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Saint
Francis of Assisi*
Founder
of the Franciscan Order, born at Assisi in Umbria, in 1181
or 1182 - the exact year is uncertain; died there, October
3rd, 1226.
His
father, Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy Assisian cloth
merchant. Of his mother, Pica, little is known, but she
is said to have belonged to a noble family of Provence.
Francis was one of several children. The legend that he
was born in a stable dates from the fifteenth century only,
and appears to have originated in the desire of certain
writers to make his life resemble that of Christ. At baptism
the saint received the name of Giovanni, which his father
afterwards altered to Francesco, through fondness it would
seem for France, whither business had led him at the time
of his son's birth. In any case, since the child was renamed
in infancy, the change can hardly have had anything to do
with his aptitude for learning French, as some have thought.
Francis
received some elementary instruction from the priests of
St. George's at Assisi, though he learned more perhaps in
the school of the Troubadours, who were just then making
for refinement in Italy. However this may be, he was not
very studious, and his literary education remained incomplete.
Although associated with his father in trade, he showed
little liking for a merchant's career, and his parents seemed
to have indulged his every whim. Thomas of Celano, his first
biographer, speaks in very severe terms of Francis's youth.
Certain it is that the saint's early life gave no presage
of the golden years that were to come. No one loved pleasure
more than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted
in fine clothes and showy display. Handsome, gay, gallant,
and courteous, he soon became the prime favourite among
the young nobles of Assisi, the foremost in every feat of
arms, the leader of the civil revels, the very king of frolic.
But even at this time Francis showed an instinctive sympathy
with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, it still
flowed in such channels as to attest a princely magnanimity
of spirit.
St.
Francis of Assisi in Sacro Speco, Subiaco, Italy
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When
about twenty, Francis went out with the townsmen to fight
the Perugians in one of the petty skirmishes so frequent
at that time between the rival cities. The Assisians were
defeated on this occasion, and Francis, being among those
taken prisoners, was held captive for more than a year in
Perugia. A low fever which he there contracted appears to
have turned his thoughts to the things of eternity; at least
the emptiness of the life he had been leading came to him
during that long illness. With returning health, however,
Francis's eagerness after glory reawakened and his fancy
wandered in search of victories; at length he resolved to
embrace a military career, and circumstances seemed to favour
his aspirations. A knight of Assisi was about to join "the
gentle count", Walter of Brienne, who was then in arms in
the Neapolitan States against the emperor, and Francis arranged
to accompany him. His biographers tell us that the night
before Francis set forth he had a strange dream, in which
he saw a vast hall hung with armour all marked with the
Cross. "These", said a voice, "are for you and your soldiers."
"I know I shall be a great prince", exclaimed Francis exultingly,
as he started for Apulia. But a second illness arrested
his course at Spoleto. There, we are told, Francis had another
dream in which the same voice bade him turn back to Assisi.
He did so at once. This was in 1205.
Although
Francis still joined at times in the noisy revels of his
former comrades, his changed demeanour plainly showed that
his heart was no longer with them; a yearning for the life
of the spirit had already possessed it. His companions twitted
Francis on his absent-mindedness and asked if he were minded
to be married. "Yes", he replied, "I am about to take a
wife of surpassing fairness." She was no other than Lady
Poverty whom Dante and Giotto have wedded to his name, and
whom even now he had begun to love. After a short period
of uncertainty he began to seek in prayer and solitude the
answer to his call; he had already given up his gay attire
and wasteful ways. One day, while crossing the Umbrian plain
on horseback, Francis unexpectedly drew near a poor leper.
The sudden appearance of this repulsive object filled him
with disgust and he instinctively retreated, but presently
controlling his natural aversion he dismounted, embraced
the unfortunate man, and gave him all the money he had.
About the same time Francis made a pilgrimage to Rome. Pained
at the miserly offerings he saw at the tomb of St. Peter,
he emptied his purse thereon. Then, as if to put his fastidious
nature to the test, he exchanged clothes with a tattered
mendicant and stood for the rest of the day fasting among
the horde of beggars at the door of the basilica.
Not
long after his return to Assisi, whilst Francis was praying
before an ancient crucifix in the forsaken wayside chapel
of St. Damian's below the town, he heard a voice saying:
"Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling
into ruin." Taking this behest literally, as referring to
the ruinous church wherein he knelt, Francis went to his
father's shop, impulsively bundled together a load of coloured
drapery, and mounting his horse hastened to Foligno, then
a mart of some importance, and there sold both horse and
stuff to procure the money needful for the restoration of
St. Damian's. When, however, the poor priest who officiated
there refused to receive the gold thus gotten, Francis flung
it from him disdainfully. The elder Bernardone, a most niggardly
man, was incensed beyond measure at his son's conduct, and
Francis, to avert his father's wrath, hid himself in a cave
near St. Damian's for a whole month. When he emerged from
this place of concealment and returned to the town, emaciated
with hunger and squalid with dirt, Francis was followed
by a hooting rabble, pelted with mud and stones, and otherwise
mocked as a madman. Finally, he was dragged home by his
father, beaten, bound, and locked in a dark closet.
Freed
by his mother during Bernardone's absence, Francis returned
at once to St. Damian's, where he found a shelter with the
officiating priest, but he was soon cited before the city
consuls by his father. The latter, not content with having
recovered the scattered gold from St. Damian's, sought also
to force his son to forego his inheritance. This Francis
was only too eager to do; he declared, however, that since
he had entered the service of God he was no longer under
civil jurisdiction. Having therefore been taken before the
bishop, Francis stripped himself of the very clothes he
wore, and gave them to his father, saying: "Hitherto I have
called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say
only 'Our Father who art in Heaven.'" Then and there, as
Dante sings, were solemnized Francis's nuptials with his
beloved spouse, the Lady Poverty, under which name, in the
mystical language afterwards so familiar to him, he comprehended
the total surrender of all worldly goods, honours, and privileges.
And now Francis wandered forth into the hills behind Assisi,
improvising hymns of praise as he went. "I am the herald
of the great King", he declared in answer to some robbers,
who thereupon despoiled him of all he had and threw him
scornfully in a snow drift. Naked and half frozen, Francis
crawled to a neighbouring monastery and there worked for
a time as a scullion. At Gubbio, whither he went next, Francis
obtained from a friend the cloak, girdle, and staff of a
pilgrim as an alms. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the
city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damian's.
