I once remember hearing Francis described as a man who "walked at right angles to the world." This is an apt description. Francis lived in an age, much like our own, where the "world" of wealth and power blinded many (and many among the hierarchy!) to the treasures of divine love. While medieval man was very conscious of God and of eternity, a trait sadly lacking today, this hardly meant that he was any more inclined to virtue than were those of any other time. Simple in approach, and frequently illiterate, those in the Middle Ages had little guidance from many of the clergy. As Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" exquisitely expresses, those who were, for example, selling indulgences were trading on their "flock's" fear of hell, not encouraging them to love and virtue. (Hardly profitable, that!)

Saints are said to be products of their age, but this concept is misunderstood. Virtue has never been in fashion. The truly great lovers, in the spiritual scheme, fulfilled neglected needs of their ages. Francis's own love was boundless, but he also was perfectly suited to appeal to the longing for the Creator that remains within the heart of all - and which is never stimulated by fear, but only by joy. Francis, the poet, the mystic, the "herald of the king", indeed was well suited to his age, yet his approach would never lose its popularity.

Though medieval man had a rich knowledge of the (supposed) daily lives and histories of Christ and his family, the Church hierarchy was far more interested in wiping out the rampant heresies that were propagated at the time. Among Founders of religious Orders, Francis was unique in his emphasis on the humanity of Christ, and on how incidents in His life showed the perfection of virtue. The Christmas crèche and the Stations of the Cross (a meditation on the events of the Master's crucifixion) are among the devotions which Francis would popularize. Yet his preaching went far beyond formal devotion. He would speak with tenderness of the humility of Christ, the "Sweet Babe of Bethlehem" who could hide His divine glory in a life of simple poverty.

Francis, of course, hardly started out with any intentions of founding a religious Order. Giovanni (Francesco) Bernadone, the son of a silk merchant, was later to bemoan the excesses of his youth. It is unlikely that Francis ever bordered on debauchery, nor do we ever learn what were the great sins for which he remained ever repentant. (All that is chronicled is a love for a good time that was hardly unusual for any young man of any age.) With his love for chivalric concepts, and the ever-present idealism that would not bring the realities of the battlefield to the mind of the future pacifist, Francis had dreams of knighthood in youth, but his trial of the life was short-lived. If indeed Divine Providence brings good from all of our experiences, as Francis certainly would have maintained, we can be grateful for that period of Francis's life - for, perhaps, it was during his brief time as a prisoner of war that awareness of something beyond himself became strong in what previously (in his own view) was a mind too occupied with pleasures.

Though Francis fully enjoyed the wealth he knew in youth, he later was to use the term "wretched son of Pietro Bernadone!" as self reproach when he failed in the poverty that was this knight's Lady. Francis's poverty was to embrace not only the physical but the spiritual, and he, with the vision that only the greatest of lovers has, regretted any time when God's ways had not been his sole priority. But perhaps he was a bit too hard on his father! When Francis, in the early days of his conversion, began to distribute Pietro's stock of priceless silk to beggars, it's a fair assumption that Pietro assumed his son was becoming insane. If Pietro was to lock Francis in the cellar, it well may be that he was protecting his son from a public reputation as crazy - and one forgives Pietro for undoubtedly considering his own reputation as well.

I mention this because Francis was to remain a radical. There were no half measures for our troubadour! Just as he embraced the wealth and good times wholeheartedly, he would develop a devotion to things heavenly with a single-minded passion.

In relating the details of his conversion, Francis always was to note the time when he, a fastidious and pampered youth, overcame a natural revulsion and embraced a leper to whom he gave alms. Years would pass between that incident and his life as a friar, but it was a moment of transformation nonetheless. All of his life, Francis was to have a special love for the outcast or the despised. In fact, he was to welcome many a vagabond into the Franciscan fold in later years.

Poverty, especially for such a mystic as was Francis, involves a total detachment wherein alone one may find total freedom of the will. In making us free, God gave us the ability to choose and to love - and that choice is hampered by our fallen nature. Francis, who hadn't the slightest knowledge of his own heroic virtue, believed that it was a simple (though never easy) matter to love fully. One detached from anything except God would be able to love unreservedly.

Francis's words about "perfect joy" are most telling. Francis was to know great trials in his later life, when those with a greater love for power and education were to usurp much of his authority. One who follows a crucified man will not be spared misunderstanding and betrayal, as Francis knew well.

He described a situation to his confessor, Friar Leo, where they would repeatedly knock at the door of their own friary and be flatly denied entrance, indeed would be scorned. Were this to happen, and they did not become troubled, this, Francis said, would be perfect joy.

The tender and expansive Francis, it must be noted, did not speak of the rejection by beloved brothers as joy - and knew well that it was not. The joy is in a dedication to God that is so complete as to prevent even one as emotional as our Francis from being troubled in his spirit.

Joy is at the heart of one who, though totally blind at the time, could write the marvellous Canticle of the Creatures with vivid imagery and poetic intensity. Joy came from living the gospels, as the brief Rule of the Order, composed largely of quotations from the gospels that Francis so loved, embodied. Joy was the perfect freedom of detachment. Above all, joy was God Himself.

