well as the Brothers from the neighboring monasteries. On the evening of
the vigil of Christmas one might have seen the faithful hastening to the
hermitage by every path with torches in their hands, making the forests
ring with their joyful hymns.
Everyone was rejoicing--Francis most of all. The knight had prepared a
stable with straw, and brought an ox and an ass, whose breath seemed to
give warmth to the poor _bambino_, benumbed with the cold. At the sight
the saint felt tears of pity bedew his face; he was no longer in
Greccio, his heart was in Bethlehem.
Finally they began to chant matins; then the mass was begun, and
Francis, as deacon, read the Gospel. Already hearts were touched by the
simple recital of the sacred legend in a voice so gentle and so fervent,
but when he preached, his emotion soon overcame the audience; his voice
had so unutterable a tenderness that they also forgot everything, and
were living over again the feeling of the shepherds of Judea who in
those old days went to adore the God made man, born in a stable.[27]
Toward the close of the thirteenth century, the author of the _Stabat
Mater dolorosa_, Giacopone dei Todi, that Franciscan of genius who spent
a part of his life in dungeons, inspired by the memory of Greccio,
composed another Stabat, that of joy, _Stabat Mater speciosa_. This hymn
of Mary beside the manger is not less noble than that of Mary at the
foot of the cross. The sentiment is even more tender, and it is hard to
explain its neglect except by an unjust caprice of fate.
Stabat Mater speciosa
Juxtum foenum gaudiosa
Dum jacebat parvulus.
Quæ gaudebat et ridebat
Exsultabat cum videbat
Nati partum inclyti.
Fac me vere congaudere
Jesulino cohærere
Donec ego vixero.[28]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] All this took place with prodigious rapidity. The dimensions
of the Basilica of Assisi, the plans of which were made in 1228,
no more permits it to be considered as a conventual chapel than
Santa-Croce in Florence, San Francesco in Sienna, or the
Basilica San Antonio at Padua, monuments commenced between 1230
and 1240. Already before 1245 one party of the episcopate utters
a cry of alarm, in which he speaks of nothing less than of
closing the door of the secular churches, which have become
useless. He complains with incredible bitterness that the Minor
and Preaching Friars have absolutely supplanted the parochial
clergy. This letter may be found in Pierre de la Vigne,
addressed at once to Frederick II. and the Council of Lyons:
_Epistolæ_, Basle, 1740, 2 vols., vol. i., pp. 220-222. It is
much to be desired that a critical text should be given. See
also the satire against the two new Orders, done in rhyme about
1242 by Pierre de la Vigne, and of which, allowing for possible
exaggerations, the greater number of the incidents cannot have
been invented: E. du Méril, _Poésies pop. lat._, pp. 153-177,
Paris, 8vo, 1847.
[2] And not of the 29th, as Sbaralea will have it. _Bull. fr._,
vol. i., n. 10. Horoy, vol. iv., col. 129; the original, still
in the archives of Assisi, bears the title: _Datum Anagnie 11
Kalendas Aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto_.
[3] Potthast, 6809; Horoy, iv., col. 129. See also the bull
_Ecce Venit Deus_ of July 14, 1227; L. Auvray: _Registres de
Grégoire IX._, no. 129; cf. 153; Potthast, 8027 and 8028, 8189.
[4] He had finished his mission as legate in Lombardy toward the
close of September, 1221 (see his register; cf. Böhmer, _Acta
imp. sel. doc._, 951). In the spring of 1222 we find him
continually near the pope at Anagni, Veroli, Alatri (Potthast,
6807, 6812, 6849). The Holy See had still at that time a marked
predilection for the Preachers; the very trite privilege of
power to celebrate the offices in times of interdict had been
accorded them March 7, 1222, but instead of the formula usual in
such cases, a revised form had been made expressly for them,
with a handsome eulogy. Ripolli, _Bull. Præd._, t. i., p. 15.
[5] 2 Cel., 3, 93: _Subtrahebat se a consortio fratrum._
[6] It is needless to say that local traditions, in this case,
though as to detail they must be accepted only with great
reserve, yet on the whole are surely true. The geography of St.
Francis's life is yet to be made.
[7] 2 Cel., 3, 59; Bon., 60; _Conform._, 122b, 2.
[8] 2 Cel., 3, 5; _Spec._, 12a; _Conform._, 169b, 2.
[9] Eccl., 6. Vide Liebermann's text, _Mon. Germ. hist.
Script._, t. 28, p. 663.
[10] 2 Cel., 3, 93; Bon., 104 and 105; _Conform._, 101a, 2.
[11] 2 Cel., 3, 93; _Spec._, 49b; 182a; _Conform._, 182a, 1;
_Tribul._, f^o 5a; 2 Cel., 3, 98; 113; 115; 1 Cel., 28, 50; 96;
103; 104; 108; 111; 118.
[12] 2 Cel., 3, 27; _Spec._, 38b; _Conform._, 181b, 1;
_Tribul._, 7b. Cf. _Spec._, 220b; _Conform._, 103b.
[13] Francis's successors were nearly all without exception
students of Bologna. Pietro di Catana was doctor of laws, as
also Giovanni Parenti (Giord., 51).--Elias had been _scriptor_
at Bologna.--Alberto of Pisa had been minister there (Eccl.,
6).--Aymon had been reader there (Eccl., 6).--Crescentius wrote
works on jurisprudence (_Conform._, 121b, 1, etc., etc.).
[14] This name cannot be warranted; he is called Giovanni di
Laschaccia in a passage of the _Conformities_ (104a, 1); Pietro
Schiaccia in the Italian MS. of the _Tribulations_ (f^o 75a);
Petrus Stacia in the Laurentinian MS. (13b; cf. _Archiv._, ii.,
p. 258). _Tribul._, 13b; _Spec._, 184b. This story has been much
amplified in other places. _Spec._, 126a; _Conform._, 104b, 1.
[15] Vide Eccl., 3: History of the entrance of Adam of Oxford
into the Order. Cf., _Chartularium Univ. Par._, t. i., nos. 47
and 49.
[16] Eccleston's entire chronicle is a living witness to this.
[17] _Admonitio_, v.; cf. _Conform._, 141a.
Compare the _Constitutiones antiquæ_ (_Speculum_, Morin, iii.,
f^o 195b-206) with the Rule. From the opening chapters the
contradiction is apparent: _Ordinamus quod nullus recipiatur in
ordine nostro nisi sit talis clericus qui sit competenter
instructus in grammatica vel logica; aut nisi sit talis laicus
de cujus ingressu esset valde celebris et edificatio in populo
et in clero_. This is surely far from the spirit of him who
said: _Et quicumque venerit amicus vel adversarius fur vel latro
benigne recipiatur_. Rule of 1221, cap. vii. See also the
Exposition of the Rule of Bonaventura. _Speculum_, Morin, iii.,
f^o 21-40.
[18] Upon Francis's attitude toward learning see _Tribul._,
Laur., 14b; _Spec._, 184a; 2 Cel., 3, 8; 48; 100; 116; 119;
120-124. Bon., chap. 152, naturally expresses only Bonaventura's
views. See especially Rule of 1221, cap. xvii.; of 1223, cap. x.
[19] _Spec._, 7b: _Fecit Franciscus regulam quam papa Honorius
confirmavit cum bulla, de qua regula multa fuerunt extracta per
ministros contra voluntatem b. Francisci_. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.
[20] Bull _Quo elongati_ of September 28, 1230; Sbaralea, i., p.
56.
[21] Bon., 55 and 56 [3 Soc., 62]; _Spec._, 76; 124a; _Tribul._,
Laur., 17b-19b; Ubertini, _Arbor. V._, 5; _Conform._, 88a, 2.
[22] _Tribul._, Laur., 19a; _Archiv._, t. iii., p. 601. Cf. A.
SS., p. 638e.
[23] Potthast, 7108.--The work of this bull was completed by
that of December 18, 1223. (The original of the _Sacro Convento_
bears _Datum Laterani XV. Kal. jan._) _Fratrem Minorum_:
Potthast, 7123.
[24] 2 Cel., 3, 19; Bon., 95; _Spec._, 18b; _Conform._, 171a, 1.
[25] 2 Cel., 3, 61 and 62. Cf. Eccl., 6, the account of Rod. de
Rosa.
[26] _Spec._, 47b ff.; 2 Cel., 3, 61; Bon., 84 and 85.
[27] 1 Cel., 84-87; Bon., 149.
[28] This little poem was published entire by M. Ozanam in vol.
v. of his works, p. 184.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVII
THE STIGMATA
1224
The upper valley of the Arno forms in the very centre of Italy a country
apart, the Casentino, which through centuries had its own life, somewhat
like an island in the midst of the ocean.
The river flows out from it by a narrow defile at the south, and on all
other sides the Apennines encircle it with a girdle of inaccessible
mountains.[1]
This plain, some ten leagues in diameter, is enlivened with picturesque
villages, finely posted on hillocks at the base of which flows the
stream; here are Bibbiena, Poppi, the antique Romena sung by Dante, the
Camaldoli, and up there on the crest Chiusi, long ago the capital of the
country, with the ruins of Count Orlando's castle.
The people are charming and refined; the mountains have sheltered them
from wars, and on every side we see the signs of labor, prosperity, a
gentle gayety. At any moment we might fancy ourselves transported into
some valley of the Vivarais or Provence. The vegetation on the borders
of the Arno is thoroughly tropical; the olive and the mulberry marry
with the vine. On the lower hill-slopes are wheat fields divided by
meadows; then come the chestnuts and the oaks, higher still the pine,
the fir, the larch, and above all the bare rock.
Among all the peaks there is one which especially attracts the
attention; instead of a rounded and so to say flattened top, it uplifts
itself slender, proud, isolated; it is the Verna.[2]
One might think it an immense rock fallen from the sky. It is in fact an
erratic block set there, a little like a petrified Noah's ark on the
summit of Mount Ararat. The basaltic mass, perpendicular on all sides,
is crowned with a plateau planted with pines and gigantic beeches, and
accessible only by a footpath.[3]
Such was the solitude which Orlando had given to Francis, and to which
Francis had already many a time come for quiet and contemplation.
Seated upon the few stones of the Penna,[4] he heard only the
whispering of the wind among the trees, but in the splendor of the
sunrise or the sunset he could see nearly all the districts in which he
had sown the seed of the gospel: the Romagna and the March of Ancona,
losing themselves on the horizon in the waves of the Adriatic; Umbria,
and farther away, Tuscany, vanishing in the waters of the Mediterranean.
The impression on this height is not crushing like that which one has in
the Alps: a feeling infinitely calm and sweet flows over you; you are
high enough to judge of men from above, not high enough to forget their
existence.
Besides the wide horizons, Francis found there other objects of delight;
in this forest, one of the noblest in Europe, live legions of birds,
which never having been hunted are surprisingly tame.[5] Subtile
perfumes arise from the ground, and in the midst of borage and lichens
frail and exquisite cyclamens blossom in fantastic variety.
He desired to return thither after the chapter of 1224. This meeting,
held in the beginning of June, was the last at which he was present. The
new Rule was there put into the hands of the ministers, and the mission
to England decided upon.
