St. Francis of Assisi

“ He may treat religion as the real thing that it was to the real Francis of Assisi. He can find an austere joy, so to speak, in parading the paradoxes of asceticism and all the holy topsy-turvydom of humility. He can stamp the whole history with the Stigmata, record fasts like fights against a dragon; till in the vague modern mind St. Francis is as dark a figure as St. Dominic. In short he can produce what many in our world will regard as a sort of photographic negative, the reversal of all lights and shades ”

“ With that gesture Francis of Assisi moved among men; and it was soon found to have something in it of magic and to act, in a double sense, like a charm. But it must always be conceived as a completely natural gesture; for indeed it was almost a gesture of apology. He must be imagined as moving thus swiftly through the world with a sort of impetuous politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles on one knee half in haste and half in obeisance. The eager face under the brown hood was that of a man always going somewhere, as if he followed as well as watched the flight of the birds. ”

“ The Assisi manuscript was without doubt destined to this service; if it is silent on the subject of the journeys it has made, and of the Brothers to whom it has been a guide and an inspiration, it at least brings us, more than all the legends, into intimacy with Francis, makes us thrill in unison with that heart which never admitted a separation between joy, love, and poetry. ”

“ And her eyes closed upon the sunlight, and darkness stole in upon her senses. She lay quite still upon the floor; but the smile still lingered upon her lips, making her face more lovely even in its cold repose than when the glow of youth and life had shone in her dark, clear eyes, and lent expression to her features. Saints like St. Francis of Assisi may die thus, but seldom women. ”

“ I abridged Guicciardini's intolerable History, I hacked sense out of Michael Angelo's granite verses, weeded Lorenzo of disgustfulness, Politian of pedantry. The last thing we read together was the Aminta of Tasso; the last thing I had of her was the "Little Flowers of St. Francis," a favourite book of her devotion. My Saint, she called St. Francis of Assisi—as in one sense no doubt he was; but, "Aurelia," I had replied, kissing both her hands, "you know very well who is my saint. ”

“ In simplicity and faith they rise up in the morning and lie down again at night, never fearing that their prayers at dawn and evening, their hastily uttered petitions at a roadside cross, have not winged their way straight to heaven. I too would fain believe it when I am walking in their olive-groves and vineyards, for it is a lovely thing, as dreams are lovely, and young ambitions and young hope. And it is here perhaps that the secret of the intangible beauty of Assisi may be found—because it is a shrine; no matter of St. Francis, or of Jesus of Nazareth, or of the older gods. ”

“ Francis might well be happy. Love had triumphed, and for several years there were at Assisi neither victors nor vanquished.
In the mystic marriages which here and there in history unite a man to a people, something takes place of which the transports of sense, the delirium of love, seem to be the only symbol; a moment comes in which saints,- 119 - or men of genius, feel unknown powers striving mightily within them; they strive, they seek, they struggle until, triumphing over all obstacles, they have forced trembling, swooning humanity to conceive by them. ”

“ Many thousand things that I now partly comprehend I should have thought utterly incomprehensible, many things I now hold sacred I should have scouted as utterly superstitious, many things that seem to me lucid and enlightened now they are seen from the inside I should honestly have called dark and barbarous seen from the outside, when long ago in those days of boyhood my fancy first caught fire with the glory of Francis of Assisi. ”

“ Francis of Assisi, as has been said again and again, was a poet; that is, he was a person who could express his personality. Now it is everywhere the mark of this sort of man that his very limitations make him larger. He is what he is, not only by what he has, but in some degree by what he has not. But the limits that make the lines of such a personal portrait cannot be made the limits of all humanity. St. Francis is a very strong example of this quality in the man of genius, that in him even what is negative is positive, because it is part of a character. ”

“ Clothed in long grey hooded cloaks, holding lanterns and candles and singing their mediæval hymns, these citizens of the nineteenth century belong to Assisi of the past as much as all her frescoes and early buildings. Their origin goes back to the middle of the thirteenth century when, out of the great devotional movement due to St. Francis, arose that strange body of penitents the Flagellants, who are said to have first appeared in Perugia, and thence spread throughout Italy. ”

“ What it was of which they had caught a glimpse, of which Francis had seen the glory, may be suggested later so far as it can be suggested at all. At this stage we need profess to see no more than all Assisi saw, and that something not altogether unworthy of comment. The citizens of Assisi only saw the camel go in triumph through the eye of the needle and God doing impossible things because to him all things were possible; only a priest who rent his robes like the Publican and not like the Pharisee and a rich man who went away joyful, for he had no possessions. ”

“ SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI
In the sunny land of Italy, high upon hills covered with olive-trees, nestles the little town of Assisi. Such a strange little town it is, with its tall city walls and great gateways, its narrow, steep streets, and houses with wide, overhanging eaves. The road that leads up from the plain below is so steep, as it winds upwards among the silver olive-trees, that even the big white oxen find it a toil to drag the carts up to the city gates, and the people think it quite a journey to go down to the level land below. ”

“ Since then, as the peasants recount with pride, many come from afar to drink of the waters of this well for it cures every ill. It is over-grown with ferns and close by stands an ancient sarcophagus where the children sit to eat their midday meal. A piece of old worn sculpture still ornaments the chapel of the young martyr, and the feeling of the place is very charming, but the pilgrim who comes to Assisi to visit St. Francis, has a different picture to recall with another kind of beauty belonging to it than that of holy wells and flowering banks and meadows. ”

