Life of St. Francis of Assisi
During several years this ideal was not alone that of St. Francis, but
also of all the Brothers. In poverty the _gente poverelle_ had found
safety, love, liberty; and all the efforts of the new apostles are
directed to the keeping of this precious treasure.
Their worship sometimes might seem excessive. They showed their spouse
those delicate attentions, those refinements of courtesy so frequent in
the morning light of a betrothal, but which one gradually forgets till
they become incomprehensible.[12]
The number of disciples continually increased; almost every week brought
new recruits; the year 1211 was without doubt devoted by Francis to a
tour in Umbria and the neighboring provinces. His sermons were short
appeals to conscience; his heart went out to his hearers in ineffable
tones, so that when men tried to repeat what they had heard they found
themselves incapable.[13] The Rule of 1221 has preserved for us a
summary of these appeals:
"Here is an exhortation which all the Brothers may make when
they think best: Fear and honor God, praise and bless him. Give
thanks unto him. Adore the Lord, Almighty God, in Trinity and
unity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Repent and make
fruits meet for repentance, for you know that we shall soon die.
Give, and it shall be given unto you. Forgive, and you shall be
forgiven; for if you forgive not, God will not forgive you.
Blessed are they who die repenting, for they shall be in the
kingdom of heaven.... Abstain carefully from all evil, and
persevere in the good until the end."[14]
We see how simple and purely ethical was the early Franciscan preaching.
The complications of dogma and scholasticism are entirely absent from
it. To understand how new this was and how refreshing to the soul we
must study the disciples that came after him.
With St. Anthony of Padua ([Cross] June 13, 1231; canonized in 1233[15]),
the most illustrious of them all, the descent is immense. The distance
between these two men is as great as that which separates Jesus from
St. Paul.
I do not judge the disciple; he was of his time in not knowing how to
say simply what he thought, in always desiring to subtilize it, to
extract it from passages in the Bible turned from their natural meaning
by efforts at once laborious and puerile; what the alchemists did in
their continual making of strange mixtures from which they fancied that
they should bring out gold, the preachers did to the texts, in order to
bring out the truth.
The originality of St. Francis is only the more brilliant and
meritorious; with him gospel simplicity reappeared upon the earth.[16]
Like the lark with which he so much loved to compare himself,[17] he
was at his ease only in the open sky. He remained thus until his death.
The epistle to all Christians which he dictated in the last weeks of his
life repeats the same ideas in the same terms, perhaps with a little
more feeling and a shade of sadness. The evening breeze which breathed
upon his face and bore away his words was their symbolical
accompaniment.
"I, Brother Francis, the least of your servants, pray and conjure you by
that Love which is God himself, willing to throw myself at your feet and
kiss them, to receive with humility and love these words and all others
of our Lord Jesus Christ, to put them to profit and carry them out."
This was not a more or less oratorical formula. Hence conversions
multiplied with an incredible rapidity. Often, as formerly with Jesus, a
look, a word sufficed Francis to attach to himself men who would follow
him until their death. It is impossible, alas! to analyze the best of
this eloquence, all made of love, intimate apprehension, and fire. The
written word can no more give an idea of it than it can give us an idea
of a sonata of Beethoven or a painting by Rembrandt. We are often
amazed, on reading the memoirs of those who have been great conquerors
of souls, to find ourselves remaining cold, finding in them all no trace
of animation or originality. It is because we have only a lifeless relic
in the hand; the soul is gone. It is the white wafer of the sacrament,
but how shall that rouse in us the emotions of the beloved disciple
lying on the Lord's breast on the night of the Last Supper?
The class from which Francis recruited his disciples was still about the
same; they were nearly all young men of Assisi and its environs, some
the sons of agriculturists, and others nobles; the School and the Church
was very little represented among them.[18]
Everything still went on with an unheard-of simplicity. In theory,
obedience to the superior was absolute; in practice, we can see Francis
continually giving his companions complete liberty of action.[19] Men
entered the Order without a novitiate of any sort; it sufficed to say to
Francis that they wanted to lead with him a life of evangelical
perfection, and to prove it by giving all that they possessed to the
poor. The more unpretending were the neophytes, the more tenderness he
had for them. Like his Master, he had a partiality for those who were
lost, for men whom regular society casts out of its limits, but who with
all their crimes and scandals are nearer to sainthood than mediocrities
and hypocrites.
One day St. Francis, passing by the desert of Borgo San Sepolcro
came to a place called Monte-Casale,[20] and behold a noble and
refined young man came to him. "Father," he said, "I would
gladly be one of your disciples."
"My son," said St. Francis, "you are young, refined, and noble;
you will not be able to follow poverty and live wretched like
us."
"But, my father, are not you men like me? What you do I can do
with the grace of Jesus." This reply was well-pleasing to St.