It was in the early days of August that Francis took his way toward
Verna. With him were only a few Brothers, Masseo, Angelo, and Leo. The
first had been charged to direct the little band, and spare him all
duties except that of prayer.[6]
They had been two days on the road when it became necessary to seek for
an ass for Francis, who was too much enfeebled to go farther on foot.
The Brothers, in asking for this service, had not concealed the name of
their master, and the peasant, to whom they had addressed themselves
respectfully, asked leave to guide the beast himself. After going on a
certain time, "Is it true," he said, "that you are Brother Francis of
Assisi?" "Very well," he went on, after the answer in the affirmative,
"apply yourself to be as good as folk say you are, that they may not be
deceived in their expectation; that is my advice." Francis immediately
got down from his beast and, prostrating himself before the peasant,
thanked him warmly.[7]
Meanwhile the warmest hour of the day had come on. The peasant,
exhausted with fatigue, little by little forgot his surprise and joy;
one does not feel the burning of thirst the less for walking beside a
saint. He had begun to regret his kindness, when Francis pointed with
his finger to a spring, unknown till then, and which has never since
been seen.[8]
At last they arrived at the foot of the last precipice. Before scaling
it they paused to rest a little under a great oak, and immediately
flocks of birds gathered around them, testifying their joy by songs and
flutterings of their wings. Hovering around Francis, they alighted on
his head, his shoulders, or his arms. "I see," he said joyfully to his
companions, "that it is pleasing to our Lord Jesus that we live in this
solitary mount, since our brothers and sisters the birds have shown such
great delight at our coming."[9]
This mountain was at once his Tabor and his Calvary. We must not wonder,
then, that legends have flourished here even more numerously than at any
other period of his life; the greater number of them have the exquisite
charm of the little flowers, rosy and perfumed, which hide themselves
modestly at the feet of the fir-trees of Verna.
The summer nights up there are of unparalleled beauty: nature, stifled
by the heat of the sun, seems then to breathe anew. In the trees, behind
the rocks, on the turf, a thousand voices rise up, sweetly harmonizing
with the murmur of the great woods; but among all these voices there is
not one which forces itself upon the attention, it is a melody which you
enjoy without listening. You let your eyes wander over the landscape,
still for long hours illumined with hieratic tints by the departed star
of day, and the peaks of the Apennines, flooded with rainbow hues, drop
down into your soul what the Franciscan poet called the nostalgia of the
everlasting hills.[10]
More than anyone Francis felt it. The very evening of their arrival,
seated upon a mound in the midst of his Brothers, he gave them his
directions for their dwelling-place.
The quiet of nature would have sufficed to sow in their hearts some
germs of sadness, and the voice of the master harmonized with the
emotion of the last gleams of light; he spoke with them of his
approaching death, with the regret of the laborer overtaken by the
shades of evening before the completion of his task, with the sighs of
the father who trembles for the future of his children.[11]
For himself he desired from this time to prepare himself for death by
prayer and contemplation; and he begged them to protect him from all
intrusion. Orlando,[12] who had already come to bid them welcome and
offer his services, had at his request hastily caused a hut of boughs to
be made, at the foot of a great beech. It was there that he desired to
dwell, at a stone's throw from the cells inhabited by his companions.
Brother Leo was charged to bring him each day that which he would need.
He retired to it immediately after this memorable conversation, but
several days later, embarrassed no doubt by the pious curiosity of the
friars, who watched all his movements, he went farther into the woods,
and on Assumption Day he there began the Lent which he desired to
observe in honor of the Archangel Michael and the celestial host.
Genius has its modesty as well as love. The poet, the artist, the saint,
need to be alone when the Spirit comes to move them. Every effort of
thought, of imagination, or of will is a prayer, and one does not pray
in public.
Alas for the man who has not in his inmost heart some secret which may
not be told, because it cannot be spoken, and because if it were spoken
it could not be understood. SECRETUM MEUM MIHI! Jesus felt it deeply:
the raptures of Tabor are brief; they may not be told.
Before these soul mysteries materialists and devotees often meet and are
of one mind in demanding precision in those things which can the least
endure it.
The believer asks in what spot on the Verna Francis received the
stigmata; whether the seraph which appeared to him was Jesus or a
celestial spirit; what words were spoken as he imprinted them upon
him;[13] and he no more understands that hour when Francis swooned with
woe and love than the materialist, who asks to see with his eyes and
touch with his hands the gaping wound.
Let us try to avoid these extremes. Let us hear what the documents give
us, and not seek to do them violence, to wrest from them what they do
not tell, what they cannot tell.
They show us Francis distressed for the future of the Order, and with an
infinite desire for new spiritual progress.
He was consumed with the fever of saints, that need of immolation which
wrung from St. Theresa the passionate cry, "Either to suffer or to die!"
He was bitterly reproaching himself with not having been found worthy of
martyrdom, not having been able to give himself for Him who gave himself
for us.
We touch here upon one of the most powerful and mysterious elements of
the Christian life. We may very easily not understand it, but we may not
for all that deny it. It is the root of true mysticism.[14] The really
new thing that Jesus brought into the world was that, feeling himself in
perfect union with the heavenly Father, he called all men to unite
themselves to him and through him to God: "I am the vine, and ye are the
branches; he who abides in me and I in him brings forth much fruit, for
apart from me ye can do nothing."
The Christ not only preached this union, he made it felt. On the evening
of his last day he instituted its sacrament, and there is probably no
sect which denies that communion is at once the symbol, the principle,
and the end of the religious life. For eighteen centuries Christians who
differ on everything else cannot but look with one accord to him who in
the upper chamber instituted the rite of the new times.
The night before he died he took the bread and brake it and distributed
it to them, saying, "TAKE AND EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY."
Jesus, while presenting union with himself as the very foundation of the
new life,[15] took care to point out to his brethren that this union
was before all things a sharing in his work, in his struggles, and his
sufferings: "Let him that would be my disciple take up his cross and
follow me."
St. Paul entered so perfectly into the Master's thought in this respect
that he uttered a few years later this cry of a mysticism that has never
been equalled: "I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live ... or
rather, it is not I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." This
utterance is not an isolated exclamation with him, it is the very centre
of his religious consciousness, and he goes so far as to say, at the
risk of scandalizing many a Christian: "I fill up in my body that which
is lacking of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is
the Church."
Perhaps it has not been useless to enter into these thoughts, to show to
what point Francis during the last years of his life, where he renews in
his body the passion of Christ, is allied to the apostolic tradition.
In the solitudes of the Verna, as formerly at St. Damian, Jesus
presented himself to him under his form of the Crucified One, the man of
sorrows.[16]
That this intercourse has been described to us in a poetic and inexact
form is nothing surprising. It is the contrary that would be surprising.
In the paroxysms of divine love there are _ineffabilia_ which, far from
being able to relate them or make them understood, we can hardly recall
to our own minds.
Francis on the Verna was even more absorbed than usual in his ardent
desire to suffer for Jesus and with him. His days went by divided
between exercises of piety in the humble sanctuary on the mountain-top
and meditation in the depths of the forest. It even happened to him to
forget the services, and to remain several days alone in some cave of
the rock, going over in his heart the memories of Golgotha. At other
times he would remain for long hours at the foot of the altar, reading
and re-reading the Gospel, and entreating God to show him the way in
which he ought to walk.[17]
The book almost always opened of itself to the story of the Passion, and
this simple coincidence, though easy enough to explain, was enough of
itself to excite him.
The vision of the Crucified One took the fuller possession of his
faculties as the day of the Elevation of the Holy Cross drew near
(September 14th), a festival now relegated to the background, but in the
thirteenth century celebrated with a fervor and zeal very natural for a
solemnity which might be considered the patronal festival of the
Crusades.
Francis doubled his fastings and prayers, "quite transformed into Jesus
by love and compassion," says one of the legends. He passed the night
before the festival alone in prayer, not far from the hermitage. In the
morning he had a vision. In the rays of the rising sun, which after the
chill of night came to revive his body, he suddenly perceived a strange
form.
A seraph, with outspread wings, flew toward him from the edge of the
horizon, and bathed his soul in raptures unutterable. In the centre of
the vision appeared a cross, and the seraph was nailed upon it. When
the vision disappeared, he felt sharp sufferings mingling with the
ecstasy of the first moments. Stirred to the very depths of his being,
he was anxiously seeking the meaning of it all, when he perceived upon
his body the stigmata of the Crucified.[18]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The passes that give access to the Casentino have all about
one thousand metres of altitude. Until the most recent years
there was no road properly so called.
[2] In France Mount Aiguille, one of the seven wonders of
Dauphiny, presents the same aspect and the same geological
formation. St. Odile also recalls the Verna, but is very much
smaller.
[3] The summit has an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they
call it the _Verna_, in Latin _Alvernus_. The etymology, which
has tested the acuteness of the learned, appears to be very
simple; the verb _vernare_, used by Dante, signifies make cold,
freeze.
[4] Name of the highest point on the plateau. Hardly
three-quarters of an hour from the monastery, and not two hours
and a half, as these worthy anchorites believed. This is said
for the benefit of tourists ... and pilgrims.
[5] The forest has been preserved as a relic. Alexander IV.
fulminated excommunication against whomever should cut down the
firs of Verna. As to the birds, it is enough to pass a day at
the monastery to be amazed at their number and variety. M. C.
Beni has begun at Stia (in Casentino) an ornithological
collection which already includes more than five hundred and
fifty varieties.
[6] 1 Cel., 91; Bon., 188; _Fior. i., consid._
[7] _Fior. i., consid.;_ _Conform._, 176b, 1.
[8] Cel., 2, 15; Bon., 100. _Fior. i., consid._
[9] Bon., 118. _Fior. i., consid._
[10] 2 Cel., 100.
[11] _Fior. ii., consid._
[12] The ruins of the castle of Chiusi are three quarters of an
hour from Verna.
[13] _Fior. iv. and v. consid._ These two considerations appear
to be the result of a reworking of the primitive document. The
latter no doubt included the three former, which the continuer
has interpolated and lengthened. Cf. _Conform._, 231a, 1;
_Spec._, 91b, 92a, 97; A. SS., pp. 860 ff.
[14] In current language we often include under the word
mysticism all the tendencies--often far from Christian--which
give predominance in the religious life to vague poetic
elements, impulses of the heart. The name of mystic ought to be
applied only to those Christians to whom _immediate_ relations
with Jesus form the basis of the religious life. In this sense
St. Paul (whose theologico-philosophical system is one of the
most powerful efforts of the human mind to explain sin and
redemption) is at the same time the prince of mystics.
[15] He did not desire to institute a religion, for he felt the
vanity of observances and dogmas. (The apostles continued to
frequent the Jewish temple. Acts, ii., 46; iii., 1; v., 25;
xxi., 26.) He desired to inoculate the world with a new life.
[16] 2 Cel., 3, 29; cf. 1 Cel., 115; 3 Soc., 13 and 14; 2 Cel.,
1, 6; 2 Cel., 3, 123 and 131; Bon., 57; 124; 203; 204; 224; 225;
309; 310; 311; _Conform._, 229b ff.
[17] 1 Cel., 91-94; Bon., 189, 190.