“ Goodness touched them as it does all men. But the immorality of their religious guides did not embarrass them; a bad priest had as powerful spells as a good one. The only kind of Christianity which seemed able to impress them and hold them was that of Francis of Assisi. He was the highest embodiment of the Christian spirit for the Italian peasantry; the impression he had made upon the people of the Peninsula was enduring; the wandering revivalist preacher who lived as Francis had done always made the deepest impression. ”

“ For the foundation of Francis of Assisi came into existence as a society of itinerant preachers: no one was more deeply convinced than Francis of the duty of working for others, and his own mission was, as he said, to win souls. ”

“ To all who revolt against the vulgar materialism which dominates so much of our present life, Francis of Assisi is as a prophet sent by God. Standing against the dark background of Avarice and Luxury which had already infested the growing commercial centres of the mediæval world, he throws the light of his own clear personality into the dark corners of our own life.
We yearn, many of us, for a deeper spiritual life; we sorrow because the joy of life seems flitting ever further and further away from this complex social organism of ours. ”

“ When the others returned in search of their leader, they, wondering at the change that had come over the wildest spirit of Assisi, assailed him with questions. "Are you thinking of marrying, Francis," cried one jester, and amidst the laughter of all came his quiet answer: "Yes, a wife more noble and more beautiful than ye have ever seen; she will outshine all others in beauty and in wisdom." Already the image of the Lady Poverty had visited him, and enamoured like a very troubadour he composed songs in her honour as he walked in the woods near Assisi. ”

“ We all felt that we had left the world of to-day far behind us when we drove through the ancient Porta San Francesco, so entirely does Assisi belong to the past. Here where everything is ancient one ceases to make comparisons, and it seemed no more remarkable to find a Temple of Minerva standing beside twelfth-century buildings, than that we three twentieth-century Americans should be driving about these old streets, hearing the vetturino talk about St. Francis as if he had lived but yesterday. ”

“ Francis left Assisi one day, to go to preach, not having any longer a doubt but that he and his brethren were called for the service of souls, after the mission they had received from God, and from the Supreme Pontiff; this was confirmed by supernatural lights, as we have seen above. Being near to the Town of Bevagna, he saw on a particular spot a number of birds collected, of various species, and he went up to them, and said: "My sisters, listen to the word of God; you have great reason to praise your Creator; He has covered you with feathers; He has given you wings wherewith to fly ”

“ All Italy mourned him, but the grief of the people of Assisi was indescribable. On the way to his burial place in San Giorgio the procession stopped outside San Damiano, so that Clare and her Sisters might come forth and take a last farewell of their revered Father.
The death of St. Francis has been well told by Miss Lina Duff Gordon in The Story of Assisi.
The more one studies the life of this gentle saint, who lived and worked for the love and glory of God; the devotion shown in his ardour to save souls; the practical help he gave to all ”

“ Francis the Builder We have now reached the great break in the life of Francis of Assisi; the point at which something happened to him that must remain greatly dark to most of us, who are ordinary and selfish men whom God has not broken to make anew. ”

“ For in this sense there was really something wanting in Francis of Assisi, something to which he was blind that he might see better and more beautiful things. All those limits in good fellowship and good form, all those landmarks of social life that divide the tolerable and the intolerable, all those social scruples and conventional conditions that are normal and even noble in ordinary men, all those things that hold many decent societies together, could never hold this man at all. ”

“ He explained to them who Francis of Assisi was, his vocation, his mission, his mode of life, his Institute, the approbation given to his Rule by Pope Innocent III and Honorius III, and the testimonials given to him by several cardinals. He remarked to them that the new Order had been exceedingly multiplied in a very few years, and that they had seen more than five thousand religious at the general chapter which had been lately assembled in the neighborhood of Assisi, which was considered to be miraculous ”

“ Looking upon the road to Spello, winding down the hill through luxuriant fields of indian corn and olive groves, with the oak trees spreading their still fresher green over the vineyards of the plain, we feel that this pathway to the Carceri is something novel and unlike anything at Assisi which we have hitherto explored. Just as we are marvelling at its loveliness, a sudden turn brings Assisi once more in view, and the sight we get of it from here carries us straight back to the days of St. Francis ”

“ Saviour of Assisi, where all strangers were received, he got himself recommended to the prayers of Francis, who willingly prayed for him, and mixed a little crumb of bread with the oil of the lamp which burnt before the altar of St. Mary of the Angels. This he sent him by two of his brethren, saying to them: "Take this to our dear Brother Morique. The power of Jesus Christ will not only restore him to perfect health, but will cause him to become a generous soldier, who will enter into our militia, and will persevere in it." ”

“ It seemed as if Assisi were about to recover again the feeling of Israel for sin. The effect of these appeals was prodigious; the entire population was thrilled, conquered, desiring in future to live only according to Francis's counsels; his very companions, who had remained behind at Rivo-Torto, hearing of these marvels, felt in themselves an answering thrill, and their vocation took on a new strength ”

“ The words brought something new and strange into men's hearts, and those who had scoffed at him most drew near to learn the secret of their charm. The first to be touched by the simplicity and joyous saintliness of Francis was Bernardo di Quintevalle, a wealthy noble of Assisi, who had known him as King among the young Assisan revellers, and watched with astonishment his complete renouncement of the world. He determined to join Francis in ministering to the lepers, and began his new mode of life by selling all his possessions for the benefit of the poor. ”

“ Francis, and of the towering strength of his followers, whose object it is to raise the spirit of men to a higher standard of religion and devotion. After its completion in the year 1253 Pope Innocent IV came in person to Assisi and consecrated the upper and lower church. At the same time the Holy Father, who resided in the monastery at Assisi with the Franciscan Fathers for five months, solemnly canonized the Bishop and Martyr Stanislaus of Cracow. ”