These he carried to the old chapel, set in place himself,
and so at length rebuilt it. In the same way Francis afterwards
restored two other deserted chapels, St. Peter's, some distance
from the city, and St. Mary of the Angels, in the plain
below it, at a spot called the Porziuncola. Meantime he
redoubled his zeal in works of charity, more especially
in nursing the lepers.
On
a certain morning in 1208, probably 24 February, Francis
was hearing Mass in the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels,
near which he had then built himself a hut; the Gospel of
the day told how the disciples of Christ were to possess
neither gold nor silver, nor scrip for their journey, nor
two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff, and that they were to
exhort sinners to repentance and announce the Kingdom of
God. Francis took these words as if spoken directly to himself,
and so soon as Mass was over threw away the poor fragment
left him of the world's goods, his shoes, cloak, pilgrim
staff, and empty wallet. At last he had found his vocation.
Having obtained a coarse woolen tunic of "beast colour",
the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, and
tied it round him with a knotted rope, Francis went forth
at once exhorting the people of the country-side to penance,
brotherly love, and peace. The Assisians had already ceased
to scoff at Francis; they now paused in wonderment; his
example even drew others to him. Bernard of Quintavalle,
a magnate of the town, was the first to join Francis, and
he was soon followed by Peter of Cattaneo, a well-known
canon of the cathedral. In true spirit of religious enthusiasm,
Francis repaired to the church of St. Nicholas and sought
to learn God's will in their regard by thrice opening at
random the book of the Gospels on the altar. Each time it
opened at passages where Christ told His disciples to leave
all things and follow Him. "This shall be our rule of life",
exclaimed Francis, and led his companions to the public
square, where they forthwith gave away all their belongings
to the poor. After this they procured rough habits like
that of Francis, and built themselves small huts near his
at the Porziuncola. A few days later Giles, afterwards the
great ecstatic and sayer of "good words", became the third
follower of Francis. The little band divided and went about,
two and two, making such an impression by their words and
behaviour that before long several other disciples grouped
themselves round Francis eager to share his poverty, among
them being Sabatinus, vir bonus et justus, Moricus,
who had belonged to the Crucigeri, John of Capella, who
afterwards fell away, Philip "the Long", and four others
of whom we know only the names. When the number of his companions
had increased to eleven, Francis found it expedient to draw
up a written rule for them. This first rule, as it is called,
of the Friars Minor has not come down to us in its original
form, but it appears to have been very short and simple,
a mere adaptation of the Gospel precepts already selected
by Francis for the guidance of his first companions, and
which he desired to practice in all their perfection. When
this rule was ready the Penitents of Assisi, as Francis
and his followers styled themselves, set out for Rome to
seek the approval of the Holy See, although as yet no such
approbation was obligatory. There are differing accounts
of Francis's reception by Innocent III. It seems, however,
that Guido, Bishop of Assisi, who was then in Rome, commended
Francis to Cardinal John of St. Paul, and that at the instance
of the latter, the pope recalled the saint whose first overtures
he had, as it appears, somewhat rudely rejected. Moreover,
in site of the sinister predictions of others in the Sacred
College, who regarded the mode of life proposed by Francis
as unsafe and impracticable, Innocent, moved it is said
by a dream in which he beheld the Poor Man of Assisi upholding
the tottering Lateran, gave a verbal sanction to the rule
submitted by Francis and granted the saint and his companions
leave to preach repentance everywhere. Before leaving Rome
they all received the ecclesiastical tonsure, Francis himself
being ordained deacon later on.
After
their return to Assisi, the Friars Minor -- for thus Francis
had named his brethren, either after the minores,
or lower classes, as some think, or as others believe, with
reference to the Gospel (Matthew 25:40-45), and as a perpetual
reminder of their humility -- found shelter in a deserted
hut at Rivo Torto in the plain below the city, but were
forced to abandon this poor abode by a rough peasant who
drove in his ass upon them. About 1211 they obtained a permanent
foothold near Assisi, through the generosity of the Benedictines
of Monte Subasio, who gave them the little chapel of St.
Mary of the Angels or the Porziuncola. Adjoining this humble
sanctuary, already dear to Francis, the first Franciscan
convent was formed by the erection of a few small huts or
cells of wattle, straw, and mud, and enclosed by a hedge.
From this settlement, which became the cradle of the Franciscan
Order (Caput et Mater Ordinis) and the central spot
in the life of St. Francis, the Friars Minor went forth
two by two exhorting the people of the surrounding country.
Like children "careless of the day", they wandered from
place to place singing in their joy, and calling themselves
the Lord's minstrels. The wide world was their cloister;
sleeping in haylofts, grottos, or church porches, they toiled
with the labourers in the fields, and when none gave them
work they would beg. In a short while Francis and his companions
gained an immense influence, and men of different grades
of life and ways of thought flocked to the order. Among
the new recruits made about this time By Francis were the
famous Three Companions, who afterwards wrote his life,
namely: Angelus Tancredi, a noble cavalier; Leo, the saint's
secretary and confessor; and Rufinus, a cousin of St. Clare;
besides Juniper, "the renowned jester of the Lord".
During
the Lent of 1212, a new joy, great as it was unexpected,
came to Francis. Clare, a young heiress of Assisi, moved
by the saint's preaching at the church of St. George, sought
him out, and begged to be allowed to embrace the new manner
of life he had founded. By his advice, Clare, who was then
but eighteen, secretly left her father's house on the night
following Palm Sunday, and with two companions went to the
Porziuncola, where the friars met her in procession, carrying
lighted torches. Then Francis, having cut off her hair,
clothed her in the Minorite habit and thus received her
to a life of poverty, penance, and seclusion. Clare stayed
provisionally with some Benedictine nuns near Assisi, until
Francis could provide a suitable retreat for her, and for
St. Agnes, her sister, and the other pious maidens who had
joined her. He eventually established them at St. Damian's,
in a dwelling adjoining the chapel he had rebuilt with his
own hands, which was now given to the saint by the Benedictines
as domicile for his spiritual daughters, and which thus
became the first monastery of the Second Franciscan Order
of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares.
