PRAYER
OF ST. FRANCIS
"Lord,
make me a channel of thy peace - that where
there is hatred, I may
bring
love - that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of
forgiveness -
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony - that where
there is
error, I may bring truth - that where there is doubt, I may bring
faith -
that where there is despair, I may bring hope - that where there
are
shadows, I may bring light - that where there is sadness, I may
bring
joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be
comforted -
to understand, than to be understood - to love, than to be loved.
For it
is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one
is
forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to the Eternal Life.
Amen."
The
Story
Behind the Peace Prayer
of St. Francis
The Peace Prayer of St. Francis
is a
famous prayer which first appeared around the year 1915 A.D.,
and which
embodies the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi's simplicity and
poverty.
According to Father Kajetan Esser, OFM,
the
author of the critical edition of St. Francis's Writings, the
Peace
Prayer of St. Francis is most certainly not one of the writings
of St.
Francis. This prayer, according to Father Schulz, Das
sogennante
Franziskusgebet. Forshungen zur evangelishen Gebetslitteratur
(III),
in Jahrbuch fur Liturgik und Hymnologie, 13 (1968),
pp.
39-53, first appeared during the First World War. It was found
written
on the observe of a holy card of St. Francis, which was found in
a
Normal Almanac. The prayer bore no name; but in the English
speaking
world, on account of this holy card, it came to be called the
Peace
Prayer of St. Francis.
More information about this prayer can
be found
in Friar J. Poulenc, OFM, L'inspiration moderne de la
priere «
Seigneru faites de moi un instrument de votre paix », Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum, vol. 68 (1975) pp. 450-453.
The Peace Prayer of St. Francis
by an anonymous Norman c. 1915 A.D.
Peace
Prayer
Lord make me an
instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, Joy.
O Divine Master
grant
that I may not so much seek to be consoled
As to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
 St. Francis of
Assisi
Founder of the Franciscan Order, born at Assisi in
Umbria, in 1181 or 1182 -- the exact year is uncertain; died there, 3
October, 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.
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).
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment