Life of St. Francis of Assisi
treasure of life and truth which only increases as one draws upon it?
How be sad when in spite of falls one never ceases to make progress?
The pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that of the
child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs growing strong and
permitting it every day a further exertion.
The word joy is perhaps that which comes most often to the pen of the
Franciscan authors;[16] the master went so far as to make it one of the
precepts of the Rule.[17] He was too good a general not to know that a
joyous army is always a victorious army. In the history of the early
Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter which ring out high and
clear.[18]
For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle Ages as much more
melancholy than they really were. Men suffered much in those days, but
the idea of grief being never separated from that of penalty, suffering
was either an expiation or a test, and sorrow thus regarded loses its
sting; light and hope shine through it.
Francis drew a part of his joy from the communion. He gave to the
sacrament of the eucharist that worship imbued with unutterable emotion,
with joyful tears, which has aided some of the noblest of human souls to
endure the burden and heat of the day.[19] The letter of the dogma was
not fixed in the thirteenth century as it is to-day, but all that is
beautiful, true, potent, eternal in the mystical feast instituted by
Jesus was then alive in every heart.
The eucharist was truly the viaticum of the soul. Like the pilgrims of
Emmaus long ago, in the hour when the shades of evening fall and a vague
sadness invades the soul, when the phantoms of the night awake and seem
to loom up behind all our thoughts, our fathers saw the divine and
mysterious Companion coming toward them; they drank in his words, they
felt his strength descending upon their hearts, all their inward being
warmed again, and again they whispered, "Abide with us, Lord, for the
day is far spent and the night approacheth."
And often their prayer was heard.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 1 Cel., 62.
[2] 1 Cel., 66; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182; 1
Cel., 69; Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates
were the first to come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135,
136, 138, 141; Bon., 275.
[3] As concerning: 1, fidelity to Poverty; 2, prohibition of
modifying the Rule; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the
Rule; 4, the request for privileges at the court of Rome; 5, the
elevation of the friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the
absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the
secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich
convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to
Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five
years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy
See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side,
but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and
had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let
that suffice! _Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super
litteram sic apertam quia nulla est difficultas in regulae
intelligentia. Arbor vitae crucifixae_, Venice, 1485. lib. v.,
cap. 3. _Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super regulae
destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi
videbatur insanus. Id. ibid._
[4] _Heavens drop down your dew, and let the clouds rain down
the Just One._ Anthem for Advent.
[5] _In foramibus petrae nidificabat._ 1 Cel., 71. Upon the
prayers of Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43;
Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1 Cel., 6; 91; 103; 3 Soc., 8; 12; etc.
[6] Luke, xxii. 44.
[7] Felix Kuhn: _Luther, sa vie et son oeuvre_, Paris, 1883, 3
vols., 8vo. t. i., p. 128; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257.
Benvenuto Cellini does not hesitate to describe a visit which he
made one day to the Coliseum in company with a magician whose
words evoked clouds of devils who filled the whole place. B.
Cellini, _La vita scritta da lui medesimo_, Bianchi's edition,
Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.
[8] On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72; 3 Soc., 12; 2
Cel., 1, 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13;
_Fior._, 29; _Spec._, 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by
the devil in the life of a monk at the beginning of the
thirteenth century, one must read the _Dialogus miraculorium_ of
Caesar von Heisterbach.
[9] Matthew, x. 1.
[10] Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel., and
of this number there are several which can hardly be counted as
Francis's miracles, since they were performed by objects which
had belonged to him.
[11] Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the
marvellous to dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Moncoul made a
portrait of the Virgin representing her as one eyed and
toothless, saying that in his humility Christ had chosen a very
ugly woman for mother. They had no difficulty in healing several
cases of disease by its means; the image became famous, was
venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished many miracles
until the day when the heretics divulged the deception, to the
great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schoenau, _Contra
Catharos_. Serm. I. cap. 2. (Patrol. lat. Migne t. 195.) Cf.
Heisterbach, _loc. cit._, v. 18. Luc de Tuy, _De altera Vita_,
lib. ii. 9; iii. 9, 18 (Patrol. Migne., 208).
[12] "But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. 14. This is to this day the
motto of the Brothers Minor.
[13] _Spec._, 182a; 200a; 232a. Cf. 199a.
[14] 1 Cel., 67.
[15] _Secundum primam regulam fratres feria quarta et sexta et
per licentiam beati Francisci feria secunda et sabbato
jejunabant. Giord. 11. cf. Reg. 1221, cap. 3_ and _Reg. 1223,
cap. 3_, where Friday is the only fast day retained.