In
the autumn of the same year (1212) Francis's burning desire
for the conversion of the Saracens led him to embark for
Syria, but having been shipwrecked on the coast of Slavonia,
he had to return to Ancona. The following spring he devoted
himself to evangelizing Central Italy. About this time (1213)
Francis received from Count Orlando of Chiusi the mountain
of La Verna, an isolated peak among the Tuscan Apennines,
rising some 4000 feet above the valley of the Casentino,
as a retreat, "especially favourable for contemplation",
to which he might retire from time to time for prayer and
rest. For Francis never altogether separated the contemplative
from the active life, as the several hermitages associated
with his memory, and the quaint regulations he wrote for
those living in them bear witness. At one time, indeed,
a strong desire to give himself wholly to a life of contemplation
seems to have possessed the saint. During the next year
(1214) Francis set out for Morocco, in another attempt to
reach the infidels and, if needs be, to shed his blood for
the Gospel, but while yet in Spain was overtaken by so severe
an illness that he was compelled to turn back to Italy once
more.
Authentic
details are unfortunately lacking of Francis's journey to
Spain and sojourn there. It probably took place in the winter
of 1214-1215. After his return to Umbria he received several
noble and learned men into his order, including his future
biographer Thomas of Celano. The next eighteen months comprise,
perhaps, the most obscure period of the saint's life. That
he took part in the Lateran Council of 1215 may well be,
but it is not certain; we know from Eccleston, however,
that Francis was present at the death of Innocent III, which
took place at Perugia, in July 1216. Shortly afterwards,
i.e. very early in the pontificate of Honorius III, is placed
the concession of the famous Porziuncola Indulgence. It
is related that once, while Francis was praying at the Porziuncola,
Christ appeared to him and offered him whatever favour he
might desire. The salvation of souls was ever the burden
of Francis's prayers, and wishing moreover, to make his
beloved Porziuncola a sanctuary where many might be saved,
he begged a plenary Indulgence for all who, having confessed
their sins, should visit the little chapel. Our Lord acceded
to this request on condition that the pope should ratify
the Indulgence. Francis thereupon set out for Perugia, with
Brother Masseo, to find Honorius III. The latter, notwithstanding
some opposition from the Curia at such an unheard-of favour,
granted the Indulgence, restricting it, however, to one
day yearly. He subsequently fixed 2 August in perpetuity,
as the day for gaining this Porziuncola Indulgence, commonly
known in Italy as il perdono d'Assisi. Such is the
traditional account. The fact that there is no record of
this Indulgence in either the papal or diocesan archives
and no allusion to it in the earliest biographies of Francis
or other contemporary documents has led some writers to
reject the whole story. This argumentum ex silentio
has, however, been met by M. Paul Sabatier, who in his critical
edition of the "Tractatus de Indulgentia" of Fra Bartholi
has adduced all the really credible evidence in its favour.
But even those who regard the granting of this Indulgence
as traditionally believed to be an established fact of history,
admit that its early history is uncertain. (See PORTIUNCULA.)
The
first general chapter of the Friars Minor was held in May,
1217, at Porziuncola, the order being divided into provinces,
and an apportionment made of the Christian world into so
many Franciscan missions. Tuscany, Lombardy, Provence, Spain,
and Germany were assigned to five of Francis's principal
followers; for himself the saint reserved France, and he
actually set out for that kingdom, but on arriving at Florence,
was dissuaded from going further by Cardinal Ugolino, who
had been made protector of the order in 1216. He therefore
sent in his stead Brother Pacificus, who in the world had
been renowned as a poet, together with Brother Agnellus,
who later on established the Friars Minor in England. Although
success came indeed to Francis and his friars, with it came
also opposition, and it was with a view to allaying any
prejudices the Curia might have imbibed against their methods
that Francis, at the instance of Cardinal Ugolino, went
to Rome and preached before the pope and cardinals in the
Lateran. This visit to the Eternal City, which took place
1217-18, was apparently the occasion of Francis's memorable
meeting with St. Dominic. The year 1218 Francis devoted
to missionary tours in Italy, which were a continual triumph
for him. He usually preached out of doors, in the market-places,
from church steps, from the walls of castle court-yards.
Allured by the magic spell of his presence, admiring crowds,
unused for the rest to anything like popular preaching in
the vernacular, followed Francis from place to place hanging
on his lips; church bells rang at his approach; processions
of clergy and people advanced to meet him with music and
singing; they brought the sick to him to bless and heal,
and kissed the very ground on which he trod, and even sought
to cut away pieces of his tunic. The extraordinary enthusiasm
with which the saint was everywhere welcomed was equalled
only by the immediate and visible result of his preaching.
His exhortations of the people, for sermons they can hardly
be called, short, homely, affectionate, and pathetic, touched
even the hardest and most frivolous, and Francis became
in sooth a very conqueror of souls. Thus it happened, on
one occasion, while the saint was preaching at Camara, a
small village near Assisi, that the whole congregation were
so moved by his "words of spirit and life" that they presented
themselves to him in a body and begged to be admitted into
his order. It was to accede, so far as might be, to like
requests that Francis devised his Third Order, as it is
now called, of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, which
he intended as a sort of middle state between the world
and the cloister for those who could not leave their home
or desert their wonted avocations in order to enter either
the First Order of Friars Minor or the Second Order of Poor
Ladies. That Francis prescribed particular duties for these
tertiaries is beyond question. They were not to carry arms,
or take oaths, or engage in lawsuits, etc. It is also said
that he drew up a formal rule for them, but it is clear
that the rule, confirmed by Nicholas IV in 1289, does not,
at least in the form in which it has come down to us, represent
the original rule of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.
In any event, it is customary to assign 1221 as the year
of the foundation of this third order, but the date is not
certain.
At
the second general chapter (May, 1219) Francis, bent on
realizing his project of evangelizing the infidels, assigned
a separate mission to each of his foremost disciples, himself
selecting the seat of war between the crusaders and the
Saracens. With eleven companions, including Brother Illuminato
and Peter of Cattaneo, Francis set sail from Ancona on 21
June, for Saint-Jean d'Acre, and he was present at the siege
and taking of Damietta. After preaching there to the assembled
Christian forces, Francis fearlessly passed over to the
infidel camp, where he was taken prisoner and led before
the sultan. According to the testimony of Jacques de Vitry,
who was with the crusaders at Damietta, the sultan received
Francis with courtesy, but beyond obtaining a promise from
this ruler of more indulgent treatment for the Christian
captives, the saint's preaching seems to have effected little.
