October 4 – St Francis, Confessor
And I saw another Angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying: Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads.The sixth seal of the Book of destinies had just been opened before the eyes of the prophet of Patmos. It was a time of anguish, the hour for the wicked to cry to the mountains: Fall upon us. The sun was darkened: an image of the Sun of Justice eclipsed by the night of iniquity; the moon, the figure of the Church, appeared red as blood, through the evils that defiled the sanctuary; the stars fell from heaven, as the fig-tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by a great wind. Who would appease the Lamb, and retard the day of wrath? At the invitation of the Saints and of the Apostolic See, let us recognize the Angel who won for the world a delay of the judgment; the Angel with the impress of God upon a mortal body; the Seraph with his sacred stigmata, the sight of which once more disarmed the justice of God. Dante thus sings of the elect of God, under whose leadership took place on earth as it were a repetition of the first and only Redemption:
Francis took his flight, for his work was done; innumerable souls were now treading the paths of penance; the Cross of Christ was set before the eyes of the whole world as the treasure of the Church, now that she was beginning her ascent of Calvary. How admirably had the sanctifying Spirit conducted this work!
At the age of four and twenty, Francis, who was destined not to see his forty-sixth year, was the head of a party of gay youths who filled Assisi day and night with their songs. Full of the poetry of France (from which country he borrowed his name), he dreamed of nothing but worldly renown and knightly prowess. One night he beheld in a prophetic dream a large assortment of arms and weapons. “For whom are all these?” he inquired; and on hearing the answer: “For thee and thy soldiers,” he hastened to join Gauthier de Brienne, who was at war with the Germans in the South of Italy. But God arrested him: in a series of manifestations, to which the young man corresponded with all the generous ardor of his pure heart, our Lord revealed to him the object of his life’s labor, the standard he was to carry through the world, and the Lady in whose service he was to win his spurs.
The Church, ever under attack, yet hitherto ever victorious, seemed about to succumb, so undermined were her walls by heresy, so broken by the battering ram of the secular power; while within the citadel, the ancient faith was sinking under prolonged scandals, leaving the field open to the enterprises of traitors, and multiplying defections in a society already beginning to feel the torpor of death. Nevertheless, it is written that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. “Francis, seest thou not that my house is falling to decay? Go, then, and repair it for me.”
There was need of a sudden surprise to disconcert the enemy; and of an energetic appeal, to rouse the sleepy garrison, and rally them around the too forgotten ensign of Christians, the Cross of Christ. Francis was to be, in his very flesh, the standard of the Crucified. The sacred wounds already pierced his soul, and made his eyes two ceaseless fountains of tears: “I weep for the Passion of Jesus Christ my Master; nor shall I blush to go weeping all over the world.”
Avarice was the crying sin of the age; the hearts of men, too preoccupied with earthly affairs to have a desire of heaven, must be delivered from a slavery which crushed out all noble thoughts, all love, all devotedness. Holy Poverty, the mother of that true liberty which disarms hell and laughs at tyrants, could alone achieve such a deliverance. Francis was taken with the beauty of poverty, in spite of the jeers and insults of the vulgar, and of his rejection by his own family; but his sublime folly was the salvation of his people, and he was blessed by our heavenly Father, as a true brother of his eternal Son.
As by nature the consubstantial Word receives his unbeginning Being from him who begets him eternally; so within the Holy Trinity, he has nothing appropriated to himself but the title of Son, to the glory of the Father, in the Holy Spirit who is their love. Such is God’s destitution of all things, whereof nothing created could give an idea, but which is reflected in the Incarnate Word’s sublime disappropriation in presence of that Father form whom he derived his all. Would it, then, be far wrong to consider the Poverty chosen by St. Francis as no other than Eternal Wisdom, offering herself, even under the old Law, to the human race, as bride, and as sister? Once espoused in Mary’s womb at the Incarnation, how great has been her fidelity! But whoever loves her must become in Jesus like unto her.
God cannot turn a deaf ear to such entreaties. If he contends, it is in order to add fresh wounds of love, until the old man being destroyed, the new rises form the ruins, in all things conformed to the image of the heavenly Adam. Eighteen years later, after the prodigy on Mount Alvernia, Francis, impressed with the divine seal of Christ’s wounds, sang in heavenly language (
In foco l’amor mi mise) the sublime combat which had made up his life:
Around the standard-bearer of Christ were already gathered those whom he called his knights of the Round Table. However captivating he may have been when his fellow-citizens proclaimed him the flower of their youth, and he presided at their feasts and games; Francis was much more attractive now in his life of self-renunciation. Scarcely ten years after his espousals with holy Poverty, he had so well avenged her for having been so long despised, that she held full court in the midst of five thousand Friars Minor encamped under the walls of Assisi; while Clare and her companions formed for her such a suite of honor as no empress could ever boast of. The enthusiasm soon became so general that Francis, in order to satisfy it without depopulating the State and the Church, gave to the world his Third Order, into which, led by Louis IX of France and Elizabeth of Hungary, entered countless multitudes of every nation and tribe and tongue. Thanks to the three Seraphic Orders, as well as to the triple militia founded at the same time by Dominic de Gusman, devotedness to the Roman Church, and the spirit of penance and prayer, everywhere triumphed for a time over the anticipated rationalism, the luxury, and all the other evils which had been threatening the speedy ruin of the world.
The influence of the Saints springs from their sanctity, as rays from the focus. No rich man ever possessed the earth to such a degree as this poor man who, seeking God and depending absolutely upon his Providence, had regained the condition of Adam in Eden. Thus, as he passed along, the flocks would welcome him; the fishes would follow his boat in the water; the birds would gather round him and joyfully obey him. And why? Francis drew all things to himself because all things drew him to God.