Francis's detachment is well expressed his prayer inspired by the Lord's own:

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
That we may love Thee with our whole heart by always thinking of thee,
with our whole soul by always desiring Thee,
with our whole mind by directing all our intentions to Thee and by seeking Thy glory in all things,
and with our whole strength by spending all our energies and affections in the service of Thy love and nothing else.
and may we love our neighbours as ourselves,
by drawing them all, with our whole strength, to Thy love
by rejoicing in the good fortunes of others as well as our own
and by sympathising with the misfortunes of others
and by giving offence to no one.

It is particularly moving to note how, when one is repentant and loving, divine grace can transform the weakness into virtue of the deepest sort. Poverty's becoming the quite prodigal Francesco's guiding virtue is a key illustration of this. Equally delightful is the innocence that divine love would foster in the heart of one who had enjoyed ... the pleasures of this world quite excessively. (Bonaventure cleans it up, but Thomas of Celano has no reticence about mentioning Francis's having been rather a wild sort.) For some centuries after Francis's time, some writers were ill at ease with mentioning how Francis assisted Clare in an elopement with the Heavenly Bridegroom. The virtue and innocence of these two was great by that time, and it is both warm and amusing that it never occurred to either that those familiar with Francis's previous reputation would have considered this "holy abduction" to be questionable.

But that is the key for us to recognize. The degree of one's love or devotion is not cancelled by one's weaknesses. In some aspects (charity and commitment not among them), Francis is not to be imitated. Yet, to quote a Dominican, the gift comes according to the manner of the recipient - and Francis's case was to be the only one I have seen in which is having the stigmata seemed perfectly natural.

• Francis related everything to the gospels (“the fragrant words of my Lord.”) His prayers, Rule, and other writings always quote the Scriptures, chapter and verse (albeit not always accurately.)  This was hardly typical of an era when the Scriptures were unavailable in the vernacular and, indeed, were treated with caution for fear of misinterpretation.
• Affective approach. Francis's most endearing quality (and the one which would cause the most problems a century later!) was his conviction that the words of the gospel were so lovely that anyone who heard them would be inspired to live in accord with the faith. Francis greatly feared that the study of theology would keep the friars from simple faith and devotion – in fact, he cautioned a (transplanted Augustinian canon) Franciscan theologian in this regard. (This friar was Anthony of Padua.)
• Constant stress on penance – not only in the common usage, but in the sense of renewal of the man, discipline that will set one's life in line with the gospels. Francis's own practise of penance was, as he later admitted, excessive in its manifestation, but the underlying truth was both humble and joyous. A penitent himself, Francis celebrated the action of divine grace in his life, which is the essential and beautiful core of true penance.
• Poverty was Francis's guiding virtue. He feared that the pursuit of any sort of wealth (not only temporal goods) would divert one from fulfilling the gospels.
• Strong sacramental emphasis – numerous references particularly to the Eucharist (and this in an era when most people partook of that banquet perhaps once a year). Francis wrote of those who love God and neighbour as those who “receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and bring forth the fruits worthy of true penance.” He also regularly mentions Holy Orders and reverence for the priesthood, and sacramental confession (which also was a rarity in most lives.)
• We must not dismiss Francis's emphasis on the liturgy and the sacraments as 13th century fixtures. One who expressed the entire rule of his order as “living the gospel” (in a time when emphasis on the Scriptures was not the rule) clearly saw the liturgy and sacraments as strongly connected with this. His great respect for the priesthood, which he mentions perhaps more often than any other saint, is specifically in the priesthood's being an extension of Christ's own ministry, so that in showing it honour we offer an act of worship, and in the dignity of the Eucharist – our salvation depends on it, and only through the priests may we obtain it. Franciscan spirituality cannot admit of a Eucharist that is entirely a fellowship meal.
• We can miss some of his wonderful expressions regarding the Eucharist if we are queasy about the Aristotelian term transubstantiation. (Actually, though this doctrine had been defined at the Lateran council in 1215, the theologians by no means agreed on precisely what it meant, and Francis is unlikely to have known or cared what position any of them held. Francis's simplicity was beyond us, and it is likely that the Real Presence was what mattered to him, not the “how.”)
• Francis's great attention to the Eucharist presents a huge richness to Franciscan spirituality. Jesus in His Divinity and Humanity; His humility (and poverty) in sharing our human nature; our privilege, as part of His Mystical Body, in having this share in his divinity; the elements of His Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension; the fraternal love we share in this banquet; the commemoration of the covenant of Passover made complete in the offering of the Incarnate Lord; Communion and mutual offerings, our own being of our constant praise and thanksgiving and, naturally, of all that we are ; and, to quote the words of the liturgy as would have been used in Francis's time, the gifts of a God who "wonderfully created human nature, and still more wonderfully restored it". The "fruits worthy of true penance" which Francis mentions as those springing from love of God and neighbour and reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, are lives devoted to the gospel.
• There is a Eucharistic dimension, and that a rich one, in true penance. Forgiveness involves divine mercy and justice, and the sacrifice of atonement offered by our Saviour in his humanity. Recognition of this great gift makes our practise of penance one of offering and of thanksgiving.
• Even Francis's devotion to the Blessed Mother is intensely associated with the Trinity and the Eucharist. Francis's devotion to the humanity of Christ was so intense that it would be incomplete without a mother who shared the poverty and the pain.
• Intense, often quite tender, devotion to the humanity of Christ, particularly to His poverty.  He is recorded as beginning to dance for joy when speaking of the “Babe of Bethlehem,” and his Christmas crib at Greccio was to have mass appeal!  Francis's words about the Passion of Christ, and his deep longing to comfort Jesus in His Passion, are so extensive and intense that, in his probably singular case, it somehow seems perfectly natural that Francis received the stigmata.
• Franciscan Christology, rooted in the founder's love for Christ in his sacred humanity, was based on the concept that all of the created universe exists because God wished One to love and adore him perfectly. This was accomplished in the perfect love of Jesus Christ, through whom all of humanity may glorify God.
• Love of neighbour very much included companion friars’ watching out for one another’s welfare. Friars were cautioned never to be angered by another’s sin, but were taught to admit any infraction of poverty, or other fault, to their companions – and the latter were to reprimand and penance the ones who wavered. (The effect this must have had in a group that was largely teen aged vagabonds must have been quite interesting … but Francis most definitely saw fraternal correction as extremely loving.)
• Liturgical emphasis – though Francis adopted few “monastic” customs, even radical poverty did not prevent the friars having a breviary, and his brief rule places great emphasis on recitation of the Office and attendance at the Eucharist.