Before returning to Europe, the saint is believed to have
visited Palestine and there obtained for the friars the
foothold they still retain as guardians of the holy places.
What is certain is that Francis was compelled to hasten
back to Italy because of various troubles that had arisen
there during his absence. News had reached him in the East
that Matthew of Narni and Gregory of Naples, the two vicars-general
whom he had left in charge of the order, had summoned a
chapter which, among other innovations, sought to impose
new fasts upon the friars, more severe than the rule required.
Moreover, Cardinal Ugolino had conferred on the Poor Ladies
a written rule which was practically that of the Benedictine
nuns, and Brother Philip, whom Francis had charged with
their interests, had accepted it. To make matters worse,
John of Capella, one of the saint's first companions, had
assembled a large number of lepers, both men and women,
with a view to forming them into a new religious order,
and had set out for Rome to seek approval for the rule he
had drawn up for these unfortunates. Finally a rumour had
been spread abroad that Francis was dead, so that when the
saint returned to Italy with brother Elias -- he appeared
to have arrived at Venice in July, 1220 -- a general feeling
of unrest prevailed among the friars. Apart from these difficulties,
the order was then passing through a period of transition.
It had become evident that the simple, familiar, and unceremonious
ways which had marked the Franciscan movement at its beginning
were gradually disappearing, and that the heroic poverty
practiced by Francis and his companions at the outset became
less easy as the friars with amazing rapidity increased
in number. And this Francis could not help seeing on his
return. Cardinal Ugolino had already undertaken the task
"of reconciling inspirations so unstudied and so free with
an order of things they had outgrown." This remarkable man,
who afterwards ascended the papal throne as Gregory IX,
was deeply attached to Francis, whom he venerated as a saint
and also, some writers tell us, managed as an enthusiast.
That Cardinal Ugolino had no small share in bringing Francis's
lofty ideals "within range and compass" seems beyond dispute,
and it is not difficult to recognize his hand in the important
changes made in the organization of the order in the so-called
Chapter of Mats. At this famous assembly, held at Porziuncola
at Whitsuntide, 1220 or 1221 (there is seemingly much room
for doubt as to the exact date and number of the early chapters),
about 5000 friars are said to have been present, besides
some 500 applicants for admission to the order. Huts of
wattle and mud afforded shelter for this multitude. Francis
had purposely made no provision for them, but the charity
of the neighbouring towns supplied them with food, while
knights and nobles waited upon them gladly. It was on this
occasion that Francis, harassed no doubt and disheartened
at the tendency betrayed by a large number of the friars
to relax the rigours of the rule, according to the promptings
of human prudence, and feeling, perhaps unfitted for a place
which now called largely for organizing abilities, relinquished
his position as general of the order in favour of Peter
of Cattaneo. But the latter died in less than a year, being
succeeded as vicar-general by the unhappy Brother Elias,
who continued in that office until the death of Francis.
The saint, meanwhile, during the few years that remained
in him, sought to impress on the friars by the silent teaching
of personal example of what sort he would fain have them
to be. Already, while passing through Bologna on his return
from the East, Francis had refused to enter the convent
there because he had heard it called the "House of the Friars"
and because a studium had been instituted there.
He moreover bade all the friars, even those who were ill,
quit it at once, and it was only some time after, when Cardinal
Ugolino had publicly declared the house to be his own property,
that Francis suffered his brethren to re-enter it. Yet strong
and definite as the saint's convictions were, and determinedly
as his line was taken, he was never a slave to a theory
in regard to the observances of poverty or anything else;
about him indeed, there was nothing narrow or fanatical.
As for his attitude towards study, Francis desiderated for
his friars only such theological knowledge as was conformable
to the mission of the order, which was before all else a
mission of example. Hence he regarded the accumulation of
books as being at variance with the poverty his friars professed,
and he resisted the eager desire for mere book-learning,
so prevalent in his time, in so far as it struck at the
roots of that simplicity which entered so largely into the
essence of his life and ideal and threatened to stifle the
spirit of prayer, which he accounted preferable to all the
rest.
In
1221, so some writers tell us, Francis drew up a new rule
for the Friars Minor. Others regard this so-called Rule
of 1221 not as a new rule, but as the first one which Innocent
had orally approved; not, indeed, its original form, which
we do not possess, but with such additions and modifications
as it has suffered during the course of twelve years. However
this may be, the composition called by some the Rule of
1221 is very unlike any conventional rule ever made. It
was too lengthy and unprecise to become a formal rule, and
two years later Francis retired to Fonte Colombo, a hermitage
near Rieti, and rewrote the rule in more compendious form.
This revised draft he entrusted to Brother Elias, who not
long after declared he had lost it through negligence. Francis
thereupon returned to the solitude of Fonte Colombo, and
recast the rule on the same lines as before, its twenty-three
chapters being reduced to twelve and some of its precepts
being modified in certain details at the instance of Cardinal
Ugolino. In this form the rule was solemnly approved by
Honorius III, 29 November, 1223 (Litt. "Solet annuere").
This Second Rule, as it is usually called or Regula Bullata
of the Friars Minor, is the one ever since professed throughout
the First Order of St. Francis (see RULE OF SAINT
FRANCIS). It is based on the three vows of obedience, poverty,
and chastity, special stress however being laid on poverty,
which Francis sought to make the special characteristic
of his order, and which became the sign to be contradicted.
This vow of absolute poverty in the first and second orders
and the reconciliation of the religious with the secular
state in the Third Order of Penance are the chief novelties
introduced by Francis in monastic regulation.
It
was during Christmastide of this year (1223) that the saint
conceived the idea of celebrating the Nativity "in a new
manner", by reproducing in a church at Greccio the praesepio
of Bethlehem, and he has thus come to be regarded as having
inaugurated the population devotion of the Crib. Christmas
appears indeed to have been the favourite feast of Francis,
and he wished to persuade the emperor to make a special
law that men should then provide well for the birds and
the beasts, as well as for the poor, so that all might have
occasion to rejoice in the Lord.
