Life of St. Francis of Assisi
were an unending subject of interest to the whole city. Evil rumors,
plentifully spread abroad against them, simply defeated themselves;
flying from mouth to mouth they speedily found contradictors who had no
difficulty in showing their absurdity. All this indirectly served their
cause and gained to their side those hearts, more numerous than is
generally believed, who find the defence of the persecuted a necessity.
As to the clergy, they could not but feel a profound distrust of these
lay converters, who, though they aroused the hatred of some interested
persons, awakened in more pious souls first astonishment and then
admiration. Suddenly to see men without title or diploma succeed
brilliantly in the mission which has been officially confided to
ourselves, and in which we have made pitiful shipwreck, is cruel
torture. Have we not seen generals who preferred to lose a battle rather
than gain it with the aid of guerrillas?
This covert opposition has left no characteristic traces in the
biographies of St. Francis. It is not to be wondered at; Thomas of
Celano, even if he had had information of this matter, would have been
wanting in tact to make use of it. The clergy, for that matter, possess
a thousand means of working upon public opinion without ceasing to show
a religious interest in those whom they detest.
But the more St. Francis shall find himself in contradiction with the
clergy of his time, the more he will believe himself the obedient son of
the Church. Confounding the gospel with the teaching of the Church, he
will for a good while border upon heresy, but without ever falling into
it. Happy simplicity, thanks to which he had never to take the attitude
of revolt!
It was five years since, a convalescent leaning upon his staff, he had
felt himself taken possession of by a loathing of material pleasures.
From that time every one of his days had been marked by a step in
advance.
It was again the spring-time. Perfectly happy, he felt himself more and
more impelled to bring others to share his happiness and to proclaim in
the four corners of the world how he had attained it. He resolved,
therefore, to undertake a new mission. A few days were spent in
preparing for it. The Three Companions have preserved for us the
directions which he gave to his disciples:
"Let us consider that God in his goodness has not called us
merely for our own salvation, but also for that of many men,
that we may go through all the world exhorting men, more by our
example than by our words, to repent of their sins and bear the
commandments in mind. Be not fearful on the ground that we
appear little and ignorant, but simply and without disquietude
preach repentance. Have faith in God, who has overcome the
world, that his Spirit will speak in you and by you, exhorting
men to be converted and keep his commandments.
"You will find men full of faith, gentleness, and goodness, who
will receive you and your words with joy; but you will find
others, and in greater numbers, faithless, proud, blasphemers,
who will speak evil of you, resisting you and your words. Be
resolute, then, to endure everything with patience and
humility."
Hearing this, the brethren began to be agitated. St. Francis
said to them: "Have no fear, for very soon many nobles and
learned men will come to you; they will be with you preaching to
kings and princes and to a multitude of peoples. Many will be
converted to the Lord, all over the world, who will multiply and
increase his family."
After he had thus spoken he blessed them, saying to each one the word
which was in the future to be his supreme consolation:
"My brother, commit yourself to God with all your cares, and he
will care for you."
Then the men of God departed, faithfully observing his
instructions, and when they found a church or a cross they bowed
in adoration, saying with devotion, "We adore thee, O Christ,
and we bless thee here and in all churches in the whole world,
for by thy holy cross thou hast ransomed the world." In fact
they believed that they had found a holy place wherever they
found a church or a cross.
Some listened willingly, others scoffed, the greater number
overwhelmed them with questions. "Whence come you?" "Of what
order are you?" And they, though sometimes it was wearisome to
answer, said simply, "We are penitents, natives of the city of
Assisi."[16]
This freshness and poetry will not be found in the later missions. Here
the river is still itself, and if it knows toward what sea it is
hastening, it knows nothing of the streams, more or less turbid, which
shall disturb its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to
which it will have to submit.
A long account by the Three Companions gives us a picture from life of
these first essays at preaching:
Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to
receive them into their houses for fear of being robbed. So in
many places, after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they
could find no other refuge for the night than the porticos of
churches or houses. There were at that time two brethren who
went to Florence. They begged all through the city but could
find no shelter. Coming to a house which had a portico and under
the portico a bench, they said to one another, "We shall be very
comfortable here for the night." As the mistress of the house
refused to let them enter, they humbly asked her permission to
sleep upon the bench.
She was about to grant them permission when her husband
appeared. "Why have you permitted these lewd fellows to stay
under our portico?" he asked. The woman replied that she had
refused to receive them into the house, but had given them
permission to sleep under the portico where there was nothing
for them to steal but the bench.
The cold was very sharp; but taking them for thieves no one gave
them any covering.