[18] See the annotations of Brother Leo upon the autograph of
St. Francis (Crit. Study, p. 357) and 1 Cel., 94, 95; Bon., 191,
192, 193 (3 Soc., 69, 70); _Fior. iii. consid._ Cf. _Auct. vit.
sec._; A. SS. p. 649. It is to be noted that Thomas of Celano (1
Cel., 95), as well as all the primitive documents, describe the
stigmata as being fleshy excrescences, recalling in form and
color the nails with which the limbs of Jesus were pierced. No
one speaks of those gaping, sanguineous wounds which were
imagined later. Only the mark at the side was a wound, whence at
times exuded a little blood. Finally, Thomas of Celano says that
after the seraphic vision _began to appear, coeperunt apparere
signa clavorum_. Vide Appendix: Study of the Stigmata.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVII
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
Autumn, 1224-Autumn, 1225
The morning after St. Michael's Day (September 30, 1224) Francis quitted
Verna and went to Portiuncula. He was too much exhausted to think of
making the journey on foot, and Count Orlando put a horse at his
disposal.
We can imagine the emotion with which he bade adieu to the mountain on
which had been unfolded the drama of love and pain which had consummated
the union of his entire being with the Crucified One.
Amor, amor, Gesu desideroso,
Amor voglio morire,
Te abrazando
Amor, dolce Gesu, meo sposo,
Amor, amor, la morte te domando,
Amor, amor, Gesu si pietoso
Tu me te dai in te transformato
Pensa ch'io vo spasmando
Non so o io me sia
Gesu speranza mia
Ormai va, dormi in amore.
So sang Giacopone dei Todi in the raptures of a like love.[1]
If we are to believe a recently published document,[2] Brother Masseo,
one of those who remained on the Verna, made a written account of the
events of this day.
They set out early in the morning. Francis, after having given his
directions to the Brothers, had had a look and a word for everything
around; for the rocks, the flowers, the trees, for brother hawk, a
privileged character which was authorized to enter his cell at all
times, and which came every morning, with the first glimmer of dawn, to
remind him of the hour of service.[3]
Then the little band set forth upon the path leading to
Monte-Acuto.[4] Arrived at the gap from whence one gets the last sight
of the Verna, Francis alighted from his horse, and kneeling upon the
earth, his face turned toward the mountain, "Adieu," he said, "mountain
of God, sacred mountain, _mons coagulatus, mons pinguis, mons in quo
bene placitum est Deo habitare_; adieu Monte-Verna, may God bless thee,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; abide in peace; we shall never
see one another more."
Has not this artless scene a delicious and poignant sweetness? He must
surely have uttered these words, in which suddenly the Italian does not
suffice and Francis is obliged to resort to the mystical language of
the breviary to express his feelings.
A few minutes later the rock of the ecstacy had disappeared. The descent
into the valley is rapid. The Brothers had decided to spend the night at
Monte-Casale, the little hermitage above Borgo San-Sepolcro. All of
them, even those who were to remain on the Verna, were still following
their master. As for him, absorbed in thought he had become entirely
oblivious to what was going on, and did not even perceive the noisy
enthusiasm which his passage aroused in the numerous villages along the
Tiber.
At Borgo San-Sepolcro he received a real ovation without even then
coming to himself; but when they had some time quitted the town, he
seemed suddenly to awake, and asked his companion if they ought not soon
to arrive there.[5]
The first evening at Monte Casale was marked by a miracle. Francis
healed a friar who was possessed.[6] The next morning, having decided
to pass several days in this hermitage, he sent the brothers back to the
Verna, and with them Count Orlando's horse.
In one of the villages through which they had passed the day before a
woman had been lying several days between death and life unable to give
birth to her child. Those about her had only learned of the passage of
the saint through their village when he was too far distant to be
overtaken. We may judge of the joy of these poor people when the rumor
was spread that he was about to return. They went to meet him, and were
terribly disappointed on finding only the friars. Suddenly an idea
occurred to them: taking the bridle of the horse consecrated by the
touch of Francis's hands, they carried it to the sufferer, who, having
laid it upon her body, gave birth to her child without the slightest
pain.[7]
This miracle, established by narratives entirely authentic, shows the
degree of enthusiasm felt by the people for the person of Francis. As
for him, after a few days at Monte-Casale, he set out with Brother Leo
for Città di Castello. He there healed a woman suffering from frightful
nervous disorders, and remained an entire month preaching in this city
and its environs. When he once more set forth winter had almost closed
in. A peasant lent him his ass, but the roads were so bad that they were
unable to reach any sort of shelter before nightfall. The unhappy
travellers were obliged to pass the night under a rock; the shelter was
more than rudimentary, the wind drifted the snow in upon them, and
nearly froze the unlucky peasant, who with abominable oaths heaped
curses on Francis; but the latter replied with such cheerfulness that he
made him at last forget both the cold and his bad humor.
On the morrow the saint reached Portiuncula. He seems to have made only
a brief halt there, and to have set forth again almost immediately to
evangelize Southern Umbria.
It is impossible to follow him in this mission. Brother Elias
accompanied him, but so feeble was he that Elias could not conceal his
uneasiness as to his life.[8]
Ever since his return from Syria (August, 1220), he had been growing
continually weaker, but his fervor had increased from day to day.
Nothing could check him, neither suffering nor the entreaties of the
Brothers; seated on an ass he would sometimes go over three or four
villages in one day. Such excessive toil brought on an infirmity even
more painful than any he had hitherto suffered from: he was threatened
with loss of sight.[9]
Meanwhile a sedition had forced Honorius III. to leave Rome (end of
April, 1225). After passing a few weeks at Tivoli, he established
himself at Rieti, where he remained until the end of 1226.[10]
The pope's arrival had drawn to this city, with the entire pontifical
court, several physicians of renown; Cardinal Ugolini, who had come in
the pope's train, hearing of Francis's malady, summoned him to Rieti for
treatment. But notwithstanding Brother Elias's entreaties Francis
hesitated a long time as to accepting the invitation.[11] It seemed to
him that a sick man has but one thing to do; place himself purely and
simply in the hands of the heavenly Father. What is pain to a soul that
is fixed in God![12]
Elias, however, at last overcame his objections, and the journey was
determined upon, but first Francis desired to go and take leave of
Clara, and enjoy a little rest near her.
He remained at St. Damian much longer than he had proposed to do[13]
(end of July to beginning of September, 1225). His arrival at this
beloved monastery was marked by a terrible aggravation of his malady.
For fifteen days he was so completely blind that he could not even
distinguish light. The care lavished upon him produced no result, since
every day he passed long hours in weeping--tears of penitence, he said,
but also of regret.[14] Ah, how different they were from those tears
of his moments of inspiration and emotion, which had flowed over a
countenance all illumined with joy! They had seen him, in such moments,
take up two bits of wood, and, accompanying himself with this rustic
violin, improvise French songs in which he would pour out the abundance
of his heart.[15]
But the radiance of genius and hope had become dimmed. Rachel weeps for
her children, and will not be comforted because they are not. There are
in the tears of Francis this same _quia non sunt_ for his spiritual
sons.
But if there are irremediable pains there are none which may not be at
once elevated and softened, when we endure them at the side of those who
love us.
In this respect his companions could not be of much help to him. Moral
consolations are possible only from our peers, or when two hearts are
united by a mystical passion so great that they mingle and understand
one another.
"Ah, if the Brothers knew what I suffer," St. Francis said a few days
before the impression of the stigmata, "with what pity and compassion
they would be moved!"
But they, seeing him who had laid cheerfulness upon them as a duty
becoming more and more sad and keeping aloof from them, imagined that he
was tortured with temptations of the devil.[16]
Clara divined that which could not be uttered. At St. Damian her friend
was looking back over all the past: what memories lived again in a
single glance! Here, the olive-tree to which, a brilliant cavalier, he
had fastened his horse; there, the stone bench where his friend, the
priest of the poor chapel, used to sit; yonder, the hiding-place in
which he had taken refuge from the paternal wrath, and, above all, the
sanctuary with the mysterious crucifix of the decisive hour.
In living over these pictures of the radiant past, Francis aggravated
his pain; yet they spoke to him of other things than death and regret.
Clara was there, as steadfast, as ardent as ever. Long ago transformed
by admiration, she was now transfigured by compassion. Seated at the
feet of him whom she loved with more than earthly love she felt the
soreness of his soul, and the failing of his heart. After that, what did
it matter that Francis's tears became more abundant to the point of
making him blind for a fortnight? Soothing would come; the sister of
consolation would give him peace once more.
And first she kept him near her, and, herself taking part in the labor,
she made him a large cell of reeds in the monastery garden, that he
might be entirely at liberty as to his movements.
How could he refuse a hospitality so thoroughly Franciscan? It was
indeed only too much so: legions of rats and mice infested this retired
spot; at night they ran over Francis's bed with an infernal uproar, so
that he could find no repose from his sufferings. But he soon forgot all
that when near his sister-friend. Once again she gave back to him faith
and courage. "A single sunbeam," he used to say, "is enough to drive
away many shadows!"
Little by little the man of the former days began to show himself, and
at times the Sisters would hear, mingling with the murmur of the olive
trees and pines, the echo of unfamiliar songs, which seemed to come from
the cell of reeds.
One day he had seated himself at the monastery table after a long
conversation with Clara. The meal had hardly begun when suddenly he
seemed to be rapt away in ecstasy.
"_Laudato sia lo Signore!_" he cried on coming to himself. He had just
composed the Canticle of the Sun.[17]
TEXT[18]
INCIPIUNT LAUDES CREATURARUM
QUAS FECIT BEATUS FRANCISCUS AD LAUDEM ET HONOREM
DEI
CUM ESSET INFIRMUS AD SANCTUM DAMIANUM.
ALTISSIMU, onnipotente, bon signore,
tue so le laude la gloria e l'onore et onne benedictione.
Ad te sole, altissimo, se konfano
et nullu homo ene dignu te mentovare.
Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature
spetialmente messor lo frate sole,
lo quale jorna, et illumini per lui;
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore;
de te, altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora luna e le stelle,
in celu l' ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate vento
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per le quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sor acqua,
la quale è multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu,
per lo quale ennallumini la nocte,
ed ello è bello et jucundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
la quale ne sustenta et governa
et produce diversi fructi con colorite flori et herba.
Laudato si, mi signore, per quilli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore
et sosteugo infirmitate et tribulatione,
beati quilli ke sosterrano in pace,
ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra morte corporale,
de la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare:
guai a quilli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;
beati quilli ke se trovarà ne le tue sanctissime voluntati,
ka la morte secunda nol farrà male.
Laudate et benedicete mi signore et rengratiate
et serviteli cum grande humilitate.
TRANSLATION.[19]
O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise,
glory, honor, and all blessing! {To thee alone, Most High, do
they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce thy
Name.}
Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures, and specially our
brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the
light; fair is he and shines with a very great splendor: O Lord,
he signifies to us thee!
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars,
the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and
cloud, calms and all weather by the which thou upholdest life in
all creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable
unto us and humble and precious and clean.
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou
givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant
and very mighty and strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth
sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits and
flowers of many colors, and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for his
love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed
are they who peaceably shall endure, for thou, O most Highest,
shalt give them a crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from
which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin!
Blessed are they who are found walking by thy most holy will,
for the second death shall have no power to do them harm.
Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto him and serve
him with great humility.
Joy had returned to Francis, joy as deep as ever. For a whole week he
forsook his breviary and passed his days in repeating the Canticle of
the Sun.