Early
in August, 1224, Francis retired with three companions to
"that rugged rock 'twixt Tiber and Arno", as Dante called
La Verna, there to keep a forty days fast in preparation
for Michaelmas. During this retreat the sufferings of Christ
became more than ever the burden of his meditations; into
few souls, perhaps, had the full meaning of the Passion
so deeply entered. It was on or about the feast of the Exaltation
of the Cross (14 September) while praying on the mountainside,
that he beheld the marvellous vision of the seraph, as a
sequel of which there appeared on his body the visible marks
of the five wounds of the Crucified which, says an early
writer, had long since been impressed upon his heart. Brother
Leo, who was with St. Francis when he received the stigmata,
has left us in his note to the saint's autograph blessing,
preserved at Assisi, a clear and simple account of the miracle,
which for the rest is better attested than many another
historical fact. The saint's right side is described as
bearing on open wound which looked as if made by a lance,
while through his hands and feet were black nails of flesh,
the points of which were bent backward. After the reception
of the stigmata, Francis suffered increasing pains throughout
his frail body, already broken by continual mortification.
For, condescending as the saint always was to the weaknesses
of others, he was ever so unsparing towards himself that
at the last he felt constrained to ask pardon of "Brother
Ass", as he called his body, for having treated it so harshly.
Worn out, moreover, as Francis now was by eighteen years
of unremitting toil, his strength gave way completely, and
at times his eyesight so far failed him that he was almost
wholly blind. During an access of anguish, Francis paid
a last visit to St. Clare at St. Damian's, and it was in
a little hut of reeds, made for him in the garden there,
that the saint composed that "Canticle of the Sun", in which
his poetic genius expands itself so gloriously. This was
in September, 1225. Not long afterwards Francis, at the
urgent instance of Brother Elias, underwent an unsuccessful
operation for the eyes, at Rieti. He seems to have passed
the winter 1225-26 at Siena, whither he had been taken for
further medical treatment. In April, 1226, during an interval
of improvement, Francis was moved to Cortona, and it is
believed to have been while resting at the hermitage of
the Celle there, that the saint dictated his testament,
which he describes as a "reminder, a warning, and an exhortation".
In this touching document Francis, writing from the fullness
of his heart, urges anew with the simple eloquence, the
few, but clearly defined, principles that were to guide
his followers, implicit obedience to superiors as holding
the place of God, literal observance of the rule "without
gloss", especially as regards poverty, and the duty of manual
labor, being solemnly enjoined on all the friars. Meanwhile
alarming dropsical symptoms had developed, and it was in
a dying condition that Francis set out for Assisi. A roundabout
route was taken by the little caravan that escorted him,
for it was feared to follow the direct road lest the saucy
Perugians should attempt to carry Francis off by force so
that he might die in their city, which would thus enter
into possession of his coveted relics. It was therefore
under a strong guard that Francis, in July, 1226, was finally
borne in safety to the bishop's palace in his native city
amid the enthusiastic rejoicings of the entire populace.
In the early autumn Francis, feeling the hand of death upon
him, was carried to his beloved Porziuncola, that he might
breathe his last sigh where his vocation had been revealed
to him and whence his order had struggled into sight. On
the way thither he asked to be set down, and with painful
effort he invoked a beautiful blessing on Assisi, which,
however, his eyes could no longer discern. The saint's last
days were passed at the Porziuncola in a tiny hut, near
the chapel, that served as an infirmary. The arrival there
about this time of the Lady Jacoba of Settesoli, who had
come with her two sons and a great retinue to bid Francis
farewell, caused some consternation, since women were forbidden
to enter the friary. But Francis in his tender gratitude
to this Roman noblewoman, made an exception in her favour,
and "Brother Jacoba", as Francis had named her on account
of her fortitude, remained to the last. On the eve of his
death, the saint, in imitation of his Divine Master, had
bread brought to him and broken. This he distributed among
those present, blessing Bernard of Quintaville, his first
companion, Elias, his vicar, and all the others in order.
"I have done my part," he said next, "may Christ teach you
to do yours." Then wishing to give a last token of detachment
and to show he no longer had anything in common with the
world, Francis removed his poor habit and lay down on the
bare ground, covered with a borrowed cloth, rejoicing that
he was able to keep faith with his Lady Poverty to the end.
After a while he asked to have read to him the Passion according
to St. John, and then in faltering tones he himself intoned
Psalm cxli. At the concluding verse, "Bring my soul out
of prison", Francis was led away from earth by "Sister Death",
in whose praise he had shortly before added a new strophe
to his "Canticle of the Sun". It was Saturday evening, 3
October, 1226, Francis being then in the forty-fifth year
of his age, and the twentieth from his perfect conversion
to Christ.
The
saint had, in his humility, it is said, expressed a wish
to be buried on the Colle d'Inferno, a despised hill without
Assisi, where criminals were executed. However this may
be, his body was, on 4 October, borne in triumphant procession
to the city, a halt being made at St. Damian's, that St.
Clare and her companions might venerate the sacred stigmata
now visible to all, and it was placed provisionally in the
church of St. George (now within the enclosure of the monastery
of St. Clare), where the saint had learned to read and had
first preached. Many miracles are recorded to have taken
place at his tomb. Francis was canonized at St. George's
by Gregory IX, 16 July, 1228. On that day following the
pope laid the first stone of the great double church of
St. Francis, erected in honour of the new saint, and thither
on 25 May, 1230, Francis's remains were secretly transferred
by Brother Elias and buried far down under the high altar
in the lower church. Here, after lying hidden for six centuries,
like that of St. Clare's, Francis's coffin was found, 12
December, 1818, as a result of a toilsome search lasting
fifty-two nights. This discovery of the saint's body is
commemorated in the order by a special office on 12 December,
and that of his translation by another on 25 May. His feast
is kept throughout the Church on 4 October, and the impression
of the stigmata on his body is celebrated on 17 September.
It
has been said with pardonable warmth that Francis entered
into glory in his lifetime, and that he is the one saint
whom all succeeding generations have agreed in canonizing.
