Francis of Assisi

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• Writing of Francis is difficult. One can write volumes (and many have!) about this loving mystic, whose only treasure was Christ Himself. This is not a scholarly work, nor a biography of Francis - many a work exists to fulfil that purpose. However, the spirit of this tender "troubadour", whose romantic, passionate soul was wrapped in a chivalry that led to his speaking of even virtues as Lords and Ladies, captures the essence of charity and joy. It is my honour to introduce you to this noble spirit, and to hope that this may whet your appetite, not only for knowledge of "Il Poverello", but for the legacy of love that he left to us all.

  I once remember hearing Francis described as a man who "walked at right angles to the world." This is an apt description. Francis lived in an age, much like our own, where the "world" of wealth and power blinded many (and many among the hierarchy!) to the treasures of divine love. While medieval man was very conscious of God and of eternity, a trait sadly lacking today, this hardly meant that he was any more inclined to virtue than were those of any other time. Simple in approach, and frequently illiterate, those in the Middle Ages had little guidance from many of the clergy. As Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" exquisitely expresses, those who were, for example, selling indulgences were trading on their "flock's" fear of hell, not encouraging them to love and virtue. (Hardly profitable, that!)

  Saints are said to be products of their age, but this concept is misunderstood. Virtue has never been in fashion. The truly great lovers, in the spiritual scheme, fulfilled neglected needs of their ages. Francis's own love was boundless, but he also was perfectly suited to appeal to the longing for the Creator that remains within the heart of all - and which is never stimulated by fear, but only by joy. Francis, the poet, the mystic, the "herald of the king", indeed was well suited to his age, yet his approach would never lose its popularity.

  Though medieval man had a rich knowledge of the (supposed) daily lives and histories of Christ and his family, the Church hierarchy was far more interested in wiping out the rampant heresies that were propagated at the time. Among Founders of religious Orders, Francis was unique in his emphasis on the humanity of Christ, and on how incidents in His life showed the perfection of virtue. The Christmas crèche and the Stations of the Cross (a meditation on the events of the Master's crucifixion) are among the devotions which Francis would popularize. Yet his preaching went far beyond formal devotion. He would speak with tenderness of the humility of Christ, the "Sweet Babe of Bethlehem" who could hide His divine glory in a life of simple poverty.

  Francis, of course, hardly started out with any intentions of founding a religious Order. Giovanni (Francesco) Bernadone, the son of a silk merchant, was later to bemoan the excesses of his youth. It is unlikely that Francis ever bordered on debauchery, nor do we ever learn what were the great sins for which he remained ever repentant. (All that is chronicled is a love for a good time that was hardly unusual for any young man of any age.) With his love for chivalric concepts, and the ever-present idealism that would not bring the realities of the battlefield to the mind of the future pacifist, Francis had dreams of knighthood in youth, but his trial of the life was short-lived. If indeed Divine Providence brings good from all of our experiences, as Francis certainly would have maintained, we can be grateful for that period of Francis's life - for, perhaps, it was during his brief time as a prisoner of war that awareness of something beyond himself became strong in what previously (in his own view) was a mind too occupied with pleasures.

  Though Francis fully enjoyed the wealth he knew in youth, he later was to use the term "wretched son of Pietro Bernadone!" as self reproach when he failed in the poverty that was this knight's Lady. Francis's poverty was to embrace not only the physical but the spiritual, and he, with the vision that only the greatest of lovers has, regretted any time when God's ways had not been his sole priority. But perhaps he was a bit too hard on his father! When Francis, in the early days of his conversion, began to distribute Pietro's stock of priceless silk to beggars, it's a fair assumption that Pietro assumed his son was becoming insane. If Pietro was to lock Francis in the cellar, it well may be that he was protecting his son from a public reputation as crazy - and one forgives Pietro for undoubtedly considering his own reputation as well.

  I mention this because Francis was to remain a radical. There were no half measures for our troubadour! Just as he embraced the wealth and good times wholeheartedly, he would develop a devotion to things heavenly with a single-minded passion.

  In relating the details of his conversion, Francis always was to note the time when he, a fastidious and pampered youth, overcame a natural revulsion and embraced a leper to whom he gave alms. Years would pass between that incident and his life as a friar, but it was a moment of transformation nonetheless. All of his life, Francis was to have a special love for the outcast or the despised. In fact, he was to welcome many a vagabond into the Franciscan fold in later years.

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  Francis equated the self-knowledge that is humility with true poverty. His love for all of creation is well known, and, if he considered himself a worm, it does not indicate that he was unaware of the dignity of humanity. (Indeed, believing that all creatures glorified God by being what they were, Francis undoubtedly recognised the dignity of worms in themselves!) Rather, he saw what specks of creation we are in comparison to Divine Perfection. The knowledge that God Himself had embraced a human nature is all the more awesome in this light.