May the Lord bless thee and keep thee,
May He lift His countenance upon thee and be gracious unto thee.
May the Lord look upon thee with kindness and give thee His peace.

And, in the Franciscan tradition, I leave you with the greeting: Peace and all good!

© 1996, 2000 by Elizabeth G. Melillo, Ph.D.
E-mail:design@gloriana.nu
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." - C.S. Lewis

 
 
 

Gloriana's Reflections	Key points of Francis's spirituality	Quotations
Prayers	Books and Videos	Links
Rule of the Third Order Regular	Franciscan Forum: Message Board and Chat Room	Overview of Christian Mysticism

• Medieval Sourcebook - Rule of the Franciscan Order
• 1st & 2nd "Lives of Saint Francis" by Frater Thomas of Celano, OFM
• The Franciscan Experience
• Franciscan Web Page
• Franciscan Province of Ireland - excellent essay on Passion for the Gospel; history.
• The Way to Peace: Francis of Assisi
• St Francis of Assisi - Catholic Encyclopaedia article
• Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
• The Poor Clare Nuns
• The Fioretti - Catholic Encyclopaedia article
• St. Bonaventure -  essay by Paschal Robinson
• Franciscan Friars - Rome - much information; news; links to Internet sites for various provinces world-wide; history and links to documents
• Franciscan Cyberspot - Malta - under development, but some interesting information - particularly that regarding Franciscan schools of thought in the context of mediaeval theology.
• Society of Saint Francis
• Order of Friars Minor - UK Province
• John Duns Scotus

The Canticle of the Creatures
(click here for the Italian text)

Most High, all powerful, good Lord God,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and every blessing,
To You alone, most High, do they belong, and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,Who is the day and through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness of You, Most High One.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather
through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night,
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, My Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us, and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, My Lord, through those who give pardon for (the sake of) Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are they who endure in peace, for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Death, from whom no living man can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks And serve Him with great humility.

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Altissimo, onnipotente, bon Signore,
tue so le laude la gloria e l'onore et onne benedizione:
ad te solo, Altissimo, se confano, et nullo omo ene dignu te mentovare.

Laudato sie, misignore, cum tutte le tue creature, spezialmente messor lo frate sole: lo quale iorna et allumini noi per loi; et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore; da te Altissimo, porta significazione.

Laudato sì, misignore, per frate vento, et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo, per lo quale ale tue creature dai sustentamento.

Laudato sì, misignore, per sora aqua, la quale è multo utile et umile e preziosa e casta.

Laudato sì, misignore, per frate focu, per lo quale enn'allumini la notte, ed ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.

Laudato sì, misignore, per sora nostra matre terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa et produce diversi frutti con coloriti fiori et erba.

Laudato sì, misignore, per quelli che perdonano per lo tuo amore, et sostengo infirmitate et tribulazione; beati quelli che 'l sosterrano in pace, ca da te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Laudato sì, misignore, per sora nostra morte corporale, da la quale nullu omo vivente po' scappare: guai a quelli che morrano ne le peccata mortali; beati quelli che trovarà nele tue santissime vuluntati ca la morte secunda no 'l farrà male

Laudate et benedicete misignore et rengraziate et serviateli cum grande umilitate