Certain it is that those also who care little about the
order he founded, and who have but scant sympathy with the
Church to which he ever gave his devout allegiance, even
those who know that Christianity to be Divine, find themselves,
instinctively as it were, looking across the ages for guidance
to the wonderful Umbrian Poverello, and invoking his name
in grateful remembrance. This unique position Francis doubtless
owes in no small measure to his singularly lovable and winsome
personality. Few saints ever exhaled "the good odour of
Christ" to such a degree as he. There was about Francis,
moreover, a chivalry and a poetry which gave to his other-worldliness
a quite romantic charm and beauty. Other saints have seemed
entirely dead to the world around them, but Francis was
ever thoroughly in touch with the spirit of the age. He
delighted in the songs of Provence, rejoiced in the new-born
freedom of his native city, and cherished what Dante calls
the pleasant sound of his dear land. And this exquisite
human element in Francis's character was the key to that
far-reaching, all-embracing sympathy, which may be almost
called his characteristic gift. In his heart, as an old
chronicler puts it, the whole world found refuge, the poor,
the sick and the fallen being the objects of his solicitude
in a more special manner. Heedless as Francis ever was of
the world's judgments in his own regard, it was always his
constant care to respect the opinions of all and to wound
the feelings of none. Wherefore he admonishes the friars
to use only low and mean tables, so that "if a beggar were
to come to sit down near them he might believe that he was
but with his equals and need not blush on account of his
poverty." One night, we are told, the friary was aroused
by the cry "I am dying." "Who are you", exclaimed Francis
arising, "and why are dying?" "I am dying of hunger", answered
the voice of one who had been too prone to fasting. Whereupon
Francis had a table laid out and sat down beside the famished
friar, and lest the latter might be ashamed to eat alone,
ordered all the other brethren to join in the repast. Francis's
devotedness in consoling the afflicted made him so condescending
that he shrank not from abiding with the lepers in their
loathly lazar-houses and from eating with them out of the
same platter. But above all it is his dealings with the
erring that reveal the truly Christian spirit of his charity.
"Saintlier than any of the saint", writes Celano, "among
sinners he was as one of themselves". Writing to a certain
minister in the order, Francis says: "Should there be a
brother anywhere in the world who has sinned, no matter
how great soever his fault may be, let him not go away after
he has once seen thy face without showing pity towards him;
and if he seek not mercy, ask him if he does not desire
it. And by this I will know if you love God and me." Again,
to medieval notions of justice the evil-doer was beyond
the law and there was no need to keep faith with him. But
according to Francis, not only was justice due even to evil-doers,
but justice must be preceded by courtesy as by a herald.
Courtesy, indeed, in the saint's quaint concept, was the
younger sister of charity and one of the qualities of God
Himself, Who "of His courtesy", he declares, "gives His
sun and His rain to the just and the unjust". This habit
of courtesy Francis ever sought to enjoin on his disciples.
"Whoever may come to us", he writes, "whether a friend or
a foe, a thief or a robber, let him be kindly received",
and the feast which he spread for the starving brigands
in the forest at Monte Casale sufficed to show that "as
he taught so he wrought". The very animals found in Francis
a tender friend and protector; thus we find him pleading
with the people of Gubbio to feed the fierce wolf that had
ravished their flocks, because through hunger "Brother Wolf"
had done this wrong. And the early legends have left us
many an idyllic picture of how beasts and birds alike susceptible
to the charm of Francis's gentle ways, entered into loving
companionship with him; how the hunted leveret sought to
attract his notice; how the half-frozen bees crawled towards
him in the winter to be fed; how the wild falcon fluttered
around him; how the nightingale sang with him in sweetest
content in the ilex grove at the Carceri, and how his "little
brethren the birds" listened so devoutly to his sermon by
the roadside near Bevagna that Francis chided himself for
not having thought of preaching to them before. Francis's
love of nature also stands out in bold relief in the world
he moved in. He delighted to commune with the wild flowers,
the crystal spring, and the friendly fire, and to greet
the sun as it rose upon the fair Umbrian vale. In this respect,
indeed, St. Francis's "gift of sympathy" seems to have been
wider even than St. Paul's, for we find no evidence in the
great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals.
Hardly
less engaging than his boundless sense of fellow-feeling
was Francis's downright sincerity and artless simplicity.
"Dearly beloved," he once began a sermon following upon
a severe illness, "I have to confess to God and you that
during this Lent I have eaten cakes made with lard." And
when the guardian insisted for the sake of warmth upon Francis
having a fox skin sewn under his worn-out tunic, the saint
consented only upon condition that another skin of the same
size be sewn outside. For it was his singular study never
to hide from men that which known to God. "What a man is
in the sight of God," he was wont to repeat, "so much he
is and no more" -- a saying which passed into the "Imitation",
and has been often quoted. Another winning trait of Francis
which inspires the deepest affection was his unswerving
directness of purpose and unfaltering following after an
ideal. "His dearest desire so long as he lived", Celano
tells us, "was ever to seek among wise and simple, perfect
and imperfect, the means to walk in the way of truth." To
Francis love was the truest of all truths; hence his deep
sense of personal responsibility towards his fellows. The
love of Christ and Him Crucified permeated the whole life
and character of Francis, and he placed the chief hope of
redemption and redress for a suffering humanity in the literal
imitation of his Divine Master. The saint imitated the example
of Christ as literally as it was in him to do so; barefoot,
and in absolute poverty, he proclaimed the reign of love.
This heroic imitation of Christ's poverty was perhaps the
distinctive mark of Francis's vocation, and he was undoubtedly,
as Bossuet expresses it, the most ardent, enthusiastic,
and desperate lover of poverty the world has yet seen. After
money Francis most detested discord and divisions. Peace,
therefore, became his watchword, and the pathetic reconciliation
he effected in his last days between the Bishop and Potesta
of Assisi is bit one instance out of many of his power to
quell the storms of passion and restore tranquility to hearts
torn asunder by civil strife. The duty of a servant of God,
Francis declared, was to lift up the hearts of men and move
them to spiritual gladness. Hence it was not "from monastic
stalls or with the careful irresponsibility of the enclosed
student" that the saint and his followers addressed the
people; "they dwelt among them and grappled with the evils
of the system under which the people groaned". They worked
in return for their fare, doing for the lowest the most
menial labour, and speaking to the poorest words of hope
such as the world had not heard for many a day. In this
wise Francis bridged the chasm between an aristocratic clergy
and the common people, and though he taught no new doctrine,
he so far repopularized the old one given on the Mount that
the Gospel took on a new life and called forth a new love.