  Poverty, especially for such a mystic as was Francis, involves a total detachment wherein alone one may find total freedom of the will. In making us free, God gave us the ability to choose and to love - and that choice is hampered by our fallen nature. Francis, who hadn't the slightest knowledge of his own heroic virtue, believed that it was a simple (though never easy) matter to love fully. One detached from anything except God would be able to love unreservedly.

  Francis's words about "perfect joy" are most telling. Francis was to know great trials in his later life, when those with a greater love for power and education were to usurp much of his authority. One who follows a crucified man will not be spared misunderstanding and betrayal, as Francis knew well.

  He described a situation to his confessor, Friar Leo, where they would repeatedly knock at the door of their own friary and be flatly denied entrance, indeed would be scorned. Were this to happen, and they did not become troubled, this, Francis said, would be perfect joy.

  The tender and expansive Francis, it must be noted, did not speak of the rejection by beloved brothers as joy - and knew well that it was not. The joy is in a dedication to God that is so complete as to prevent even one as emotional as our Francis from being troubled in his spirit.

  Joy is at the heart of one who, though totally blind at the time, could write the marvellous Canticle of the Creatures with vivid imagery and poetic intensity. Joy came from living the gospels, as the brief Rule of the Order, composed largely of quotations from the gospels that Francis so loved, embodied. Joy was the perfect freedom of detachment. Above all, joy was God Himself.

  Francis's detachment is well expressed his prayer inspired by the Lord's own:

  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
  That we may love Thee with our whole heart by always thinking of thee,
  with our whole soul by always desiring Thee,
  with our whole mind by directing all our intentions to Thee and by seeking Thy glory in all things,
  and with our whole strength by spending all our energies and affections in the service of Thy love and nothing else.
  and may we love our neighbours as ourselves,
  by drawing them all, with our whole strength, to Thy love
  by rejoicing in the good fortunes of others as well as our own
  and by sympathising with the misfortunes of others
  and by giving offence to no one.

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  Francis was hardly exempt from human weakness! Though his personal ways, which tended to great excess and bodily deprivation to the point of ruining his health, were not practises he intended to impose on the others, his radical nature made his ideal of poverty beyond the capacity of many of his friars. Nor was Francis a man of good judgement. Not discerning, and considering himself a worm, he would believe the word of any "repentant" vagabond - and, if there were 5,000 friars at the time of Francis's death, we must not assume that all were exemplary in their observance. It is likely that many of Francis's physical ailments and hysterical tendencies were caused or aggravated by the bodily abuse he gave to himself. No doubt, today, many an author would term him mentally ill to some degree. (Note: In his book, Stumbling Blocks and Stepping Stones, psychologist Rev. Benedict Joseph Groeschel, a Franciscan friar, treats of how Francis's pathology of self-hatred was  transformed by divine providence.)

  It is particularly moving to note how, when one is repentant and loving, divine grace can transform the weakness into virtue of the deepest sort. Poverty's becoming the quite prodigal Francesco's guiding virtue is a key illustration of this. Equally delightful is the innocence that divine love would foster in the heart of one who had enjoyed ... the pleasures of this world quite excessively. (Bonaventure cleans it up, but Thomas of Celano has no reticence about mentioning Francis's having been rather a wild sort.) For some centuries after Francis's time, some writers were ill at ease with mentioning how Francis assisted Clare in an elopement with the Heavenly Bridegroom. The virtue and innocence of these two was great by that time, and it is both warm and amusing that it never occurred to either that those familiar with Francis's previous reputation would have considered this "holy abduction" to be questionable.

  But that is the key for us to recognize. The degree of one's love or devotion is not cancelled by one's weaknesses. In some aspects (charity and commitment not among them), Francis is not to be imitated. Yet, to quote a Dominican, the gift comes according to the manner of the recipient - and Francis's case was to be the only one I have seen in which is having the stigmata seemed perfectly natural.

  
  Key points of Francis's spirituality - see quotations:
   
   
   

  • Francis related everything to the gospels (“the fragrant words of my Lord.”) His prayers, Rule, and other writings always quote the Scriptures, chapter and verse (albeit not always accurately.)  This was hardly typical of an era when the Scriptures were unavailable in the vernacular and, indeed, were treated with caution for fear of misinterpretation.

  • Affective approach. Francis's most endearing quality (and the one which would cause the most problems a century later!) was his conviction that the words of the gospel were so lovely that anyone who heard them would be inspired to live in accord with the faith. Francis greatly feared that the study of theology would keep the friars from simple faith and devotion – in fact, he cautioned a (transplanted Augustinian canon) Franciscan theologian in this regard. (This friar was Anthony of Padua.)

