Life of St. Francis of Assisi
physical activity of man a fall; if unbalanced spirits borrowed the
authority of his name to escape from all duty; if married persons
condemned themselves to the senseless martyrdom of virginity, he should
certainly not be made responsible. These traces of an unnatural
asceticism come from the dualist ideas of the Catharists, and not from
the inspired poet who sang nature and her fecundity, who made nests for
doves, inviting them to multiply under the watch of God, and who imposed
manual labor on his friars as a sacred duty.
The bases of the corporation of the _Brothers and Sisters of Penitence_
were very simple. Francis gave no new doctrine to the world; what was
new in his message was wholly in his love, in his direct call to the
evangelical life, to an ideal of moral vigor, of labor, and of love.
Naturally, there were soon found men who did not understand this true
and simple beauty; they fell into observances and devotions, imitated,
while living in the world, the life of the cloister to which for one
reason or another they were not able to retire; but it would be unjust
to picture to ourselves the _Brothers of Penitence_ as modelled after
them.
Did they receive a Rule from St. Francis? It is impossible to say. The
one which was given[20] them in 1289 by Pope Nicholas IV. is simply the
recasting and amalgamation of all the rules of lay fraternities which
existed at the end of the thirteenth century. To attribute this document
to Francis is nothing less than the placing in a new building of certain
venerated stones from an ancient edifice. It is a matter of facade and
ornamentation, nothing more.
Notwithstanding this absence of any Rule emanating from Francis himself,
it is clear enough what, in his estimation, this association ought to
be. The Gospel, with its counsels and examples, was to be its true Rule.
The great innovation designed by the Third Order was concord; this
fraternity was a union of peace, and it brought to astonished Europe a
new truce of God. Whether the absolute refusal to carry arms[21] was an
idea wholly chimerical and ephemeral, the documents are there to prove,
but it is a fine thing to have had the power to bring it about for a few
years.
The second essential obligation of the Brothers of Penitence appears to
have been that of reducing their wants so far as possible, and while
preserving their fortunes to distribute to the poor at proper intervals
the free portion of the revenue after contenting themselves with the
strictly necessary.[22]
To do with joy the duties of their calling; to give a holy inspiration
to the slightest actions; to find in the infinitely littles of
existence, things apparently the most commonplace, parts of a divine
work; to keep pure from all debasing interest; to use things as not
possessing them, like the servants in the parable who would soon have to
give account of the talents confided to them; to close their hearts to
hatred, to open them wide to the poor, the sick, to all abandoned ones,
such were the other essential duties of the Brothers and Sisters of
Penitence.
To lead them into this royal road of liberty, love, and responsibility,
Francis sometimes appealed to the terrors of hell and the joys of
paradise, but interested love was so little a part of his nature that
these considerations and others of the same kind occupy an entirely
secondary place in those of his writings which remain, as also in his
biographies.
For him the gospel life is natural to the soul. Whoever comes to know it
will prefer it; it has no more need to be proved than the outer air and
the light. It needs only to lead prisoners to it, for them to lose all
desire to return to the dungeons of avarice, hatred, or frivolity.
Francis and his true disciples make the painful ascent of the mountain
heights, impelled solely, but irresistibly, by the inner voice. The only
foreign aid which they accept is the memory of Jesus, going before them
upon these heights and mysteriously living again before their eyes in
the sacrament of the eucharist.
The letter to all Christians in which these thoughts break forth is a
living souvenir of St. Francis's teachings to the Tertiaries.
To represent these latter to ourselves in a perfectly concrete form we
may resort to the legend of St. Lucchesio, whom tradition makes the
first Brother of Penitence.[23]
A native of a little city of Tuscany he quitted it to avoid its
political enmities, and established himself at Poggibonsi, not far from
Sienna, where he continued to trade in grain. Already rich, it was not
difficult for him to buy up all the wheat, and, selling it in a time of
scarcity, realize enormous profits. But soon overcome by Francis's
preaching, he took himself to task, distributed all his superfluity to
the poor, and kept nothing but his house with a small garden and one
ass.
From that time he was to be seen devoting himself to the cultivation of
this bit of ground, and making of his house a sort of hostelry whither
the poor and the sick came in swarms. He not only welcomed them, but he
sought them out, even to the malaria-infected Maremma, often returning
with a sick man astride on his back and preceded by his ass bearing a
similar burden. The resources of the garden were necessarily very
limited; when there was no other way, Lucchesio took a wallet and went
from door to door asking alms, but most of the time this was needless,
for his poor guests, seeing him so diligent and so good, were better
satisfied with a few poor vegetables from the garden shared with him
than with the most copious repast. In the presence of their benefactor,
so joyful in his destitution, they forgot their own poverty, and the
habitual murmurs of these wretches were transformed into outbursts of
admiration and gratitude.
Conversion had not killed in him all family ties; Bona Donna, his wife,
became his best co-laborer, and when in 1260 he saw her gradually fading
away his grief was too deep to be endured. "You know, dear companion,"
he said to her when she had received the last sacraments, "how much we
have loved one another while we could serve God together; why should we
not remain united until we depart to the ineffable joy? Wait for me. I
also will receive the sacraments, and go to heaven with you."