Such
in briefest outline are some of the salient features which
render the figure of Francis one of such supreme attraction
that all manner of men feel themselves drawn towards him,
with a sense of personal attachment. Few, however, of those
who feel the charm of Francis's personality may follow the
saint to his lonely height of rapt communion with God. For,
however engaging a "minstrel of the Lord", Francis was none
the less a profound mystic in the truest sense of the word.
The whole world was to him one luminous ladder, mounting
upon the rungs of which he approached and beheld God. It
is very misleading, however, to portray Francis as living
"at a height where dogma ceases to exist", and still further
from the truth to represent the trend of his teaching as
one in which orthodoxy is made subservient to "humanitarianism".
A very cursory inquiry into Francis's religious belief suffices
to show that it embraced the entire Catholic dogma, nothing
more or less. If then the saint's sermons were on the whole
moral rather than doctrinal, it was less because he preached
to meet the wants of his day, and those whom he addressed
had not strayed from dogmatic truth; they were still "hearers",
if not "doers", of the Word. For this reason Francis set
aside all questions more theoretical than practical, and
returned to the Gospel.
Again,
to see in Francis only the loving friend of all God's creatures,
the joyous singer of nature, is to overlook altogether that
aspect of his work which is the explanation of all the rest
-- its supernatural side. Few lives have been more wholly
imbued with the supernatural, as even Renan admits. Nowhere,
perhaps, can there be found a keener insight into the innermost
world of spirit, yet so closely were the supernatural and
the natural blended in Francis, that his very asceticism
was often clothed in the guide of romance, as witness his
wooing the Lady Poverty, in a sense that almost ceased to
be figurative. For Francis's singularly vivid imagination
was impregnate with the imagery of the chanson de geste,
and owing to his markedly dramatic tendency, he delighted
in suiting his action to his thought. So, too, the saint's
native turn for the picturesque led him to unite religion
and nature. He found in all created things, however trivial,
some reflection of the Divine perfection, and he loved to
admire in them the beauty, power, wisdom, and goodness of
their Creator. And so it came to pass that he saw sermons
even in stones, and good in everything. Moreover, Francis's
simple, childlike nature fastened on the thought, that if
all are from one Father then all are real kin. Hence his
custom of claiming brotherhood with all manner of animate
and inanimate objects. The personification, therefore, of
the elements in the "Canticle of the Sun" is something more
than a mere literary figure. Francis's love of creatures
was not simply the offspring of a soft or sentimental disposition;
it arose rather from that deep and abiding sense of the
presence of God, which underlay all he said and did. Even
so, Francis's habitual cheerfulness was not that of a careless
nature, or of one untouched by sorrow. None witnessed Francis's
hidden struggles, his long agonies of tears, or his secret
wrestlings in prayer. And if we meet him making dumb-show
of music, by playing a couple of sticks like a violin to
give vent to his glee, we also find him heart-sore with
foreboding at the dire dissensions in the order which threatened
to make shipwreck of his ideal. Nor were temptations or
other weakening maladies of the soul wanting to the saint
at any time. Francis's lightsomeness had its source in that
entire surrender of everything present and passing, in which
he had found the interior liberty of the children of God;
it drew its strength from his intimate union with Jesus
in the Holy Communion. The mystery of the Holy Eucharist,
being an extension of the Passion, held a preponderant place
in the life of Francis, and he had nothing more at heart
than all that concerned the cultus of the Blessed Sacrament.
Hence we not only hear of Francis conjuring the clergy to
show befitting respect for everything connected with the
Sacrifice of the Mass, but we also see him sweeping out
poor churches, questing sacred vessels for them, and providing
them with altar-breads made by himself. So great, indeed,
was Francis's reverence for the priesthood, because of its
relation to the Adorable Sacrament, that in his humility
he never dared to aspire to that dignity. Humility was,
no doubt, the saint's ruling virtue. The idol of an enthusiastic
popular devotion, he ever truly believed himself less than
the least. Equally admirable was Francis's prompt and docile
obedience to the voice of grace within him, even in the
early days of his ill-defined ambition, when the spirit
of interpretation failed him. Later on, the saint, with
as clear as a sense of his message as any prophet ever had,
yielded ungrudging submission to what constituted ecclesiastical
authority. No reformer, moreover, was ever, less aggressive
than Francis. His apostolate embodied the very noblest spirit
of reform; he strove to correct abuses by holding up an
ideal. He stretched out his arms in yearning towards those
who longed for the "better gifts". The others he left alone.
And
thus, without strife or schism, God's Poor Little Man of
Assisi became the means of renewing the youth of the Church
and of imitating the most potent and popular religious movement
since the beginnings of Christianity. No doubt this movement
had its social as well as its religious side. That the Third
Order of St. Francis went far towards re-Christianizing
medieval society is a matter of history. However, Francis's
foremost aim was a religious one. To rekindle the love of
God in the world and reanimate the life of the spirit in
the hearts of men -- such was his mission. But because St.
Francis sought first the Kingdom of God and His justice,
many other things were added unto him. And his own exquisite
Franciscan spirit, as it is called, passing out into the
wide world, became an abiding source of inspiration. Perhaps
it savours of exaggeration to say, as has been said, that
"all the threads of civilization in the subsequent centuries
seem to hark back to Francis", and that since his day "the
character of the whole Roman Catholic Church is visibly
Umbrian". It would be difficult, none the less, to overestimate
the effect produced by Francis upon the mind of his time,
or the quickening power he wielded on the generations which
have succeeded him. To mention two aspects only of his all-pervading
influence, Francis must surely be reckoned among those to
whom the world of art and letters is deeply indebted. Prose,
as Arnold observes, could not satisfy the saint's ardent
soul, so he made poetry. He was, indeed, too little versed
in the laws of composition to advance far in that direction.