During a night of sleeplessness he had heard a voice saying to him, "If
thou hadst faith as a grain of mustard seed, thou wouldst say to this
mountain, 'Be thou removed from there,' and it would move away." Was not
the mountain that of his sufferings, the temptation to murmur and
despair? "Be it, Lord, according to thy word," he had replied with all
his heart, and immediately he had felt that he was delivered.[20]
He might have perceived that the mountain had not greatly changed its
place, but for several days he had turned his eyes away from it, he had
been able to forget its existence.
For a moment he thought of summoning to his side Brother Pacifico, the
King of Verse, to retouch his canticle; his idea was to attach to him a
certain number of friars, who would go with him from village to village,
preaching. After the sermon they would sing the Hymn of the Sun; and
they were to close by saying to the crowd gathered around them in the
public places, "We are God's jugglers. We desire to be paid for our
sermon and our song. Our payment shall be that you persevere in
penitence."[21]
"Is it not in fact true," he would add, "that the servants of God are
really like jugglers, intended to revive the hearts of men and lead them
into spiritual joy?"
The Francis of the old raptures had come back, the layman, the poet, the
artist.
The Canticle of the Creatures is very noble: it lacks, however, one
strophe; if it was not upon Francis's lips, it was surely in his heart:
Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara; thou hast made her silent,
active, and sagacious, and by her thy light shines in our
hearts.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thirty-sixth and last strophe of the song
_Amor de caritade
Perche m' hai si ferito?_
found in the collection of St. Francis's works.
[2] By the Abbé Amoni, at the close of his edition of the Fioretti,
Rome, 1 vol., 12mo, 1889, pp. 390-392. We can but once more
regret the silence of the editor as to the manuscript whence
he has drawn these charming pages. Certain indications seem
unfavorable to the author having written it before the second
half of the thirteenth century; on the other hand, the object
of a forgery is not evident. An apochryphal piece always
betrays itself by some interested purpose, but here the story
is of an infantine simplicity.
[3] 2 Cel., 3, 104; Bon., 119; _Fior. ii. consid._
[4] _Parti san Francesco per Monte-Acuto prendendo la via di
Monte-Arcoppe e del foresto._ This road from the Verna to Borgo
San-Sepolero is far from being the shortest or the easiest, for
instead of leading directly to the plain it lingers for long
hours among the hills. Is not all Francis in this choice?
[5] 2 Cel., 3, 41; Bon., 141; _Fior. iv. consid._
[6] 1 Cel., 63 and 64; _Fior. iv. consid._
[7] 1 Cel., 70; _Fior. iv. consid._
[8] 1 Cel., 109; 69; Bon. 208. Perhaps we must refer to this
circuit the visit to Celano. 2 Cel., 3, 30; _Spec._, 22; Bon.,
156 and 157.
[9] 1 Cel., 97 and 98; 2 Cel., 3, 137; Bon., 205 and 206.
[10] Richard of St. Germano, _ann. 1225_. Cf. Potthast, 7400 ff.
[11] 1 Cel., 98 and 99; 2 Cel., 3, 137; _Fior._, 19.
[12] 2 Cel., 3, 110; Rule of 1221, _cap._ 10.
[13] See the reference to the sources after the Canticle of the
Sun.
[14] 2 Cel., 3, 138.
[15] This incident appeared to the authors so peculiar that they
emphasized it with an _ut oculis videmus_. 2 Cel., 3, 67;
_Spec._, 119a.
[16] _Spec._, 123a; 2 Cel., 3, 58.
[17] I have combined Celano's narrative with that of the
Conformities. The details given in the latter document appear to
me entirely worthy of faith. It is easy to see, however, why
Celano omitted them, and it would be difficult to explain how
they could have been later invented. 2 Cel., 3, 138; _Conform._,
42b, 2; 119b, 1; 184b, 2; 239a, 2; _Spec._, 123a ff.; _Fior._,
19.
[18] After the Assisan MS., 338, f^o 33a. Vide p. 354. Father
Panfilo da Magliano has already published it after this
manuscript: _Storia compendiosa di San Francesco_, Rome, 2
vols., 18mo, 1874-1876. The Conformities, 202b, 2-203a 1, give a
version of it which differs from this only by insignificant
variations. The learned philologue Monaci has established a very
remarkable critical text in his _Crestomazia italiana dei primi
secoli_. Citta di Castello, fas. i., 1889, 8vo, pp. 29-31. This
thoroughly scrupulous work dispenses me from indicating
manuscripts and editions more at length.
[19] Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series.
Macmillan & Company, 1883.
[20] 2 Cel., 3, 58; _Spec._, 123a.
[21] _Spec._, 124a. Cf. _Miscellanea_ (1889), iv., p. 88.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST YEAR
September, 1225-End of September, 1226
What did Ugolini think when they told him that Francis was planning to
send his friars, transformed into _Joculatores Domini_, to sing up and
down the country the Canticle of Brother Sun? Perhaps he never heard of
it. His _protégé_ finally decided to accept his invitation and left St.
Damian in the course of the month of September.
The landscape which lies before the eyes of the traveller from Assisi,
when he suddenly emerges upon the plain of Rieti, is one of the most
beautiful in Europe. From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of
the Velino, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose clouds of
mist are visible, and then plunges into the defiles in whose depths the
torrent rushes noisily, choked by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a
virgin forest. On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on
their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are feudal
fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda, more giddy, more
fantastic than any which Gustave Doré's fancy ever dreamed.
After four hours of walking, the defile opens out and you find yourself
without transition in a broad valley, sparkling with light.
Rieti, the only city in this plain of several leagues, appears far away
at the other extremity, commanded by hills of a thoroughly tropical
aspect, behind which rise the mighty Apennines, almost always covered
with snow.
The highway goes directly toward this town, passing between tiny lakes;
here and there roads lead off to little villages which you see, on the
hillside, between the cultivated fields and the edge of the forests;
there are Stroncone, Greccio, Cantalice, Poggio-Buscone, and ten other
small towns, which have given more saints to the Church than a whole
province of France.
Between the inhabitants of the district and their neighbors of Umbria,
properly so called, the difference is extreme. They are all of the
striking type of the Sabine peasants, and they remain to this day entire
strangers to new customs. One is born a Capuchin there as elsewhere one
is born a soldier, and the traveller needs to have his wits about him
not to address every man he meets as Reverend Father.
Francis had often gone over this district in every direction. Like its
neighbor, the hilly March of Ancona, it was peculiarly prepared to
receive the new gospel. In these hermitages, with their almost
impossible simplicity, perched near the villages on every side, without
the least care for material comfort, but always where there is the
widest possible view, was perpetuated a race of Brothers Minor,
impassioned, proud, stubborn, almost wild, who did not wholly understand
their master, who did not catch his exquisite simplicity, his
impossibility of hating, his dreams of social and political renovation,
his poetry and delicacy, but who did understand the lover of nature and
of poverty.[1] They did more than understand him; they lived his
life, and from that Christmas festival observed in the woods of Greccio
down to to-day they have remained the simple and popular representatives
of the Strict Observance. From them comes to us the Legend of the Three
Companions, the most life-like and true of all the portraits of the
Poverello, and it was there, in a cell three paces long, that Giovanni
di Parma had his apocalyptic visions.
The news of Francis's arrival quickly spread, and long before he reached
Rieti the population had come out to meet him.
To avoid this noisy welcome he craved the hospitality of the priest of
St. Fabian. This little church, now known under the name of Our Lady of
the Forest, is somewhat aside from the road upon a grassy mound about a
league from the city. He was heartily welcomed, and desiring to remain
there for a little, prelates and devotees began to flock thither in the
next few days.
It was the time of the early grapes. It is easy to imagine the
disquietude of the priest on perceiving the ravages made by these
visitors among his vines, his best source of revenue, but he probably
exaggerated the damage. Francis one day heard him giving vent to his bad
humor. "Father," he said, "it is useless for you to disturb yourself for
what you cannot hinder; but, tell me, how much wine do you get on an
average?"
"Fourteen measures," replied the priest.
"Very well, if you have less than twenty, I undertake to make up the
difference."
This promise reassured the worthy man, and when at the vintage he
received twenty measures, he had no hesitation in believing in a
miracle.[2]
Upon Ugolini's entreaties Francis had accepted the hospitality of the
bishop's palace in Rieti. Thomas of Celano enlarges with delight upon
the marks of devotion lavished on Francis by this prince of the Church.
Unhappily all this is written in that pompous and confused style of
which diplomats and ecclesiastics appear to have by nature the secret.
Francis entered into the condition of a relic in his lifetime. The mania
for amulets displayed itself around him in all its excesses. People
quarrelled not only over his clothing, but even over his hair and the
parings of his nails.[3]
Did these merely exterior demonstrations disgust him? Did he sometimes
think of the contrast between these honors offered to his body, which he
picturesquely called Brother Ass, and the subversion of his ideal? We
cannot tell. If he had feelings of this kind those who surrounded him
were not the men to understand them, and it would be idle to expect any
expression of them from his pen.
Soon after he had a relapse, and asked to be removed to
Monte-Colombo,[4] a hermitage an hour distant from the city, hidden
amidst trees and scattered rocks. He had already retired thither several
times, notably when he was preparing the Rule of 1223.
The doctors, having exhausted the therapeutic arsenal of the time,
decided to resort to cauterization; it was decided to draw a rod of
white-hot iron across his forehead.
When the poor patient saw them bringing in the brazier and the
instruments he had a moment of terror; but immediately making the sign
of the cross over the glowing iron, "Brother fire," he said, "you are
beautiful above all creatures; be favorable to me in this hour; you know
how much I have always loved you; be then courteous to-day."
Afterward, when his companions, who had not had the courage to remain,
came back he said to them, smiling, "Oh, cowardly folk, why did you go
away? I felt no pain. Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it
again."
This experiment was no more successful than the other remedies. In vain
they quickened the wound on the forehead, by applying plasters, salves,
and even by making incisions in it; the only result was to increase the
pains of the sufferer.[5]
One day, at Rieti, whither he had again been carried, he thought that a
little music would relieve his pain. Calling a friar who had formerly
been clever at playing the guitar, he begged him to borrow one; but the
friar was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, and Francis gave
it up.
God took pity upon him; the following night he sent an invisible angel
to give him such a concert as is never heard on earth.[6] Francis,
hearing it, lost all bodily feeling, say the Fioretti, and at one moment
the melody was so sweet and penetrating that if the angel had given one
more stroke of the bow, the sick man's soul would have left his
body.[7]
It seems that there was some amelioration of his state when the doctors
left him; we find him during the months of this winter, 1225-1226, in
the most remote hermitages of the district, for as soon as he had a
little strength he was determined to begin preaching again.
He went to Poggio-Buscone[8] for the Christmas festival. People
flocked thither in crowds from all the country round to see and hear
him. "You come here," he said, "expecting to find a great saint; what
will you think when I tell you that I ate meat all through Advent?"[9]
At St. Eleutheria,[10] at a time of extreme cold which tried him much,
he had sewn some pieces of stuff into his own tunic and that of his
companion, so as to make their garments a little warmer. One day his
companion came home with a fox-skin, with which in his turn he proposed
to line his master's tunic. Francis rejoiced much over it, but would
permit this excess of consideration for his body only on condition that
the piece of fur should be placed on the outside over his chest.