Francis, who, giving him his blessing, incontinently received
him into the Order under the name of Brother Angelo.
He conducted himself so well that a little while after he was
made guardian[21] of Monte-Casale. Now, in those times there
were three famous robbers who did much evil in the country. They
came to the hermitage one day to beg Brother Angelo to give them
something to eat; but he replied to them with severe reproaches:
"What! robbers, evil-doers, assassins, have you not only no
shame for stealing the goods of others, but you would farther
devour the alms of the servants of God, you who are not worthy
to live, and who have respect neither for men nor for God your
Creator. Depart, and let me never see you here again!"
They went away full of rage. But behold, the Saint returned,
bringing a wallet of bread and a bottle of wine which had been
given him, and the guardian told him how he had sent away the
robbers; then St. Francis reproved him severely for showing
himself so cruel.... "I command thee by thine obedience," said
he, "to take at once this loaf and this wine and go seek the
robbers by hill and dell until you have found them, to offer
them this as from me, and to kneel there before them and humbly
ask their pardon, and pray them in my name no longer to do wrong
but to fear God; and if they do it, I promise to provide for all
their wants, to see that they always have enough to eat and
drink. After that you may humbly return hither."
Brother Angelo did all that had been commanded him, while St.
Francis on his part prayed God to convert the robbers. They
returned with the brother, and when St. Francis gave them the
assurance of the pardon of God, they changed their lives and
entered the Order, in which they lived and died most
holily.[22]
What has sometimes been said of the voice of the blood is still more
true of the voice of the soul. When a man truly wakens another to moral
life, he gains for himself an unspeakable gratitude. The word _master_
is often profaned, but it can express the noblest and purest of earthly
ties.
Who are those among us, who in the hours of manly innocence when they
examine their own consciences, do not see rising up before them from out
of the past the ever beloved and loving face of one who, perhaps without
knowing it, initiated them into spiritual things? At such a time we
would throw ourselves at the feet of this father, would tell him in
burning words of our admiration and gratitude. We cannot do it, for the
soul has its own bashfulness; but who knows that our disquietude and
embarrassment do not betray us, and unveil, better than words could do,
the depths of our heart? The air they breathed at Portiuncula was all
impregnated with joy and gratitude like this.
To many of the Brothers, St. Francis was truly a saviour; he had
delivered them from chains heavier than those of prisons. And therefore
their greatest desire was in their turn to call others to this same
liberty.
We have already seen Brother Bernardo on a mission to Florence a few
months after his entrance into the Order. Arrived at maturity when he
put on the habit, he appears in some degree the senior of this apostolic
college. He knew how to obey St. Francis and remain faithful to the very
end to the ideal of the early days; but he had no longer that privilege
of the young--of Brother Leo, for example--of being able to transform
himself almost entirely into the image of him whom he admired. His
physiognomy has not that touch of juvenile originality, of poetic fancy,
which is so great a charm of the others.
Toward this epoch two Brothers entered the Order, men such as the
successors of St. Francis never received, whose history throws a bright
light on the simplicity of the early days. It will be remembered with
what zeal Francis had repaired several churches; his solicitude went
further; he saw a sort of profanation in the negligence with which most
of them were kept; the want of cleanliness of the sacred objects,
ill-concealed by tinsel, gave him a sort of pain, and it often happened
that when he was going to preach somewhere he secretly called together
the priests of the locality and implored them to look after the decency
of the service. But even in these cases he was not content to preach
only in words; binding together some stalks of heather he would make
them into brooms for sweeping out the churches.
One day in the suburbs of Assisi he was performing this task when a
peasant appeared, who had left his oxen and cart out in the fields while
he came to gaze at him.
"Brother," said he on entering, "give me the broom. I will help
you," and he swept out the rest of the church.
When he had finished, "Brother," he said to Francis, "for a long
time I have decided to serve God, especially when I heard men
speak of you. But I never knew how to find you. Now it has
pleased God that we should meet, and henceforth I shall do
whatever you may please to command me."
Francis seeing his fervor felt a great joy; it seemed to him
that with his simplicity and honesty he would become a good
friar.
It appears indeed that he had only too much simplicity, for after his
reception he felt himself bound to imitate every motion of the master,
and when the latter coughed, spat, or sighed, he did the same. At last
Francis noticed it and gently reproved him. Later he became so perfect
that the other friars admired him greatly, and after his death, which
took place not long after, St. Francis loved to relate his conversion,
calling him not Brother John, but Brother St. John.[23]
Ginepro is still more celebrated for his holy follies.
One day he went to see a sick Brother and offered him his services. The
patient confessed that he had a great longing to eat a pig's foot; the
visitor immediately rushed out, and armed with a knife ran to the