St. Francis's true words!

QUESTION?

Did St Francis ever say: “preach the Gospel always, if necessary use words?”

ANSWER! 

Fr Stan Fortuna replied (via text 1-3-17): “Those are not his words verbatim, they are not included in the authentic writings of Francesco di Assisi, yet they perfectly reflect his spirit. There’s a legend that’s very likely to have happened – a brother asked Francesco to teach him how to preach…Francesco said ok – they walked through the village without saying anything. The brother was like “I thought you were gonna teach me how to preach?” Francesco replied “I just did.” That’s part of the story that eventually put the words your referring to into the mouth of Francesco – words that never came out of his mouth. It’s like the prayer of St Frances – “Make me a channel of your peace…etc” That’s not really a prayer composed by St Francis even though it captures something of the spirit of Francesco.”