All these incidents, almost insignificant at a first view, show how he
detested hypocrisy even in the smallest things.
We will not follow him to his dear Greccio,[11] nor even to the
hermitage of St. Urbano, perched on one of the highest peaks of the
Sabine.[12] The accounts which we have of the brief visits he made
there at this time tell us nothing new of his character or of the
history of his life. They simply show that the imaginations of those who
surrounded him were extraordinarily overheated; the least incidents
immediately took on a miraculous coloring.[13]
The documents do not say how it came about that he decided to go to
Sienna. It appears that there was in that city a physician of great fame
as an oculist. The treatment he prescribed was no more successful than
that of the others; but with the return of spring Francis made a new
effort to return to active life. We find him describing the ideal
Franciscan monastery,[14] and another day explaining a passage in the
Bible to a Dominican.
Did the latter, a doctor in theology, desire to bring the rival Order
into ridicule by showing its founder incapable of explaining a somewhat
difficult verse? It appears extremely likely. "My good father," he said,
"how do you understand this saying of the prophet Ezekiel, 'If thou dost
not warn the wicked of his wickedness, I will require his soul of thee?'
I am acquainted with many men whom I know to be in a state of mortal
sin, and yet I am not always reproaching them for their vices. Am I,
then, responsible for their souls?"
At first Francis excused himself, alleging his ignorance, but urged by
his interlocutor he said at last: "Yes, the true servant unceasingly
rebukes the wicked, but he does it most of all by his conduct, by the
truth which shines forth in his words, by the light of his example, by
all the radiance of his life."[15]
He soon suffered so grave a relapse that the Brothers thought his last
hour had come. They were especially affrighted by the hemorrhages, which
reduced him to a state of extreme prostration. Brother Elias hastened to
him. At his arrival the invalid felt in himself such an improvement that
they could acquiesce in his desire to be taken back to Umbria. Toward
the middle of April they set out, going in the direction of Cortona. It
is the easiest route, and the delightful hermitage of that city was one
of the best ordered to permit of his taking some repose. He doubtless
remained there a very short time: he was in haste to see once more the
skies of his native country, Portiuncula, St. Damian, the Carceri, all
those paths and hamlets which one sees from the terraces of Assisi and
which recalled to him so many sweet memories.
Instead of going by the nearest road, they made a long circuit by Gubbio
and Nocera, to avoid Perugia, fearing some attempt of the inhabitants to
get possession of the Saint. Such a relic as the body of Francis lacked
little of the value of the sacred nail or the sacred lance.[16] Battles
were fought for less than that.
They made a short halt near Nocera, at the hermitage of Bagnara, on the
slopes of Monte-Pennino.[17] His companions were again very much
disturbed. The swelling which had shown itself in the lower limbs was
rapidly gaining the upper part of the body. The Assisans learned this,
and wishing to be prepared for whatever might happen sent their
men-at-arms to protect the Saint and hasten his return.
Bringing Francis back with them they stopped for food at the hamlet of
Balciano,[18] but in vain they begged the inhabitants to sell them
provisions. As the escort were confiding their discomfiture to the
friars, Francis, who knew these good peasants, said: "If you had asked
for food without offering to pay, you would have found all you wanted."
He was right, for, following his advice, they received for nothing all
that they desired.[19]
The arrival of the party at Assisi was hailed with frantic joy. This
time Francis's fellow-citizens were sure that the Saint was not going to
die somewhere else.[20]
Customs in this matter have changed too much for us to be able
thoroughly to comprehend the good fortune of possessing the body of a
saint. If you are ever so unlucky as to mention St. Andrew before an
inhabitant of Amalfi, you will immediately find him beginning to shout
"_Evviva San Andrea! Evviva San Andrea!_" Then with extraordinary
volubility he will relate to you the legend of the _Grande Protettore_,
his miracles past and present, those which he might have done if he had
chosen, but which he refrained from doing out of charity because St.
Januarius of Naples could not do as much. He gesticulates, throws
himself about, hustles you, more enthusiastic over his relic and more
exasperated by your coldness than a soldier of the Old Guard before an
enemy of the Emperor.
In the thirteenth century all Europe was like that.
We shall find here several incidents which we may be tempted to consider
shocking or even ignoble, if we do not make an effort to put them all
into their proper surroundings.
Francis was installed in the bishop's palace; he would have preferred to
be at Portiuncula, but the Brothers were obliged to obey the injunctions
of the populace, and to make assurance doubly sure, guards were placed
at all the approaches of the palace.
The abode of the Saint in this place was much longer than had been
anticipated. It perhaps lasted several months (July to September). This
dying man did not consent to die. He rebelled against death; in this
centre of the work his anxieties for the future of the Order, which a
little while before had been in the background, now returned, more
agonizing and terrible than ever.
"We must begin again," he thought, "create a new family who will not
forget humility, who will go and serve lepers and, as in the old times,
put themselves always, not merely in words, but in reality, below all
men."[21]
To feel that implacable work of destruction going on against which the
most submissive cannot keep from protesting: "My God, my God, why? why
hast thou forsaken me?" To be obliged to look on at the still more
dreaded decomposition of his Order; he, the lark, to be spied upon by
soldiers watching for his corpse--there was quite enough here to make
him mortally sad.
During these last weeks all his sighs were noted. The disappearance of
the greater part of the legend of the Three Companions certainly
deprives us of some touching stories, but most of the incidents have
been preserved for us, notwithstanding, in documents from a second hand.
Four Brothers had been especially charged to lavish care upon him: Leo,
Angelo, Rufino, and Masseo. We already know them; they are of those
intimate friends of the first days, who had heard in the Franciscan
gospel a call to love and liberty. And they too began to complain of
everything.[22]
One day one of them said to the sick man: "Father, you are going away to
leave us here; point out to us, then, if you know him, the one to whom
we might in all security confide the burden of the generalship."
Alas, Francis did not know the ideal Brother, capable of assuming such a
duty; but he took advantage of the question to sketch the portrait of
the perfect minister-general.[23]
We have two impressions of this portrait, the one which has been
retouched by Celano, and the original proof, much shorter and more
vague, but showing us Francis desiring that his successor shall have but
a single weapon, an unalterable love.
It was probably this question which suggested to him the thought of
leaving for his successors, the generals of the Order, a letter which
they should pass on from one to another, and where they should find, not
directions for particular cases, but the very inspiration of their
activity.[24]
To the Reverend Father in Christ, N ..., Minister-General of the
entire Order of the Brothers Minor. May God bless thee and keep
thee in his holy love.
Patience in all things and everywhere, this, my Brother, is what
I specially recommend. Even if they oppose thee, if they strike
thee, thou shouldst be grateful to them and desire that it
should be thus and not otherwise.
In this will be manifest thy love for God and for me, his
servant and thine; that there shall not be a single friar in the
world who, having sinned as much as one can sin, and coming
before thee, shall go away without having received thy pardon.
And if he does not ask it, do thou ask it for him, whether he
wills or not.
And if he should return again a thousand times before thee, love
him more than myself, in order to lead him to well-doing. Have
pity always on these Brothers.
These words show plainly enough how in former days Francis had directed
the Order; in his dream the ministers-general were to stand in a
relation of pure affection, of tender devotion toward those under them;
but was this possible for one at the head of a family whose branches
extended over the entire world? It would be hazardous to say, for among
his successors have not been wanting distinguished minds and noble
hearts; but save for Giovanni di Parma and two or three others, this
ideal is in sharp contrast with the reality. St. Bonaventura himself
will drag his master and friend, this very Giovanni of Parma, before an
ecclesiastical tribunal, will cause him to be condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, and it will need the intervention of a cardinal outside of
the Order to secure the commutation of this sentence.[25]
The agonies of grief endured by the dying Francis over the decadence of
the Order would have been less poignant if they had not been mingled
with self-reproaches for his own cowardice. Why had he deserted his
post, given up the direction of his family, if not from idleness and
selfishness? And now it was too late to take back this step; and in
hours of frightful anguish he asked himself if God would not hold him
responsible for this subversion of his ideal.
"Ah, if I could go once again to the chapter-general," he would sigh, "I
would show them what my will is."
Shattered as he was by fever, he would suddenly rise up in his bed,
crying with a despairing intensity: "Where are they who have ravished
my brethren from me? Where are they who have stolen away my family?"
Alas, the real criminals were nearer to him than he thought. The
provincial ministers, of whom he appears to have been thinking when he
thus spoke, were only instruments in the hands of the clever Brother
Elias; and he--what else was he doing but putting his intelligence and
address at Cardinal Ugolini's service?
Far from finding any consolation in those around him, Francis was
constantly tortured by the confidences of his companions, who, impelled
by mistaken zeal, aggravated his pain instead of calming it.[26]
"Forgive me, Father," said one of them to him one day, "but many
people have already thought what I am going to say to you. You
know how, in the early days, by God's grace the Order walked in
the path of perfection; for all that concerns poverty and love,
as well as for all the rest, the Brothers were but one heart and
one soul. But for some time past all that is entirely changed:
it is true that people often excuse the Brothers by saying that
the Order has grown too large to keep up the old observances;
they even go so far as to claim that infidelities to the Rule,
such as the building of great monasteries, are a means of
edification of the people, and so the primitive simplicity and
poverty are held for nothing. Evidently all these abuses are
displeasing to you; but then, people ask, why do you tolerate
them?"
"God forgive you, brother." replied Francis. "Why do you lay at
my door things with which I have nothing to do? So long as I had
the direction of the Order, and the Brothers persevered in their
vocation I was able, in spite of weakness, to do what was
needful. But when I saw that, without caring for my example or
my teaching, they walked in the way you have described, I
confided them to the Lord and to the ministers. It is true that
when I relinquished the direction, alleging my incapacity as the
motive, if they had walked in the way of my wishes I should not
have desired that before my death they should have had any other
minister than myself; though ill, though bedridden, even, I
should have found strength to perform the duties of my charge.
But this charge is wholly spiritual; I will not become an
executioner to strike and punish as political governors
must."[27]
Francis's complaints became so sharp and bitter that, to avoid scandal,
the greatest prudence was exercised with regard to those who were
permitted to see him.[28]
Disorder was everywhere, and every day brought its contingent of
subjects for sorrow. The confusion of ideas as to the practice of the
Rule was extreme; occult influences, which had been working for several
years, had succeeded in veiling the Franciscan ideal, not only from
distant Brothers, or those who had newly joined the Order, but even from
those who had lived under the influence of the founder.[29]
Under circumstances such as these, Francis dictated the letter to all
the members of the Order, which, as he thought would be read at the
opening of chapters and perpetuate his spiritual presence in them.[30]
In this letter he is perfectly true to himself; as in the past, he
desires to influence the Brothers, not by reproaches but by fixing their
eyes on the perfect holiness.
To all the revered and well-beloved Brothers Minor, to Brother A
...,[31] minister-general, its Lord, and to the
ministers-general who shall be after him, and to all the
ministers, custodians, and priests of this fraternity, humble in
Christ, and to all the simple and obedient Brothers, the oldest
and the most recent, Brother Francis, a mean and perishing man,
your little servant, gives greeting!
Hear, my Lords, you who are my sons and my brothers, give ear to
my words. Open your hearts and obey the voice of the Son of God.