As for them, after having enjoyed on their bench no more sleep
than was necessary, warmed only by divine warmth, and having for
covering only their Lady Poverty, in the early dawn they went to
the church to hear mass.
The lady went also on her part, and seeing the friars devoutly
praying she said to herself: "If these men were rascals and
thieves as my husband said, they would not remain thus in
prayer." And while she was making these reflections behold a man
of the name of Guido was giving alms to the poor in the church.
Coming to the friars he would have given a piece of money to
them as to the others, but they refused his money and would not
receive it. "Why," he asked, "since you are poor, will you not
accept like the others?" "It is true that we are poor," replied
Brother Bernardo, "but poverty does not weigh upon us as upon
other poor people; for by the grace of God, whose will we are
accomplishing, we have voluntarily become poor."
Much amazed, he asked them if they had ever had anything, and
learned that they had possessed much, but that for the love of
God they had given everything away.... The lady, seeing that the
friars had refused the alms, drew near to them and said that
she would gladly receive them into her house if they would be
pleased to lodge there. "May the Lord recompense to you your
good will," replied the friars, humbly.
But Guido, learning that they had not been able to find a
shelter, took them to his own house, saying, "Here is a refuge
prepared for you by the Lord; remain in it as long as you
desire."
As for them, they gave thanks to God and spent several days with
him, preaching the fear of the Lord by word and example, so that
in the end he made large distributions to the poor.
Well treated by him, they were despised by others. Many men,
great and small, attacked and insulted them, sometimes going so
far as to tear off their clothing; but though despoiled of their
only tunic, they would not ask for its restitution. If, moved to
pity, men gave back to them what they had taken away, they
accepted it cheerfully.
There were those who threw mud upon them, others who put dice
into their hands and invited them to play, and others clutching
them by the cowl made them drag them along thus. But seeing that
the friars were always full of joy in the midst of their
tribulations, that they neither received nor carried money, and
that by their love for one another they made themselves known as
true disciples of the Lord, many of them felt themselves
reproved in their hearts and came asking pardon for the offences
which they had committed. They, pardoning them with all their
heart, said, "The Lord forgive you," and gave them pious
counsels for the salvation of their souls.
A translation can but imperfectly give all the repressed emotion, the
candid simplicity, the modest joy, the fervent love which breathe in the
faulty Latin of the Three Companions. Yet these scattered friars sighed
after the home-coming and the long conversations with their spiritual
father in the tranquil forests of the suburbs of Assisi. Friendship
among men, when it overpasses a certain limit, has something deep, high,
ideal, infinitely sweet, to which no other friendship attains. There was
no woman in the Upper Chamber when, on the last evening of his life,
Jesus communed with his disciples and invited the world to the eternal
marriage supper.
Francis, above all, was impatient to see his young family once more.
They all arrived at Portiuncula almost at the same time, having already,
before reaching it, forgotten the torments they had endured, thinking
only of the joy of the meeting.[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 1 Cel., 23; 3 Soc., 25 and 26; Bon., 27. Cf. _Auct. Vit.
Sec. ap._, A. SS., p. 579.
[2] 1 Cel., 24. We must correct the Bollandist text: _Inter quos
quidam de Assisio puer ac simplicem animum gerens_, by: _quidam
de Assisio pium ac simplicem_, etc. The period at which we have
arrived is very clear as a whole: the picture which the Three
Companions give us is true with a truth which forces conviction
at first sight; but neither they nor Celano are giving an
official report. Later on men desired to know precisely in what
order the early disciples came, and they tortured the texts to
find an answer. The same course was followed with regard to the
first missionary journeys. But on both sides they came up
against impossibilities and contradictions. What does it matter
whether there were two, three, or four missions before the papal
approbation? Of what consequence are the names of those early
disciples who are entirely secondary in the history of the
Franciscan movement? All these things took place with much more
simplicity and spontaneity than is generally supposed. There is
a wide difference between the plan of a house drawn up by an
architect and a view of the same house painted by an artist. The
second, though abounding in inexactitudes, gives a more just
notion of the reality than the plan. The same is true of the
Franciscan biographies.
[3] 1 Cel., 24. Bernard de Besse is the first to call him B. di
Quintavalle: _De laudibus_, fo. 95 h.; cf. upon him Mark of
Lisbon, t. i., second part, pp. 68-70; _Conform._, 47; _Fior._,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 28; 3 Soc., 27, 30, 39; 2 Cel., 1, 10; 2, 19;
Bon., 28; 1 Cel., 30; Salimbeni, ann. 1229, and _Tribul. Arch._,