So he spoke, and called back the priest to administer them to him. Then
after holding the hands of his dying companion, comforting her with
gentle words, when he saw that her soul was gone he made over her the
sign of the cross, stretched himself beside her, and calling with love
upon Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, he fell asleep for eternity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Text in _Firmamentum_, 10; _Spec._, 189; _Spec._, Morin.
Tract., iii., 2b. M. Mueller (_Anfaenge_) has made a study of the
Rule of 1221 which is a masterpiece of _exegetical scent_.
Nevertheless if he had more carefully collated the different
texts he would have arrived at still more striking results,
thanks to the variants which he would have been able to
establish. I cite a single example.
Text _Firm_.--Wadding, adopted by Mr. M.
_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt vel vadunt, caveant sibi a
malo visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis
consilietur solus. Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis
dando penitentiam vel aliud spirituale consilium._
Text of the _Speculum_, 189 ff.
_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt et vadunt caveant se a malo
visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis concilietur
aut per viam vadat solus aut ad mensam in una paropside
comedat. (!!) Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis dando ...
etc._
This passage is sufficient to show the superiority of the text
of the Speculum, which is to be preferred also in other
respects, but this is not the place for entering into these
details. It is evident that the phrase in which we see the
earliest friars sometimes sharing the repast of the sisters and
eating from their porringer is not a later interpolation.
[2] _Tribul._, 12b; _Spec._, 54b; _Arbor._ V., 3; _Spec._, 8b.
[3] Cf. _cap._ 17 and 21.
[4] 2 Cel., 3, 136.
[5] See below, p. 354, text in the _Firmamentum_, 19 ff.;
_Speculum_, Morin, tract. iii., 214a ff.; cf. _Conform._,
137 ff.
[6] _Cum facit (subditus) voluntatem (praelati) dummodo benefacit
vera obedientia est. Admon._, iii.; _Conform._, 139_a_, 2.--_Si
vero praelatus subdito aliquid contra animam praecipiat licet ei
non obediat tamen ipsum non dimittat._, Ibid.--_Nullus tenetur
ad obedientiam in eo ubi committitus delictum vel peccatum.
Epist._, ii.
[7] 2 Cel., 3, 89; _Spec._, 29b; _Conform._, 176b, 1; Bon., 77.
[8] _Per caritatem spiritus voluntarii serviant et obediant
invicem. Et haec est vera et sancta obedientia. Reg._, 1221, v.
[9] _Tribul._, Laur. MS., 14b; _Spec._, 125a; _Conform._, 107b, 1;
184b, 1.
[10] Wadding gives it (_Epist._ xvi.), after the autograph
preserved in the treasury of the Conventuals of Spoleto. The
authenticity of this piece is evident.
[11] This plural, which perplexed Wadding, shows plainly that
Brother Leo had spoken in the name of a group.
[12] This date for the new communications between them seems
incontestable, though it has never been proposed; in fact, we
are only concerned to find a time when all three could have met
at Rome (2 Cel., 3, 86; _Spec._, 27a), between December 22, 1216
(the approbation of the Dominicans), and August 6, 1221 (death
of Dominic). Only two periods are possible: the early months of
1218 (Potthast, 5739 and 5747) and the winter of 1220-1221. At
any other time one of the three was absent from Rome.
On the other hand we know that Ugolini was in Rome in the winter
of 1220-1221 (Huillard-Breholles, _Hist. dipl._, ii., pp. 48,
123, 142. Cf. Potthast, 6589).--For Dominic see A. SS., Aug.,
vol. i., p. 503. The later date is imperative because Ugolini
could not offer prelatures to the Brothers Minor before their
explicit approbation (June 11, 1219), and this offer had no
meaning with regard to the Dominicans until after the definitive
establishment of their Order.
[13] See the imperial letters of February 10, 1221;
Huillard-Breholles, vol. ii., pp. 122-127.
[14] 2 Cel., 3, 86; Bon., 78; _Spec._, 27b.
[15] Vide K. Eubel: _Die Bischoefe, Cardinaele und Paepste aus dem
Minoritenorden bis_ 1305, 8vo, 1889.
[16] He was in Northern Italy. Vide _Registri: Doc._, 17-28.
[17] Reynerius, cardinal-deacon with the title of S. M. in
Cosmedin, Bishop of Viterbo (cf. Innocent III., _Opera_, Migne,
1, col. ccxiii), 1 Cel., 125. He had been named rector of the
Duchy of Spoleto, August 3, 1220. Potthast, 6319.
[18] Giord, 16. The presence of Dominic at an earlier chapter
had therefore been quite natural.
[19] This view harmonizes in every particular with the witness
of 1 Cel., 36 and 37, which shows the Third Order as having been
quite naturally born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching
of Francis immediately after his return from Rome in 1210 (cf.
_Auctor vit. sec._; A. SS., p. 593b). Nothing in any other
document contradicts it; quite the contrary. Vide 3 Soc., 60.
Cf. _Anon. Perus._; A. SS., p. 600; Bon., 25, 46. Cf. A. SS.,
pp. 631-634. The first bull which concerns the Brothers of
Penitence (without naming them) is of December 16, 1221,