi
Bonaventure, Major Life
CHAPTER XII - 12
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