But his was the first cry of a nascent poetry which found
its highest expression in the "Divine Comedy"; wherefore
Francis has been styled the precursor of Dante. What the
saint did was to teach a people "accustomed to the artificial
versification of courtly Latin and Provencal poets, the
use of their native tongue in simple spontaneous hymns,
which became even more popular with the Laudi and
Cantici of his poet-follower Jacopone of Todi". In
so far, moreover, as Francis's repraesentatio, as
Salimbene calls it, of the stable at Bethlehem is the first
mystery-play we hear of in Italy, he is said to have borne
a part in the revival of the drama. However this may be,
if Francis's love of song called forth the beginnings of
Italian verse, his life no less brought about the birth
of Italian art. His story, says Ruskin, became a passionate
tradition painted everywhere with delight. Full of colour,
dramatic possibilities, and human interest, the early Franciscan
legend afforded the most popular material for painters since
the life of Christ. No sooner, indeed did Francis's figure
make an appearance in art than it became at once a favourite
subject, especially with the mystical Umbrian School. So
true is this that it has been said we might by following
his familiar figure "construct a history of Christian art,
from the predecessors of Cimabue down to Guido Reni, Rubens,
and Van Dyck".
Probably
the oldest likeness of Francis that has come down to us
is that preserved in the Sacro Speco at Subiaco.
It is said that it was painted by a Benedictine monk during
the saint's visit there, which may have been in 1218. The
absence of the stigmata, halo, and title of saint in this
fresco form its chief claim to be considered a contemporary
picture; it is not, however, a real portrait in the modern
sense of the word, and we are dependent for the traditional
presentment of Francis rather on artists' ideals, like the
Della Robbia statue at the Porziuncola, which is surely
the saint's vera effigies, as no Byzantine so-called
portrait can ever be, and the graphic description of Francis
given by Celano (Vita Prima, c.lxxxiii). Of less than middle
height, we are told, and frail in form, Francis had a long
yet cheerful face and soft but strong voice, small brilliant
black eyes, dark brown hair, and a sparse beard. His person
was in no way imposing, yet there was about the saint a
delicacy, grace, and distinction which made him most attractive.
The
literary materials for the history of St. Francis are more
than usually copious and authentic. There are indeed few
if any medieval lives more thoroughly documented. We have
in the first place the saint's own writings. These are not
voluminous and were never written with a view to setting
forth his ideas systematically, yet they bear the stamp
of his personality and are marked by the same unvarying
features of his preaching. A few leading thoughts taken
"from the words of the Lord" seemed to him all sufficing,
and these he repeats again and again, adapting them to the
needs of the different persons whom he addresses. Short,
simple, and informal, Francis's writings breathe the unstudied
love of the Gospel and enforce the same practical morality,
while they abound in allegories and personification and
reveal an intimate interweaving of Biblical phraseology.
Not all the saint's writings have come down to us, and not
a few of these formerly attributed to him are now with greater
likelihood ascribed to others. The extant and authentic
opuscula of Francis comprise, besides the rule of
the Friars Minor and some fragments of the other Seraphic
legislation, several letters, including one addressed "to
all the Christians who dwell in the whole world," a series
of spiritual counsels addressed to his disciples, the "Laudes
Creaturarum" or "Canticle of the Sun", and some lesser praises,
an Office of the Passion compiled for his own use, and few
other orisons which show us Francis even as Celano saw him,
"not so much a man's praying as prayer itself". In addition
to the saint's writings the sources of the history of Francis
include a number of early papal bulls and some other diplomatic
documents, as they are called, bearing upon his life and
work. Then come the biographies properly so called. These
include the lives written 1229-1247 by Thomas of Celano,
one of Francis's followers; a joint narrative of his life
compiled by Leo, Rufinus, and Angelus, intimate companions
of the saint, in 1246; and the celebrated legend of St.
Bonaventure, which appeared about 1263; besides a somewhat
more polemic legend called the "Speculum Perfectionis",
attributed to Brother Leo, the
state of which is a matter of controversy. There are also
several important thirteenth-century chronicles of the order,
like those of Jordan, Eccleston, and Bernard of Besse, and
not a few later works, such as the "Chronica XXIV. Generalium"
and the "Liber de Conformitate", which are in some sort
a continuation of them. It is upon these works that all
the later biographies of Francis's life are based.
Recent
years have witnessed a truly remarkable upgrowth of interest
in the life and work of St. Francis, more especially among
non-Catholics, and Assisi has become in consequence the
goal of a new race of pilgrims. This interest, for the most
part literary and academic, is centered mainly in the study
of the primitive documents relating to the saint's history
and the beginnings of the Franciscan Order. Although inaugurated
some years earlier, this movement received its greatest
impulse from the publication in 1894 of Paul Sabatier's
"Vie de S. François", a work which was almost simultaneously
crowned by the French Academy and place upon the Index.
In spite of the author's entire lack of sympathy with the
saint's religious standpoint, his biography of Francis bespeaks
vast erudition, deep research, and rare critical insight,
and it has opened up a new era in the study of Franciscan
resources. To further this study an International Society
of Franciscan Studies was founded at Assisi in 1902, the
aim of which is to collect a complete library of works on
Franciscan history and to compile a catalogue of scattered
Franciscan manuscripts; several periodicals, devoted to
Franciscan documents and discussions exclusively, have moreover
been established in different countries. Although a large
literature has grown up around the figure of the Poverello
within a short time, nothing new of essential value has
been added to what was already known of the saint. The energetic
research work of recent years has resulted in the recovery
of several important early texts, and has called forth many
really fine critical studies dealing with the sources, but
the most welcome feature of the modern interest in Franciscan
origins has been the careful re-editing and translating
of Francis's own writings and of nearly all the contemporary
manuscript authorities bearing on his life. Not a few of
the controverted questions connected therewith are of considerable
import, even to those not especially students of the Franciscan
legend, but they could not be made intelligible within the
limits of the present article. It must suffice, moreover,
to indicate only some of the chief works on the life of
St. Francis.
The
writings of St. Francis have been published in "Opuscula
S. P. Francisci Assisiensis" (Quaracchi, 1904); Böhmer,
"Analekten zur Geschichte des Franciscus von Assisi" (Tübingen,
1904); U. d'Alençon, "Les Opuscules de S. François d' Assise"
(Paris, 1905); Robinson, "The Writings of St. Francis of
Assisi" (Philadelphia, 1906).
*The
above information is from: newadvent.org
*Dr.
Renoux research on the St Francis of Assisi prayer. The
Original Text of this very popular Prayer and the history
of its origin . . . . . Read
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