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St. Francis
of Assisi,
Our Namesake
1182 - 1226 |
St. Francis was born in the Italian town of Assisi, eighty miles north of Rome. Rich, likeable, daring, he was plainly headed for a life of adventure. Already in his teens he was a leader. He was usually good for a joke.
Francis burned to be a knight, a brave and famous fellow pursuing adventure. But when he was nineteen, his career got off to a sour start. In one of the constant little wars between cities, his home town lost to neighboring Perugia. Francis spent the next year a cheerful prisoner of war, livening the days for his cell mates with song and story.
The next winter he became very sick. As he lay on his back in pain and exhaustion, it occurred to him that his life was pretty silly and useless. But soon came another chance in the army, this time on a much grander scale. His father, a rich cloth merchant, outfitted him lavishly, the best horse, the finest sword, the richest silks.
One night he had a dream. In his own home he saw not his father’s bolts of cloth, but the shining armor of knights. He heard a voice say “All this will belong to you and your warriors.”
An attack of fever struck him again, when the journey was almost finished. Again the voice, “Where are you going” “To Apulia, to be a knight” he said. “Tell me, Francis, who can benefit you most, the Lord or the servant?” “The Lord,” Francis said. “Then why do you desert the Lord for the servant, The Prince for his slave?” Francis said, “Lord, what do you wish me to do?” “Go back home. There it shall be told you what you are to do. The vision must be understood in another way.” Francis went home.
He spent the next year fighting for holiness. He would go with a friend to a cave outside the city and spend long hours trying to pray. There were no sweet visions. God was testing him, forging the steel. Only gradually would he learn to taste the sweetness of prayer.
Trying to be like Christ, and seeing Christ in everyone led Francis to the poor. For if anyone needed kindness, and if anyone mirrored the life of Christ on earth, it was the poor. Francis had always been generous to them. But it was too easy to give an alms and go back to his comfortable home. He wanted to be one of them.
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He had his chance while visiting Rome. There was a crowd of beggars, loud, dirty, repulsive. He took one of them aside to a secret place, asked him to exchange clothing , and soon found himself clothed in rags, jostled in a crowd of starved and sweating bodies, his arms out stretched in humiliating beggary.
And he loved it. Here is the central point of his life, and we must not miss it. Francis was not poor because he liked to be poor, but because Christ was poor. Because Christ said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The followers of Christ needed to escape the lust or money and its power, so that they could be free to love God.
Francis’ love for beggars and lepers was neither blind not sentimental. They were the brothers and sisters of Christ. Francis’ greatest desire was to show Christ... the human, loving, crucified Christ,,, to poor, ordinary people. In turn, he saw Christ in them.
St. Francis is famous for his love of nature. For him, nature showed the footprints of God’s passing. A flower reflected his beauty, the sun was a shadow of his brightness, the mountains were the strength of his arm. The sunrise reminded his of the rising of Christ.
The song of a bird, the scurry of a squirrel, the laughter of water, all were signs pointing to the fatherly presence and provident love of God. Nature lifted its unthinking prayer to God just by being what it was. How much more, then, should men and women, with minds to see and hearts to love, praise their Father?
Francis was a troubadour of the love of God, not a preacher of fire and brimstone. His own “message” was simple: God has showered an unbelievable love on us, through Christ our Crucified Brother. We must send this love back through Christ, by loving His brothers and sisters.
Francis of Assisi is not for everyone. Even many saints would not be comfortable with him. He appeals primarily to the heart. He would never be accused of being lukewarm, for he lived his life afire. Francis found God in the concrete. He led a life of radical devotion to God and to service of other people especially poor people. Typically, Francis attracts the common folk more than the scholar.
Francis found his inspiration in the Gospels. More precisely, he found it in the stories in which Jesus walks among the people of the streets and talks with equal ease to children, tax collectors, lepers, foreigners, and Pharisees. Francis experienced the Good News enfleshed in poor people and in needy people, in fig trees and in mustard seeds, in sheep and in goats. In short, Francis practiced an incarnational, sacramental spirituality. As his followers, we are attempting to do the same.
Francis wanted his followers to be in the marketplace, in the streets, and in the towns. Indeed, he wanted his followers to be in the thick of things, building bridges to God. The statement “For it is in giving that we receive”, from the Peace Prayer, could serve as a summary of Francis’ way of life. In the spirit of Francis, we are trying, in today’s work, to be bridge builders.
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