Life of St. Francis of Assisi
its want of unity and precision. Later on it is related that Francis had
seen in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself unable to
satisfy their wants, because though all around him lay innumerable
crumbs of bread, they disappeared between his fingers when he would give
them to those about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him: "Francis,
make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou shalt feed these starving
ones."
There is little hazard in assuming that this is the picturesque echo of
the conferences which took place at this time between Francis and the
cardinal; the latter might have suggested to him by such a comparison
the essential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took place
during Francis's stay in Rome, in the beginning of 1221.[4]
Before going there, we must cast a glance over the similarity in
inspiration and even in style which allies the Rule of 1221 with another
of St. Francis's works, that which is known under the title of The
Admonitions.[5] This is a series of _spiritual counsels_ with regard
to the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with
the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly
the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of
the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find place in a Rule.
However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in The Admonitions all
the anxieties with which the soul of Francis was assailed in this
uncertain and troubled hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from
a private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity of perfect
humility, for reasons for submitting himself, renouncing his ideas, and
not quite succeeding in finding them. He repeats to himself the
exhortations that others had given him; we feel the effort to understand
and admire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have proposed to
him for an example:
The Lord says in the Gospels: "He who does not give up all that
he has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life
shall lose it." One gives up all he possesses and loses his life
when life gives himself entirely into the hands of his superior,
to obey him.... And when the inferior sees things which would be
better or more useful to his soul than those which the superior
commands him, let him offer to God the sacrifice of his will.
Reading this one might think that Francis was about to join the ranks of
those to whom submission to ecclesiastical authority is the very essence
of religion. But no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced,
he mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, timid, indeed,
but revealing his deepest thought; always ending by enthroning the
individual conscience as judge of last resort.[6]
All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to ourselves moments
when his wounded soul sighs after passive obedience, the formula of
which, _perinde ac cadaver_, goes apparently much farther back than the
Company of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when inspiration was
silent.
One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to
groan and say: "There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly
obeys his superior." His companions, much astonished, said:
"Explain to us, father, what is perfect and supreme obedience."
Then, comparing him who obeys to a corpse, he replied: "Take a
dead body, and put it where you will, it will make no resistance;
when it is in one place it will not murmur, when you take it away
from there it will not object; put it in a pulpit, it will not
look up but down; wrap it in purple, it will only be doubly
pale."[7]
This longing for corpse-like obedience witnesses to the ravages with
which his soul had been laid waste; it corresponds in the moral domain
to the cry for annihilation of great physical anguish.
The worst was that he was absolutely alone. Everywhere else the
Franciscan obedience is living, active, joyful.[8]
He drank this cup to the very dregs, holding sacred the revolts dictated
by conscience. One day in the later years of his life a German friar
came to see him, and after having long discussed with him pure
obedience:
"I ask you one favor," he said to him, "it is that if the
Brothers ever come to live no longer according to the Rule you
will permit me to separate myself from them, alone or with a few
others, to observe it in its completeness." At these words
Francis felt a great joy. "Know," said he, "that Christ as well
as I authorize what you have just been asking;" and laying hands
upon him, "Thou art a priest forever," he added, "after the
order of Melchisedec."[9]
We have a yet more touching proof of his solicitude to safeguard the
spiritual independence of his disciples: it is a note to Brother
Leo.[10] The latter, much alarmed by the new spirit which was gaining
power in the Order, opened his mind thereupon to his master, and
doubtless asked of him pretty much the same permission as the friar from
Germany. After an interview in which he replied _viva voce_, Francis,
not to leave any sort of doubt or hesitation in the mind of him whom he
surnamed his little sheep of God, _pecorella di Dio_, wrote to him
again:
Brother Leo, thy brother Francis wishes thee peace and health.
I reply _yes_, my son, as a mother to her child. This word sums
up all we said while walking, as well as all my counsels. If
thou hast need to come to me for counsel, it is my wish that
thou shouldst do it. Whatever may be the manner in which thou
thinkest thou canst please the Lord God, follow it, and live in
poverty. Do this (faites le[11]), God will bless thee and I
authorize it. And if it were necessary for thy soul, or for thy
consolation that thou shouldst come to see me, or if thou
desirest it, my Leo, come.
Thine in Christ.
Surely we are far enough here from the corpse of a few pages back.
It would be superfluous to pause over the other admonitions. For the
most part they are reflections inspired by circumstances. Counsels as to
humility recur with a frequency which explains both the personal
anxieties of the author, and the necessity of reminding the brothers of
the very essence of their profession.