  • Constant stress on penance – not only in the common usage, but in the sense of renewal of the man, discipline that will set one's life in line with the gospels. Francis's own practise of penance was, as he later admitted, excessive in its manifestation, but the underlying truth was both humble and joyous. A penitent himself, Francis celebrated the action of divine grace in his life, which is the essential and beautiful core of true penance.

  • Poverty was Francis's guiding virtue. He feared that the pursuit of any sort of wealth (not only temporal goods) would divert one from fulfilling the gospels.

  • Strong sacramental emphasis – numerous references particularly to the Eucharist (and this in an era when most people partook of that banquet perhaps once a year). Francis wrote of those who love God and neighbour as those who “receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and bring forth the fruits worthy of true penance.” He also regularly mentions Holy Orders and reverence for the priesthood, and sacramental confession (which also was a rarity in most lives.)

    • We must not dismiss Francis's emphasis on the liturgy and the sacraments as 13th century fixtures. One who expressed the entire rule of his order as “living the gospel” (in a time when emphasis on the Scriptures was not the rule) clearly saw the liturgy and sacraments as strongly connected with this. His great respect for the priesthood, which he mentions perhaps more often than any other saint, is specifically in the priesthood's being an extension of Christ's own ministry, so that in showing it honour we offer an act of worship, and in the dignity of the Eucharist – our salvation depends on it, and only through the priests may we obtain it. Franciscan spirituality cannot admit of a Eucharist that is entirely a fellowship meal.

    • We can miss some of his wonderful expressions regarding the Eucharist if we are queasy about the Aristotelian term transubstantiation. (Actually, though this doctrine had been defined at the Lateran council in 1215, the theologians by no means agreed on precisely what it meant, and Francis is unlikely to have known or cared what position any of them held. Francis's simplicity was beyond us, and it is likely that the Real Presence was what mattered to him, not the “how.”)

    • Francis's great attention to the Eucharist presents a huge richness to Franciscan spirituality. Jesus in His Divinity and Humanity; His humility (and poverty) in sharing our human nature; our privilege, as part of His Mystical Body, in having this share in his divinity; the elements of His Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension; the fraternal love we share in this banquet; the commemoration of the covenant of Passover made complete in the offering of the Incarnate Lord; Communion and mutual offerings, our own being of our constant praise and thanksgiving and, naturally, of all that we are ; and, to quote the words of the liturgy as would have been used in Francis's time, the gifts of a God who "wonderfully created human nature, and still more wonderfully restored it". The "fruits worthy of true penance" which Francis mentions as those springing from love of God and neighbour and reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, are lives devoted to the gospel.

    • There is a Eucharistic dimension, and that a rich one, in true penance. Forgiveness involves divine mercy and justice, and the sacrifice of atonement offered by our Saviour in his humanity. Recognition of this great gift makes our practise of penance one of offering and of thanksgiving.

    • Even Francis's devotion to the Blessed Mother is intensely associated with the Trinity and the Eucharist. Francis's devotion to the humanity of Christ was so intense that it would be incomplete without a mother who shared the poverty and the pain.

  • Intense, often quite tender, devotion to the humanity of Christ, particularly to His poverty.  He is recorded as beginning to dance for joy when speaking of the “Babe of Bethlehem,” and his Christmas crib at Greccio was to have mass appeal!  Francis's words about the Passion of Christ, and his deep longing to comfort Jesus in His Passion, are so extensive and intense that, in his probably singular case, it somehow seems perfectly natural that Francis received the stigmata.

  • Franciscan Christology, rooted in the founder's love for Christ in his sacred humanity, was based on the concept that all of the created universe exists because God wished One to love and adore him perfectly. This was accomplished in the perfect love of Jesus Christ, through whom all of humanity may glorify God.

  • Love of neighbour very much included companion friars’ watching out for one another’s welfare. Friars were cautioned never to be angered by another’s sin, but were taught to admit any infraction of poverty, or other fault, to their companions – and the latter were to reprimand and penance the ones who wavered. (The effect this must have had in a group that was largely teen aged vagabonds must have been quite interesting … but Francis most definitely saw fraternal correction as extremely loving.)

  • Liturgical emphasis – though Francis adopted few “monastic” customs, even radical poverty did not prevent the friars having a breviary, and his brief rule places great emphasis on recitation of the Office and attendance at the Eucharist.

• Francis's emphasis on obedience is a paradox, because his novel way of approaching consecrated life would hardly have been considered “obedient” to many, and his stress on poverty (which involves radical detachment) was not an indication that he'd seen this virtue in the prelates. (His excellent words on obedience have a unique feature, both in that they allow for anything unless it directly contradicts the prelate: And if when the subject may see better and more useful things for his own soul than those which the prelate may command him , may he not fail to fulfil them.)

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