Keep his commandments with all your hearts, and perfectly
observe his counsels. Praise him, for he is good, and glorify
him by your works.
God has sent you through all the world, that by your words and
example you may bear witness of him, and that you may teach all
men that he alone is all powerful. Persevere in discipline and
obedience, and with an honest and firm will keep that which you
have promised.
After this opening Francis immediately passes to the essential matter of
the letter, that of the love and respect due to the Sacrament of the
altar; faith in this mystery of love appeared to him indeed as the
salvation of the Order.
Was he wrong? How can a man who truly believes in the real presence of
the God-Man between the fingers of him who lifts up the host, not
consecrate his life to this God and to holiness? One has some difficulty
in imagining.
It is true that legions of devotees profess the most absolute faith in
this dogma, and we do not see that they are less bad; but faith with
them belongs in the intellectual sphere; it is the abdication of
reason, and in sacrificing their intelligence to God they are most happy
to offer to him an instrument which they very much prefer not to use.
To Francis the question presented itself quite differently; the thought
that there could be any merit in believing could never enter his mind;
the fact of the real presence was for him of almost concrete evidence.
Therefore his faith in this mystery was an energy of the heart, that the
life of God, mysteriously present upon the altar, might become the soul
of all his actions.
To the eucharistic transubstantiation, effected by the words of the
priest, he added another, that of his own heart.
God offers himself to us as to his children. This is why I beg
you, all of you, my brothers, kissing your feet, and with all
the love of which I am capable, to have all possible respect for
the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then addressing himself particularly to the priests:
Hearken, my brothers, if the blessed Virgin Mary is justly
honored for having carried Jesus in her womb, if John the
Baptist trembled because he dared not touch the Lord's head, if
the sepulchre in which for a little time he lay is regarded with
such great adoration, oh, how holy, pure, and worthy should be
the priest who touches with his hands, who receives into his
mouth and into his heart, and who distributes to others the
living, glorified Jesus, the sight of whom makes angels rejoice!
Understand your dignity, brother priests, and be holy, for he is
holy. Oh! what great wretchedness and what a frightful infirmity
to have him there present before you and to think of other
things. Let each man be struck with amazement, let the whole
earth tremble, let the heavens thrill with joy when the Christ,
the Son of the living God, descends upon the altar into the
hands of the priest. Oh, wonderful profundity! Oh, amazing
grace! Oh, triumph of humility! See, the Master of all things,
God, and the Son of God, humbles himself for our salvation, even
to disguising himself under the appearance of a bit of bread.
Contemplate, my brothers, this humility of God, and enlarge your
hearts before him; humble yourselves as well, that you, even
you, may be lifted up by him. Keep nothing for yourselves, that
he may receive you without reserve, who has given himself to you
without reserve.
We see with what vigor of love Francis's heart had laid hold upon the
idea of the communion.
He closes with long counsels to the Brothers, and after having conjured
them faithfully to keep their promises, all his mysticism breathes out
and is summed up in a prayer of admirable simplicity.
God Almighty, eternal, righteous, and merciful, give to us poor
wretches to do for thy sake all that we know of thy will, and to
will always what pleases thee; so that inwardly purified,
enlightened, and kindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may
follow in the footprints of thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ.
What separates this prayer from the effort to discern duty made by
choice spirits apart from all revealed religion? Very little in truth;
the words are different, the action is the same.
But Francis's solicitudes reached far beyond the limits of the Order.
His longest epistle is addressed to all Christians; its words are so
living that you fancy you hear a voice speaking behind you; and this
voice, usually as serene as that which from the mountain in Galilee
proclaimed the law of the new times, becomes here and there unutterably
sweet, like that which sounded in the upper chamber on the night of the
first eucharist.
As Jesus forgot the cross that was standing in the shadows, so Francis
forgets his sufferings, and, overcome with a divine sadness, thinks of
humanity, for each member of which he would give his life; he thinks of
his spiritual sons, the Brothers of Penitence, whom he is about to leave
without having been able to make them feel, as he would have had them
feel, the love for them with which he burns: "Father, I have given them
the words which thou hast given me.... For them I pray!"
The whole Franciscan gospel is in these words, but to understand the
fascination which it exerted we must have gone through the School of the
Middle Ages, and there listened to the interminable tournaments of
dialectics by which minds were dried up; we must have seen the Church of
the thirteenth century, honeycombed by simony and luxury, and only able,
under the pressure of heresy or revolt, to make a few futile efforts to
scotch the evil.
To all Christians, monks, clerics, or laymen, whether men or
women, to all who dwell in the whole world, Brother Francis,
their most submissive servitor, presents his duty and wishes the
true peace of heaven, and sincere love in the Lord.
Being the servitor of all men, I am bound to serve them and to
dispense to them the wholesome words of my Master. This is why,
seeing I am too weak and ill to visit each one of you in
particular, I have resolved to send you my message by this
letter, and to offer you the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Word of God, and of the Holy Spirit, which are spirit and life.
It would be puerile to expect here new ideas either in fact or form.
Francis's appeals are of value only by the spirit which animates them.
After having briefly recalled the chief features of the gospel, and
urgently recommended the communion, Francis addresses himself in
particular to certain categories of hearers, with special counsels.
Let the podestàs, governors, and those who are placed in
authority, exercise their functions with mercy, as they would be
judged with mercy by God....
Monks in particular, who have renounced the world, are bound to
do more and better than simple Christians, to renounce all that
is not necessary to them, and to have in hatred the vices and
sins of the body.... They should love their enemies, do good to
them who hate them, observe the precepts and counsels of our
Redeemer, renounce themselves, and subdue their bodies. And no
monk is bound to obedience, if in obeying he would be obliged to
commit a fault or a sin....
Let us not be wise and learned according to the flesh, but
simple, humble, and pure.... We should never desire to be above
others, but rather to be below, and to obey all men.
He closes by showing the foolishness of those who set their hearts on
the possession of earthly goods, and concludes by the very realistic
picture of the death of the wicked.
His money, his title, his learning, all that he believed himself
to possess, all are taken from him; his relatives and his
friends to whom he has given his fortune will come to divide it
among themselves, and will end by saying: "Curses on him, for he
might have given us more and he has not done it; he might have
amassed a larger fortune, and he has done nothing of the kind."
The worms will eat his body and the demons will consume his
soul, and thus he will lose both soul and body.
I, Brother Francis, your little servitor, I beg and conjure you
by the love that is in God, ready to kiss your feet, to receive
with humility and love these and all other words of our Lord
Jesus Christ and to conform your conduct to them. And let those
who devoutly receive them and understand them pass them on to
others. And if they thus persevere unto the end, may they be
blessed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.[32]
If Francis ever made a Rule for the Third Order it must have very nearly
resembled this epistle, and until this problematical document is found,
the letter shows what were originally these associations of Brothers of
Penitence. Everything in these long pages looks toward the development
of the mystic religious life in the heart of each Christian. But even
when Francis dictated them, this high view had become a Utopia, and the
Third Order was only one battalion more in the armies of the papacy.
We see that the epistles which we have just examined proceed definitely
from a single inspiration. Whether he is leaving instructions for his
successors, the ministers-general, whether he is writing to all the
present and future members of his Order, to all Christians or even to
the clergy,[33] Francis has only one aim, to keep on preaching after
his death, and perhaps, too, by putting into writing his message of
peace and love, to provide that he shall not be entirely travestied or
misunderstood.
Considered in connection with those sorrowful hours which saw their
birth, they form a whole whose import and meaning become singularly
energetic. If we would find the Franciscan spirit, it is here, in the
Rule of 1221, and in the Will that we must seek for it.
Neglect, and especially the storms which later overwhelmed the Order,
explain the disappearance of several other documents which would cast a
glimmer of poetry and joy over these sad days;[34] Francis had not
forgotten his sister-friend at St. Damian. Hearing that she had been
greatly disquieted by knowing him to be so ill, he desired to reassure
her: he still deceived himself as to his condition, and wrote to her
promising soon to go to see her.
To this assurance he added some affectionate counsels, advising her and
her companions not to go to extremes with their macerations. To set her
an example of cheerfulness he added to this letter a Laude in the
vulgar tongue which he had himself set to music.[35]
In that chamber of the episcopal palace in which he was as it were
imprisoned he had achieved a new victory, and it was doubtless that
which inspired his joy. The Bishop of Assisi, the irritable Guido,
always at war with somebody, was at this time quarrelling with the
podestà of the city; nothing more was needed to excite in the little
town a profound disquiet. Guido had excommunicated the podestà, and the
latter had issued a prohibition against selling and buying or making any
contract with ecclesiastics.
The difference grew more bitter, and no one appeared to dream of
attempting a reconciliation. We can the better understand Francis's
grief over all this by remembering that his very first effort had been
to bring peace into his native city, and that he considered the return
of Italy to union and concord to be the essential aim of his apostolate.
War in Assisi would be the final dissolution of his dream; the voice of
events crying brutally to him, "Thou hast wasted thy life!"
The dregs of this cup were spared him, thanks to an inspiration in which
breaks forth anew his natural play of imagination. To the Canticle of
the Sun he added a new strophe:
Be praised, Lord, for those who forgive for love of thee,
and bear trials and tribulations;
happy they who persevere in peace,
by thee, Most high, shall they be crowned.
Then, calling a friar, he charged him to beg the governor to betake
himself, with all the notables whom he could assemble, to the paved
square before the bishop's palace. The magistrate, to whom legend gives
the nobler part in the whole affair, at once yielded to the saint's
request.
When he arrived and the bishop had come forth from the palace,
two friars came forward and said: "Brother Francis has made to
the praise of God a hymn to which he prays you to listen
piously," and immediately they began to sing the Hymn of Brother
Sun, with its new strophe.
The governor listened, standing in an attitude of profound
attention, copiously weeping, for he dearly loved the blessed
Francis.
When the singing was ended, "Know in truth," said he, "that I
desire to forgive the lord bishop, that I wish and ought to look
upon him as my lord, for if one had even assassinated my brother
I should be ready to pardon the murderer." With these words he
threw himself at the bishop's feet, and said: "I am ready to do
whatsoever you would, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and
his servant Francis."
Then the bishop, taking him by the hand, lifted him up and said,
"With my position it would become me to be humble, but since I
am naturally too quick to wrath, thou must pardon me."[36]
This unexpected reconciliation was immediately looked upon as
miraculous, and increased still more the reverence of the Assisans for
their fellow-citizen.
The summer was drawing to a close. After a few days of relative
improvement Francis's sufferings became greater than ever: incapable of
movement, he even thought that he ought to give up his ardent desire to
see St. Damian and Portiuncula once more, and gave the brothers all his
directions about the latter sanctuary: "Never abandon it," he would
repeat to them, "for that place is truly sacred: it is the house of
God."[37]
It seemed to him that if the Brothers remained attached to that bit of
earth, that chapel ten feet long, those thatched huts, they would there
find the living reminder of the poverty of the early days, and could
never wander far from it.