With him there was no such thing as analyzing love, and making distinctions among those things which come from God and lead to God. To raise himself up to God, to compassionate with Christ, to be of service to his neighbor, to be in harmony with the whole universe like Adam when innocent, was for the seraphic father, says St. Bonaventure, one and the same impulse of that true piety which ruled his whole being. The divine fire within him found fuel in everything. No touch of the Holy Spirit, whencesoever it came, did Francis let pass; so much he feared to frustrate the effect of a single grace. He did not despise the stream for not being the ocean; and it was with an unheard of tenderness of devotion, says his son and historian Bonaventure, that Francis relished God’s goodness in creation, contemplated his supreme beauty in every created beauty, and heard the echo of heaven’s harmonies in the concert of beings sprung like man himself from the only source of existence. Hence it was by the sweet name of brothers and sisters that he invited all creatures to praise with him that well-beloved Lord, whose every trace on earth was the dear object of his love and contemplation.
Neither the progress nor the consummation of his holiness alteres, in this respect, what would now be called his method of prayer. On hearing that his death was approaching, and again a few minutes before he passed away, he sang, and would have others sing to him, his favorite canticle: “Praised be God my Lord, for all creatures, and especially for our brother the sun, which gives us light, and is an image of thee, my God! Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon; and for all the stars which he has created bright and beautiful in the heavens! Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind; and for the air, and the clouds, and the fine weather, and all the seasons; for our sister the water, which is very useful, humble, precious and pure; for our brother the fire, which is bright and strong; for our mother the earth, which bears us, and produces the fruits and the flowers! Be thou praised, O my God, for those who pardon and who suffer for love of thee! Be thou praised for our sister the death of the body, which no living man can escape; unhappy is he who dies in mortal sin; but happy is he whom death finds conformed to thy holy will! Praise and bless my Lord, give him thanks, and serve him in great humility.”
After having received the stigmata, Francis’ life was an unspeakable martyrdom; in spite of which he continued to travel through towns and villages, riding, like Jesus of whom he was so touching an image, upon a poor little ass; and everywhere he preached the Cross, working miracles and wonders of grace. Assisi cherishes the memory of the blessing bequeathed to it by its glorious son, when, gazing upon it for the last time from the beautiful plain that stretches at its feet, he exclaimed with tears: “Be thou blessed of the Lord, O city faithful to God, for in thee and by thee shall many souls be saved!”
The humble Portiuncula, the cradle of the Order, where Clare too had exchanged the vain ornaments of the world for the poverty of the Cross: St. Mary of the Angels, which awakens in the pilgrim a feeling of the nearness of heaven; and where the Great Pardon of the 2nd of August proves the pleasure our Lord still takes in it: this was the appointed place of Francis’ death. He passed away on the 3rd of October, towards eight o’clock in the evening; and although darkness had already set in, a flight of larks descended, singing and rising in heaven of the new sun, which was mounting towards the Seraphim.
Francis had chosen to be buried in the place of public execution, called the
Colle d’Inferno, near the West wall of his native city. But within two years, Gregory IX enrolled him among the Saints, and changed the name of the hill into
Colle del Paradiso. James the German built over the bare rock, where lies the Poor Man of Assisi, a two-storied church, which the genius of Giotto has made to outshine in glory all the princely palaces on earth.
The church’s narrative, though short, will complete these somewhat lengthy pages.
Mayst thou be blessed by every living soul, O thou whom our Savior associated so closely with himself in the work of Redemption. The world, created by God for himself, subsists through the Saints; for it is in them he finds his glory. At the time of thy birth, the Saints were few; the enemy of God and man was daily extending his darksome reign; and when society has entirely lost faith and charity, light and heat, the human race must perish. Thou didst come to bring warmth to the wintry world, till the thirteenth century became like a spring time, rich in beautiful flowers; but alas! no summer was to follow in its wake. By thee the Cross was forced upon men’s notice; not indeed, as heretofore, to be exalted in a permanent triumph, but to rally the elect in face of the enemy, who would too soon afterwards regain the advantage. The Church lays aside the robe of glory, which beseemed her in the days of our Lord’s undisputed royalty; together with thee, she treads barefoot the path of trials, which liken her to her divine Spouse suffering and dying for his Father’s honor. Do thou thyself, and by thy sons, ever hold aloft before her the sacred ensign.
It is by identifying ourselves with Christ on the Cross that we shall find him again in the splendors of his glory; for men, and God in man, cannot be separated; and both, thou didst say, must be contemplated by every soul. Yet no otherwise than by effective compassion with our suffering Head can we find the way of divine union and the sweet fruits of love. If the soul suffers herself to be led by the good pleasure of the Holy Ghost, this Master of masters will conduct her by no other way than that set forth by our Lord in the books of his humility, patience, and suffering.
O Francis, cause the lessons of thy amiable and heroic simplicity to fructify in us. May thy children, to the great profit of the Church, increase in number and still more in sanctity; and never spare themselves in teaching both by word and example, knowing, however, that the latter is of greater avail than the former. Raise them up again, with their former popularity in that country of France, which thou didst love on account of its generous aspirations, now stifled by the sordid vulgarity of money-makers. The whole Religious state looks upon thee as one of its most illustrious Fathers; come to its assistance in the trials of the present time. Friend of Dominic, and his companion under our Lady’s mantle, keep up between your two families the fraternal love which delights the Angels. May the Benedictine Order never lose the affection which causes it to rejoice always on this day; and by thy benefits to it, strengthen the bonds knit once for all by the gift of the Portiuncula!
