Life of St. Francis of Assisi
but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable right to our wages.
Under the rule of love we are the sons of God, and coworkers with him;
we give ourselves to him without bargaining and without expectation; we
follow Jesus, not because this is well, but because we can do no
otherwise, because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in our
turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward him: _Et Spiritus et
Sponsa dicunt: Veni_.
It is necessary to dwell a little on the antithesis between these two
Rules. That of 1210 alone is truly Franciscan; that of 1223 is
indirectly the work of the Church, endeavoring to assimilate with
herself the new movement, which with one touch she transforms and turns
wholly from its original purpose.
That of 1221 marks an intermediate stage. It is the clash of two
principles, or rather of two spirits; they approach, they touch, but
they are not merged in one another; here and there is a mixture, but
nowhere combination; we can separate the divers elements without
difficulty. Their condition is the exact reflection of what was going on
in Francis's soul, and of the rapid evolution of the Order.
To aid him in his work Francis joined to himself Brother Caesar of
Speyer, who would be especially useful to him by his profound
acquaintance with the sacred texts.
What strikes us first, on glancing over this Rule of 1221, is its
extraordinary length; it covers not less than ten folio pages, while
that of 1223 has no more than three. Take away from it the passages
which emanate from the papacy and those which were fixed at the previous
chapter, you will hardly have shortened it by a column; what remains is
not a Rule, but a series of impassioned appeals, in which the father's
heart speaks, not to command but to convince, to touch, to awaken in
his children the instinct of love.
It is all chaotic and even contradictory,[3] without order, a medley
of outbursts of joy and bitter sobs, of hopes and regrets. There are
passages in which the passion of the soul speaks in every possible tone,
runs over the whole gamut from the softest note to the most masculine,
from those which are as joyous and inspiring as the blast of a clarion,
to those which are agitated, stifled, like a voice from beyond the tomb.
"By the holy love which is in God, I pray all the friars,
ministers as well as others, to put aside every obstacle, every
care, every anxiety, that they may be able to consecrate
themselves entirely to serve, love, and honor the Lord God, with
a pure heart and a sincere purpose, which is what he asks above
all things. Let us have always in ourselves a tabernacle and a
home for him who is the Lord God most mighty, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, who says, 'Watch and pray always, that you may be
found worthy to escape all the things which will come to pass,
and to appear upright before the Son of man.'
"Let us then keep in the true way, the life, the truth, and the
holy Gospel of Him who has deigned for our sake to leave his
Father that he may manifest his name to us, saying, 'Father, I
have manifested thy name to those whom thou hast given me, and
the words which thou hast given me I have given also unto them.
They have received them, and they have known that I am come from
thee, and they believe that thou hast sent me. I pray for them;
I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me,
that they may be one as we are one. I have said these things,
being still in the world, that they may have joy in themselves.
I have given them thy words, and the world hath hated them,
because they are not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep them from
the evil. Sanctify them through the truth; thy word is truth. As
thou hast sent me into the world I have also sent them into the
world, and for their sake I sanctify myself that they may
themselves be sanctified in the truth; and neither pray I for
these alone, but for all those who shall believe on me through
their words, that we all may be one, and that the world may know
that thou hast sent me, and that thou lovest them as thou hast
loved me. I have made known unto them thy name, that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.'
PRAYER.
"Almighty, most high and sovereign God, holy Father, righteous
Lord, King of heaven and earth, we give thee thanks for thine
own sake, in that by thy holy will, and by thine only Son and
thy Holy Spirit thou hast created all things spiritual and
corporeal, and that after having made us in thine image and
after thy likeness, thou didst place us in that paradise which
we lost by our sin. And we give thee thanks because after having
created us by thy Son, by that love which is thine, and which
thou hast had for us, thou hast made him to be born very God and
very man of the glorious and blessed Mary, ever Virgin, and
because by his cross, his blood, and his death thou hast willed
to ransom us poor captives. And we give thee thanks that thy Son
is to return in his glorious majesty to send to eternal fire the
accursed ones, those who have not repented and have not known
thee; and to say to those who have known and adored thee and
served thee by repentance, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation
of the world.' And since we, wretched and sinful, are not worthy
to name thee, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, thy
well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased, that he may
give thee thanks for everything; and also the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete, as it may please thee and them; for this we
supplicate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou
hast done such great things for us. Alleluia.
"And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin,
St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the choir of blessed
Spirits, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities
and Powers, Virtues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist,
John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the
Prophets, the Holy Innocents, Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples,
Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the blessed ones, Elijah and
Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall be, and are, we
humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for these
things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living
God, and also to thy Son, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and
to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia.
"And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God,
in the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests,
deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters,
all clerks, all monks and nuns, all children and little ones,
paupers and exiles, kings, and princes, workmen and laborers,
servants and masters, the virgins, the continent and the
married, laics, men and women, all children, youths, young men
and old men, the sick and the well, the small and the great, the
peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all men in every
part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be, we pray
and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants,
that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true
faith and in penitence, for outside of these no person can be
saved.
"Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our
strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our
effort, with all our affection, with all our inward powers, our
desires, and our wills, love the Lord God, who has given to us
all his body, all his soul, all his life, and still gives them
every day to each one of us. He created us, he saved us by his
grace alone; he has been, he still is, full of goodness to us,
us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful,
ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else;
may nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us,
except the Creator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true
God, who is full of goodness, who is all goodness, who is the
true and supreme good, who alone is kind, pious, and merciful,
gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, righteous, true,
upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity; of
whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all
the glory of all penitents, of all the righteous and all the
saints who are rejoicing in heaven.
"Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate,
nothing again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in
every place, at every hour, at every time, every day and
unceasingly, truly and humbly believe. Let us have in our
hearts, let us love, adore, serve, praise, bless, glorify,
exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign, eternal God,
Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator of all
men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those who
love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable and
invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed,
lauded, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely,
delectable, and always worthy of being desired above all things,
in all the ages of ages. Amen."
Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm which steals
deliciously into the very depths of the heart? Is there not in them a
sort of sacrament of which the words are only the rude vehicle? Francis
is taking refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's
bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy stammers out
all the words it knows, repeating by them all only the eternal "I am
thine" of love and faith.
There is in them also something which recalls, not only by citations,
but still more by the very inspiration of the thought, that which we
call the sacerdotal prayer of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears
here as if suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength of
his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by the inward and
irresistible unction of the Spirit. He does not offer sacrifice like the
priest of the past time; he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body
all the woes of humanity.
The more beautiful are these words from the mystical point of view, the
less do they correspond with what is expected in a Rule; they have
neither the precision nor the brief and imperative forms of one. The
transformations which they were to undergo in order to become the code
of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the definitive
intervention of the Church of Rome to direct the Franciscan movement.
It is probable that this rough draft of a Rule, such as we have it now,
is that which was distributed in the chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The
variants, sometimes capital, which are found in the different texts, can
be nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed by the
provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of considering this document
as a rough draft, we are very soon brought to think that it had already
undergone a rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which
ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that was in
flagrant contradiction with its own projects for the Order.
If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments, one name springs
at once to our lips--Ugolini. He criticised its exaggerated proportions,