One evening he grew worse with frightful rapidity; all the following
night he had hemorrhages which left not the slightest hope; the Brothers
hastening to him, he dictated a few lines in form of a Will and gave
them his blessing: "Adieu, my children; remain all of you in the fear of
God, abide always united to Christ; great trials are in store for you,
and tribulation draws nigh. Happy are they who persevere as they have
begun; for there will be scandals and divisions among you. As for me, I
am going to the Lord and my God. Yes, I have the assurance that I am
going to him whom I have served."[38]
During the following days, to the great surprise of those who were about
him, he again grew somewhat better; no one could understand the
resistance to death offered by this body so long worn out by suffering.
He himself began to hope again. A physician of Arezzo whom he knew well,
having come to visit him, "Good friend," Francis asked him, "how much
longer do you think I have to live?"
"Father," replied the other reassuringly, "this will all pass away, if
it pleases God."
"I am not a cuckoo,"[39] replied Francis smiling, using a popular
saying, "to be afraid of death. By the grace of the Holy Spirit I am so
intimately united to God that I am equally content to live or to die."
"In that case, father, from the medical point of view, your disease is
incurable, and I do not think that you can last longer than the
beginning of autumn."
At these words the poor invalid stretched out his hands as if to call on
God, crying with an indescribable expression of joy, "Welcome, Sister
Death!" Then he began to sing, and sent for Brothers Angelo and Leo.
On their arrival they were made, in spite of their emotion, to sing the
Canticle of the Sun. They were at the last doxology when Francis,
checking them, improvised the greeting to death:
Be praised, Lord, for our Sister the Death of the body,
whom no man may escape;
alas for them who die in a state of mortal sin;
happy they who are found conformed to thy most holy will,
for the second death will do to them no harm.
From this day the palace rang unceasingly with his songs. Continually,
even through the night, he would sing the Canticle of the Sun or some
other of his favorite compositions. Then, when wearied out, he would beg
Angelo and Leo to go on.
One day Brother Elias thought it his duty to make a few remarks on the
subject. He feared that the nurses and the people of the neighborhood
would be scandalized; ought not a saint to be absorbed in meditation in
the face of death, to await it with fear and trembling instead of
indulging in a gayety that might be misinterpreted?[40] Perhaps Bishop
Guido was not entirely a stranger to these reproaches; it seems not
improbable that to have his palace crowded with Brothers Minor all these
long weeks had finally put him a little out of humor. But Francis would
not yield; his union with God was too sweet for him to consent not to
sing it.
They decided at last to remove him to Portiuncula. His desire was to be
fulfilled; he was to die beside the humble chapel where he had heard
God's voice consecrating him apostle.
His companions, bearing their precious burden, took the way through the
olive-yards across the plain. From time to time the invalid, unable to
distinguish anything, asked where they were. When they were half way
there, at the hospital of the Crucigeri, where long ago he had tended
the leper, and from whence there was a full view of all the houses of
the city, he begged them to set him upon the ground with his face toward
Assisi, and raising his hand he bade adieu to his native place and
blessed it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The following is the list of monasteries which, according to
Rodolfo di Tossignano, accepted the ideas of Angelo Clareno
before the end of the thirteenth century: Fermo, Spoleto,
Camerino, Ascoli, Rieti, Foligno, Nursia, Aquila, Amelia:
_Historiarum seraphicæ religionis, libri tres_, Venice, 1586, 1
vol., f^o, 155a.
[2] _Spec._, 129b; _Fior._, 19. In some of the stories of this
period the evidence is clear how certain facts have been, little
by little, transformed into miracles. Compare, for example, the
miracle of St. Urbano in Bon., 68, and 1 Cel., 61. See also 2
Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159.
[3] 1 Cel., 87; 2 Cel., 2, 11; _Conform._, 148a, 2; Bon., 99.
Upon this visit see 2 Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159; 2 Cel., 2,
11; 2 Cel., 3, 36.
[4] The present Italian name of the monastery which has also
been called _Monte-Rainerio_ and _Fonte-Palumbo_.
[5] 1 Cel., 101; 2 Cel., 3, 102; Bon., 67; _Spec._, 134a.
[6] 2 Cel., 3, 66; Bon., 69.
[7] _Fior. ii. consid._ Cf. Roger Bacon, Opus tertium (_ap. Mon.
Germ. hist._, _Script._ t. 28, p. 577). _B. Franciscus jussit
fratri cythariste ut dulcius personaret, quatenus mens
excitaretur ad harmonias coelestes quas pluries andivit. Mira
enim musicæ super omnes scientias et spectanda potestas._
[8] Village three hours' walk northward from Rieti. Francis's
cell still remains on the mountain, three-quarters of an hour
from the place.
[9] 2 Cel., 3, 71; cf. _Spec._, 43a.
[10] Chapel still standing, a few minutes' walk from Rieti. 2
Cel., 3, 70; _Spec._, 15a, 43a.
[11] 2 Cel., 2, 14; Bon., 167; 2 Cel., 3, 10; Bon., 58; _Spec._,
122b.
[12] Wadding, _ann. 1213_, n. 14, rightly places St. Urbano in
the county of Narni. _L'Eremo di S. Urbano_ is about half an
hour from the village of the same name, on Mount San Pancrazio
(1026 m.), three leagues south of Narni. The panorama is one of
the finest in Central Italy. The Bollandists allowed themselves
to be led into error by an interested assertion when they placed
San Urbano near to Jesi (pp. 623f and 624a). 1 Cel., 61; Bon.,
68. (Vide Bull _Cum aliqua_ of May 15, 1218, where mention is
made of San Urbano.)
[13] As much may be said of the apparition of the three virgins
between Campilia and San Quirico. 2 Cel., 3, 37; Bon., 93.
[14] _Spec._, 12b; _Conform._, 169a, 1.
[15] 2 Cel., 3, 46; Bon., 153; _Spec._, 31b; Ezek., xxxiii., 9.
[16] Two years after, the King of France and all his court
kissed and revered the pillow which Francis had used during his
illness. 1 Cel., 120.
[17] Bagnara is near the sources of the Topino, about an hour
east of Nocera. These two localities were then dependents of
Assisi.
[18] And not Sartiano. Balciano still exists, about half way
between Nocera and Assisi.
[19] 2 Cel., 3, 23; Bon., 98; _Spec._, 17b; _Conform._, 239a,
2f.
[20] 2 Cel., 3, 33; 1 Cel., 105, is still more explicit: "The
multitude hoped that he would die very soon, and that was the
subject of their joy."
[21] 1 Cel., 103 and 104.
[22] 1 Cel., 102; _Spec._, 83b.
[23] 2 Cel., 3, 116; _Spec._, 67a; _Conform._, 143b, 1, and
225b, 2; 2 Cel., 3, 117; _Spec._, 130a.
[24] For the text vide _Conform._, 136b, 2; 138b, 2; 142 b, 1.
[25] _Tribul., Archiv._, ii., pp. 285 ff.
[26] 2 Cel., 3, 118.
[27] These words are borrowed from a long fragment cited by
Ubertini di Casali, as coming from Brother Leo: _Arbor vit.
cruc., lib._ v., _cap._ 3. It is surely a bit of the Legend of
the Three Companions; it may be found textually in the
Tribulations, Laur., f^o 16b, with a few more sentences at the
end. Cf. _Conform._, 136a, 2; 143a, 2; _Spec._, 8b; 26b; 50a;
130b; 2 Cel., 3, 118.
[28] _Tribul._, Laur., 17b.
[29] See, for example, Brother Richer's question as to the
books: Ubertini, _Loc. cit._ Cf. _Archiv._, iii., pp. 75 and
177; _Spec._, 8a; _Conform._, 71b, 2. See also: Ubertini,
_Archiv._, iii., pp. 75 and 177; _Tribul._, 13a; _Spec._, 9a;
_Conform._, 170a, 1. It is curious to compare the account as it
found in the documents with the version of it given in 2 Cel.,
3, 8.
[30] Assisi MS., 338, f^o 28a-31a, with the rubric: _De lictera
et ammonitione beatissimi patris nostri Francisci quam misit
fratribus ad capitulum quando erat infirmus._ This letter was
wrongly divided into three by Rodolfo di Tossignano (f^o 237),
who was followed by Wadding (Epistolæ x., xi., xii.). The text
is found without this senseless division in the manuscript cited
and in _Firmamentum_, f^o 21; _Spec._, Morin, iii., 217a;
Ubertini, _Arbor vit. cruc._, v., 7.
[31] This initial (given only by the Assisi MS.) has not failed
to excite surprise. It appears that there ought to have been
simply an N ... This letter then would have been replaced by the
copyist, who would have used the initial of the minister general
in charge at the time of his writing. If this hypothesis has any
weight it will aid to fix the exact date of the manuscript.
(Alberto of Pisa minister from 1239-1240; Aimon of Faversham,
1240-1244.)
[32] This epistle also was unskilfully divided into two distinct
letters by Rodolfo di Tossignano, f^o 174a, who was followed by
Wadding. See Assisi MS., 338, 23a-28a; _Conform._, 137a, 1 ff.
[33] The letter to the clergy only repeats the thoughts already
expressed upon the worship of the holy sacrament. We remember
Francis sweeping out the churches and imploring the priests to
keep them clean; this epistle has the same object: it is found
in the Assisi MS., 338, f^o 31b-32b, with the rubric: _De
reverentia Corporis Domini et de munditia altaris ad omnes
clericos_. Incipit: _Attendamus omnes_. Explicit: _fecerint
exemplari_. This, therefore, is the letter given by Wadding
xiii., but without address or salutation.
[34] We need not despair of finding them. The archives of the
monasteries of Clarisses are usually rudimentary enough, but
they are preserved with pious care.
[35] _Spec._, 117b; _Conform._, 185a 1; 135b, 1. Cf. _Test. B.
Claræ_, A. SS., Aug., ii., p. 747.
[36] This story is given in the _Spec._, 128b, as from
eye-witnesses. Cf. _Conform._, 184b, 1; 203a, 1.
[37] 1 Cel., 106. These recommendations as to Portiuncula were
amplified by the Zelanti, when, under the generalship of
Crescentius (Bull _Is qui ecclesiam_, March 6, 1245), the
Basilica of Assisi was substituted for Santa Maria degli Angeli
as _mater et caput_ of the Order. Vide _Spec._, 32b, 69b-71a;
_Conform._, 144a, 2; 218a, 1; 3 Soc., 56; 2 Cel., 1, 12 and 13;
Bon., 24, 25; see the Appendix, the Study of the Indulgence of
August 2.
[38] 2 Cel., 108. As will be seen (below, p. 367) the remainder
of Celano's narrative seems to require to be taken with some
reserve. Cf. _Spec._, 115b; _Conform._, 225a, 2; Bon., 211.
[39] _Non sum cuculus_, in Italian _cuculo_.
[40] _Spec._, 136b; _Fior. iv. consid._ It is to be noted that
Guido, instead of waiting at Assisi for the certainly impending
death of Francis, went away to Mont Gargano. 2 Cel., 3, 142.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XX
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
End of September-October 3, 1226
The last days of Francis's life are of radiant beauty. He went to meet
death, singing,[1] says Thomas of Celano, summing up the impression of
those who saw him then.
To be once more at Portiuncula after so long a detention at the bishop's
palace was not only a real joy to his heart, but the pure air of the
forest must have been much to his physical well-being; does not the
Canticle of the Creatures seem to have been made expressly to be sung in
the evening of one of those autumn days of Umbria, so soft and luminous,
when all nature seems to retire into herself to sing her own hymn of
love to Brother Sun?