[16] 1 Cel., 10; 22; 27; 31; 42; 80; 2 Cel., 1, 1; 3, 65-68;
Eccl., 5; 6; _Giord._, 21; _Spec._, 119a; _Conform._, 143a, 2.
[17] _Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus
nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentis in Domine,
hilares et convenientes gratiosos._
[18] Eccl., _loc. cit._; Giord., _loc. cit._
[19] Vide _Test._; 1 Cel., 46; 62; 75; 2 Cel., 3, 129; _Spec._,
44a.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XII
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217[1]
After Whitsunday of 1217 chronological notes of Francis's life are
numerous enough to make error almost impossible. Unhappily, this is not
the case for the eighteen months which precede it (autumn of
1215-Whitsunday, 1217). For this period we are reduced to conjecture, or
little better.
As Francis at that time undertook no foreign mission, he doubtless
employed his time in evangelizing Central Italy and in consolidating the
foundations of his institution. His presence at Rome during the Lateran
Council (November 11-30, 1215) is possible, but it has left no trace in
the earliest biographies. The Council certainly took the new Order into
consideration,[2] but it was to renew the invitation made to it five
years before by the supreme pontiff, to choose one of the Rules already
approved by the Church.[3] St. Dominic, who was then at Rome to beg
for the confirmation of his institute, received the same counsel and
immediately conformed to it. The Holy See would willingly have conceded
special constitutions to the Brothers Minor, if they had adopted for a
base the Rule of St. Benedict; thus the Clarisses, except those of St.
Damian, while preserving their name and a certain number of their
customs, were obliged to profess the Benedictine rule.
In spite of all solicitations, Francis insisted upon retaining his own
Rule. One is led to believe that it was to confer upon these questions
that we find him at Perugia in July, 1216, when Innocent III. died.[4]
However this may be, about this epoch the chapters took on a great
importance. The Church, which had looked on at the foundation of the
Order with somewhat mixed feelings, could no longer rest content with
being the mere spectator of so profound a movement; it saw the need of
utilizing it.
Ugolini was marvellously well prepared for such a task. Giovanni di San
Paolo, Bishop of the Sabine, charged by Innocent III. to look after the
Brothers, died in 1216, and Ugolini was not slow to offer his
protection to Francis, who accepted it with gratitude. This
extraordinary offer is recounted at length by the Three Companions.[5]
It must certainly be fixed in the summer of 1216[6] immediately after
the death of Giovanni di San Paolo.
It is very possible that the first chapter held in the presence of this
cardinal took place on May 29, 1216. By an error very common in history,
most of the Franciscan writers have referred to a single date all the
scattered incidents concerning the first solemn assizes of the Order,
and have called this typical assembly the _Chapter of the Mats_. In
reality for long years all the gatherings of the Brothers Minor deserved
this name.[7]
Coming together at the season of the greatest heat, they slept in the
open air or sheltered themselves under booths of reeds. We need not pity
them. There is nothing like the glorious transparency of the summer
night in Umbria; sometimes in Provence one may enjoy a foretaste of it,
but if at Baux, upon the rock of Doms, or at St. Baume, the sight is
equally solemn and grandiose, it still wants the caressing sweetness,
the effluence of life which in Umbria give the night a bewitching charm.
The inhabitants of the neighboring towns and villages flocked to these
meetings in crowds, at once to see the ceremonies, to be present when
their relatives or friends assumed the habit, to listen to the appeals
of the Saint and to furnish to the friars the provisions of which they
might have need. All this is not without some analogy with the
camp-meeting so dear to Americans. As to the figures of several
thousands of attendants given in the legends, and furnishing even to a
Franciscan, Father Papini, the occasion for pleasantries of doubtful
taste, it is perhaps not so surprising as might be supposed.[8]
These first meetings, to which all the Brothers eagerly hastened, held
in the open air in the presence of crowds come together from distant
places, have then nothing in common with the subsequent
chapters-general, which were veritable conclaves attended by a small
number of delegates, and the majority of the work of which, done in
secret, was concerned only with the affairs of the Order.
During Francis's lifetime the purpose of these assemblies was
essentially religious. Men attended them not to talk business, or
proceed to the nomination of the minister-general, but in mutual
communion to gain new strength from the joys, the example, and the
sufferings of the other brethren.[9]
The four years which followed the Whitsunday of 1216 form a stage in the
evolution of the Umbrian movement; that during which Francis was
battling for autonomy. We find here pretty delicate shades of
distinction, which have been misunderstood by Church writers as much as
by their adversaries, for if Francis was particular not to put himself
in the attitude of revolt, he would not compromise his independence, and
he felt with an exquisite divination that all the privileges which the