The sojourn of St. Francis at Rome, whither he went in the early months
of 1221, to lay his plan before Ugolini, was marked by a new effort of
the latter to bring him and St. Dominic together.[12]
The cardinal was at this time at the apogee of his success. Everything
had gone well with him. His voice was all powerful not only in affairs
of the Church, but also in those of the Empire. Frederic II., who seemed
to be groping his way, and in whose mind were germinating dreams of
religious reformation, and the desire of placing his power at the
service of the truth, treated him as a friend, and spoke of him with
unbounded admiration.[13]
In his reflections upon the remedies to be applied to the woes of
Christianity, the cardinal came at last to think that one of the most
efficacious would be the substitution of bishops taken from the two new
Orders, for the feudal episcopate almost always recruited from local
families in which ecclesiastical dignities were, so to speak,
hereditary. In the eyes of Ugolini such bishops were usually wanting in
two essential qualities of a good prelate: religious zeal and zeal for
the Church.
He believed that the Preaching and the Minor Friars would not only
possess those virtues which were lacking in the others, but that in the
hands of the papacy they might become a highly centralized hierarchy,
truly catholic, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church at large.
The difficulties which might occur on the part of the chapters which
should elect the bishops, as well as on the side of the high secular
clergy, would be put to flight by the enthusiasm which the people would
feel for pastors whose poverty would recall the days of the primitive
Church.
At the close of his interviews with Francis and Dominic, he
communicated to them some of these thoughts, asking their advice as to
the elevation of their friars to prelatures. There was a pious contest
between the two saints as to which should answer first. Finally, Dominic
said simply that he should prefer to see his companions remain as they
were. In his turn, Francis showed that the very name of his institute
made the thing impossible. "If my friars have been called _Minores_," he
said, "it is not that they may become _Majores_. If you desire that they
become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them alone, and keep them in
the estate into which God has called them. I pray you, father, do not so
act that their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor elevate them
to prelatures which would move them to insolence toward others."[14]
The ecclesiastical policy followed by the popes was destined to render
this counsel of the two founders wholly useless.[15]
Francis and Dominic parted, never again to meet. The _Master_ of the
Preaching Friars shortly after set out for Bologna, where he died on
August 6th following, and Francis returned to Portiuncula, where Pietro
di Catana had just died (March 10, 1221). He was replaced at the head of
the Order by Brother Elias. Ugolini was doubtless not without influence
in this choice.
Detained by his functions of legate, he could not be present at the
Whitsunday chapter (May 30, 1221).[16] He was represented there by
Cardinal Reynerio,[17] who came accompanied by several bishops and by
monks of various orders.[18] About three thousand friars were there
assembled, but so great was the eagerness of the people of the
neighborhood to bring provisions, that after a session of seven days
they were obliged to remain two days longer to eat up all that had been
brought. The sessions were presided over by Brother Elias, Francis
sitting at his feet and pulling at his robe when there was anything that
he wished to have put before the Brothers.
Brother Giordani di Giano, who was present, has preserved for us all
these details and that of the setting out of a group of friars for
Germany. They were placed under the direction of Caesar of Speyer, whose
mission succeeded beyond all expectation. Eighteen months after, when he
returned to Italy, consumed with the desire to see St. Francis again,
the cities of Wurzburg, Mayence, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Cologne,
Salzburg, and Ratisbon had become Franciscan centres, from whence the
new ideas were radiating into all Southern Germany.
The foundation of the Tertiaries, or Third Order, generally in the
oldest documents called Brotherhood of Penitence, is usually fixed as
occurring in the year 1221; but we have already seen that this date is
much too recent, or rather that it is impossible to fix any date, for
what was later called, quite arbitrarily, the Third Order is evidently
contemporary with the First.[19]
Francis and his companions desired to be the apostles of their time; but
they, no more than the apostles of Jesus, desired to have all men enter
their association, which was necessarily somewhat restricted, and which,
according to the gospel saying, was meant to be the leaven of the rest
of humanity. In consequence, their life was literally the _apostolic
life_, but the ideal which they preached was the _evangelical life_,
such as Jesus had preached it.
St. Francis no more condemned the family or property than Jesus did; he
simply saw in them ties from which the _apostle_, and the apostle alone,
needs to be free.
If before long sickly minds fancied that they interpreted his thought in
making the union of the sexes an evil, and all that concerns the