We see that Francis has come to that almost entire cessation of pain,
that renewing of life, which so often precedes the approach of the last
catastrophe.
He took advantage of it to dictate his Will.[2]
It is to these pages that we must go to find the true note for a sketch
of the life of its author, and an idea of the Order as it was in his
dreams.
In this record, which is of an incontestable authenticity, the most
solemn manifestation of his thought, the Poverello reveals himself
absolutely, with a virginal candor.
His humility is here of a sincerity which strikes one with awe; it is
absolute, though no one could dream that it was exaggerated. And yet,
wherever his mission is concerned, he speaks with tranquil and serene
assurance. Is he not an ambassador of God? Does he not hold his message
from Christ himself? The genesis of his thought here shows itself to be
at once wholly divine and entirely personal. The individual conscience
here proclaims its sovereign authority. "No one showed me what I ought
to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live
conformably to his holy gospel."
When a man has once spoken thus, submission to the Church has been
singularly encroached upon. We may love her, hearken to her, venerate
her, but we feel ourselves, perhaps without daring to avow it, superior
to her. Let a critical hour come, and one finds himself heretic without
knowing it or wishing it.
"Ah, yes," cries Angelo Clareno, "St. Francis promised to obey the pope
and his successors, but they cannot and must not command anything
contrary to the conscience or to the Rule."[3]
For him, as for all the spiritual Franciscans, when there is conflict
between what the inward voice of God ordains and what the Church wills,
he has only to obey the former.[4]
If you tell him that the Church and the Order are there to define the
true signification of the Rule, he appeals to common sense, and to that
interior certitude which is given by a clear view of truth.
The Rule, as also the gospel, of which it is a summary, is above all
ecclesiastical power, and no one has the right to say the last word in
their interpretation.[5]
The Will was not slow to gain a moral authority superior even to that of
the Rule. Giovanni of Parma, to explain the predilection of the
Joachimites for this document, points out that after the impression of
the stigmata the Holy Spirit was in Francis with still greater plenitude
than before.[6]
Did the innumerable sects which disturbed the Church in the thirteenth
century perceive that these two writings--the Rule and the
Testament--the one apparently made to follow and support the other,
substantially identical as it was said, proceeded from two opposite
inspirations? Very confusedly, no doubt, but guided by a very sure
instinct, they saw in these pages the banner of liberty.
They were not mistaken. Even to-day, thinkers, moralists, mystics may
arrive at solutions very different from those of the Umbrian prophet,
but the method which they employ is his, and they may not refuse to
acknowledge in him the precursor of religious subjectivism.
The Church, too, was not mistaken. She immediately understood the spirit
that animated these pages.
Four years later, perhaps to the very day, September 28, 1230, Ugolini,
then Gregory IX., solemnly interpreted the Rule, in spite of the
precautions of Francis, who had forbidden all gloss or commentary on the
Rule or the Will, and declared that the Brothers were not bound to the
observation of the Will.[7]
What shall we say of the bull in which the pope alleges his familiar
relations with the Saint to justify his commentary, and in which the
clearest passages are so distorted as to change their sense completely.
"One is stupefied," cries Ubertini of Casali, "that a text so clear
should have need of a commentary, for it suffices to have common sense
and to know grammar in order to understand it." And this strange monk
dares to add: "There is one miracle which God himself cannot do; it is
to make two contradictory things true."[8]
Certainly the Church should be mistress in her own house; it would have
been nothing wrong had Gregory IX. created an Order conformed to his
views and ideas, but when we go through Sbaralea's folios and the
thousands of bulls accorded to the spiritual sons of him who in the
clearest and most solemn manner had forbidden them to ask any privilege
of the court of Rome, we cannot but feel a bitter sadness.
Thus upheld by the papacy, the Brothers of the Common Observance made
the Zelanti sharply expiate their attachment to Francis's last requests.
Cæsar of Speyer died of violence from the Brother placed in charge of
him;[9] the first disciple, Bernardo di Quintavalle, hunted like a
wild beast, passed two years in the forests of Monte-Sefro, hidden by a
wood-cutter;[10] the other first companions who did not succeed in
flight had to undergo the severest usage. In the March of Ancona, the
home of the Spirituals, the victorious party used a terrible violence.
The Will was confiscated and destroyed; they went so far as to burn it
over the head of a friar who persisted in desiring to observe it.[11]
WILL (LITERAL TRANSLATION).
See in what manner God gave it to me, to me, Brother Francis, to
begin to do penitence; when I lived in sin, it was very painful
to me to see lepers, but God himself led me into their midst,
and I remained here a little while.[12] When I left them, that
which had seemed to me bitter had become sweet and easy.
A little while after I quitted the world, and God gave me such a
faith in his churches that I would kneel down with simplicity
and I would say: "We adore thee, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in
all thy churches which are in the world, and we bless thee that
by thy holy cross thou hast ransomed the world."
Besides, the Lord gave me and still gives me so great a faith in
priests who live according to the form of the holy Roman Church,
because of their sacerdotal character, that even if they
persecuted me I would have recourse to them. And even though I
had all the wisdom of Solomon, if I should find poor secular
priests, I would not preach in their parishes without their
consent. I desire to respect them like all the others, to love
them and honor them as my lords. I will not consider their
sins, for in them I see the Son of God and they are my lords. I
do this because here below I see nothing, I perceive nothing
corporally of the most high Son of God, if not his most holy
Body and Blood, which they receive and they alone distribute to
others. I desire above all things to honor and venerate all
these most holy mysteries and to keep them precious. Whenever I
find the sacred names of Jesus or his words in indecent places,
I desire to take them away, and I pray that others take them
away and put them in some decent place. We ought to honor and
revere all the theologians and those who preach the most holy
word of God, as dispensing to us spirit and life.
When the Lord gave me some brothers no one showed me what I
ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I
ought to live according to the model of the holy gospel. I
caused a short and simple formula to be written, and the lord
pope confirmed it for me.
Those who presented themselves to observe this kind of life
distributed all that they might have to the poor. They contented
themselves with a tunic, patched within and without, with the
cord and breeches, and we desired to have nothing more.
The clerks said the office like other clerks, and the laymen
_Pater noster_.
We loved to live in poor and abandoned churches, and we were
ignorant and submissive to all. I worked with my hands and would
continue to do, and I will also that all other friars work at
some honorable trade. Let those who have none learn one, not for
the purpose of receiving the price of their toil, but for their
good example and to flee idleness. And when they do not give us
the price of the work, let us resort to the table of the Lord,
begging our bread from door to door. The Lord revealed to me the
salutation which we ought to give: "God give you peace!"
Let the Brothers take great care not to receive churches,
habitations, and all that men build for them, except as all is
in accordance with the holy poverty which we have vowed in the
Rule, and let them not receive hospitality in them except as
strangers and pilgrims.
I absolutely interdict all the brothers, in whatever place they
may be found, from asking any bull from the court of Rome,
whether directly or indirectly, under pretext of church or
convent or under pretext of preachings, nor even for their
personal protection. If they are not received anywhere let them
go elsewhere, thus doing penance with the benediction of God.
I desire to obey the minister-general of this fraternity, and
the guardian whom he may please to give me. I desire to put
myself entirely into his hands, to go nowhere and do nothing
against his will, for he is my lord.
Though I be simple and ill, I would, however, have always a
clerk who will perform the office, as it is said in the Rule;
let all the other brothers also be careful to obey their
guardians and to do the office according to the Rule. If it come
to pass that there are any who do not the office according to
the Rule, and who desire to make any other change, or if they
are not Catholics, let all the Brothers, wherever they may be,
be bound by obedience to present them to the nearest custode.
Let the custodes be bound by obedience to keep him well guarded
like a man who is in bonds night and day, so that he may not
escape from their hands until they personally place him in the
minister's hands. And let the minister be bound by obedience to
send him by brothers who will guard him as a prisoner day and
night until they shall have placed him in the hands of the Lord
Bishop of Ostia, who is the lord, the protector, and the
correcter of all the Fraternity.[13]
And let the Brothers not say: "This is a new Rule;" for this is
a reminder, a warning, an exhortation; it is my Will, that I,
little Brother Francis, make for you, my blessed Brothers, in
order that we may observe in a more catholic way the Rule which
we promised the Lord to keep.
Let the ministers-general, all the other ministers and the
custodes be held by obedience to add nothing to and take nothing
from these words. Let them always keep this writing near them,
beside the Rule; and in all the chapters which shall be held,
when the Rule is read let these words be read also.
I interdict absolutely, by obedience, all the Brothers, clerics
and layman, to introduce glosses in the Rule, or in this Will,
under pretext of explaining it. But since the Lord has given me
to speak and to write the Rule and these words in a clear and
simple manner, without commentary, understand them in the same
way, and put them in practice until the end.
And may whoever shall have observed these things be crowned in
heaven with the blessings of the heavenly Father, and on earth
with those of his well-beloved Son and of the Holy Spirit the
consoler, with the assistance of all the heavenly virtues and
all the saints.
And I, little Brother Francis, your servitor, confirm to you so
far as I am able this most holy benediction. Amen.
After thinking of his Brothers Francis thought of his dear Sisters at
St. Damian and made a will for them.
It has not come down to us, and we need not wonder; the Spiritual
Brothers might flee away, and protest from the depths of their retreats,
but the Sisters were completely unarmed against the machinations of the
Common Observance.[14]
In the last words that he addressed to the Clarisses, after calling upon
them to persevere in poverty and union, he gave them his
benediction.[15] Then he recommended them to the Brothers, supplicating
the latter never to forget that they were members of one and the same
religious family.[16] After having done all that he could for those
whom he was about to leave, he thought for a moment of himself.
He had become acquainted in Rome with a pious lady named Giacomina di
Settisoli. Though rich, she was simple and good, entirely devoted to the
new ideas; even the somewhat singular characteristics of Francis pleased
her. He had given her a lamb which had become her inseparable
companion.[17]
Unfortunately all that concerns her has suffered much from later
retouchings of the legend. The perfectly natural conduct of the Saint
with women has much embarrassed his biographers; hence heavy and
distorted commentaries tacked on to episodes of a delicious simplicity.
Before dying Francis desired to see again this friend, whom he
smilingly called Brother Giacomina. He caused a letter to be written her
to come to Portiuncula; we can imagine the dismay of the narrators at
this far from monastic invitation.
But the good lady had anticipated his appeal: at the moment when the
messenger with the letter was about to leave for Rome, she arrived at
Portiuncula and remained there until the last sigh of the Saint.[18]
For one moment she thought of sending away her suite; the invalid was so
calm and joyful that she could not believe him dying, but he himself
advised her to keep her people with her. This time he felt with no
possible doubt that his captivity was about to be ended.
He was ready, he had finished his work.
Did he think then of the day when, cursed by his father, he had
renounced all earthly goods and cried to God with an ineffable
confidence, "Our Father who art in heaven!" We cannot say; but he
desired to finish his life by a symbolic act which very closely recalls
the scene in the bishop's palace.
He caused himself to be stripped of his clothing and laid upon the
ground, for he wished to die in the arms of his Lady Poverty. With one
glance he embraced the twenty years that had glided by since their
union: "I have done my duty," he said to the Brothers, "may the Christ
now teach you yours!"[19]