Truth Through Presence

While he was staying at Siena, there came to him a certain doctor of divinity of the Order of Preachers, a man both humble and spiritually righteous.  After discussing with Francis for some time concerning the words of the Lord, the doctor asked him concerning the words of Ezekiel, “If you do not speak to warn the wicked from his wicked ways, his blood will I require at your hand.”  The doctor said, “I know many, however, good Father, that are in mortal sin, to whom I do not speak to warn them of their impiety—will their souls then be required at my hands?”  

Francis humbly replied that he was but a simpleton, and that therefore he would rather be taught of him rather than explaining to this doctor the meaning of Scripture.  The humble master replied, “Brother, though I have heard an exposition of this text from many wise men, yet I would willingly learn your understanding of it.”  Therefore Francis said, “If the text is to be understood for all, I would take it this way—that the servant of God should so burn and shine forth by life and holiness in himself, that by the light of his example and by the speech of his holy conversation he should reprove all the impious.  Thus, say I, the glory and the odor of his reputation will announce to all their iniquities.”  The doctor then left being edified and said to his brothers, “My brothers, the theology of this man, founded on purity and contemplation, is a flying eagle, while our study crawls on its belly on the earth.”

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section IV, Chapter 53

It is said that Francis spoke, “Speak the gospel at all times.  If necessary use words.”

Words are necessary, and they can at times be a clear presentation of the gospel.  But we must remember that the gospel of Jesus is not only His teachings, but His life.  Not only did Jesus teach us God’s truth, he showed it to us.  In this way, we should have learned, that the True Teacher not only speaks, but lives out her teaching.

Even if we never say a word, let the light of God’s presence be shown through our actions.  May the love of the Holy Spirit display God’s love before we ever open our mouth about His grace.

Responding to Criticism

This we have seen with our eyes who were with him as also he himself witnessed, that when some of the friars did not satisfy him in his requirements, or said to him some word with which a man would be disturbed, he immediately went to prayer and when he returned, he would remember nothing.  He would never say, “This one disturbed me,” or, “This one said this to me.”  In this way he persevered and so much more as he drew near to death, considering how he might live and die in all humility and poverty and in perfection of all the virtues.

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section IV, Chapter 46

Ah, I wish I could be as Francis in this area.  I, as well as many of us, brood over the negative input we receive, the criticisms and barbs that people throw at us.  Sometimes they keep us up at night, squeezing our sleep from us, wondering what we could say in response, wishing we had been wise enough to say a good thing, or quick enough to respond in kind. 

The true wisdom of Francis is evident, for he takes such matters to prayer.  Then, offering such negativity to the Lord, he then forgets about it.  For how can one, being in the glory of the Ever Loving One, remember such insignificant matters as destructive language that passes away like a leaf in autumn?  Only love remains forever.  Let us leave all bitterness and anger behind for what endures.

Surrendering Leadership

Francis wished to remain in perfect humility and subjection to his death.  So, some time before his death, he said to the Minister-General, “I wish that you would place your rule over me to one of my brothers, to whom I may do obedience in your place.  In this way I might obtain the merit of obedience that I desire in life and it would remain for me in death.” So from that time forward he had one of his brothers as a warden, whom he obeyed instead of the Minister-General. 

            At one time he said to his brothers, “The Lord has granted me this grace amidst all the others—to obey as diligently the novice who enters the Order today, if he were assigned to me for a Warden, as he who is foremost and ancient in life and in the Order.  For a subject should not look upon his superior as a man, but as God for whose love he is subject to him.”  Later he said, “There is no prelate in the whole world who is to much feared as the Lord would make me to be feared, if I so wished it, by my brethren.  But the Lord has granted me this grace, that I wish to be content with all, as he that is lease in the Order.”

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section IV, Chapter 46

Of all things that Francis did, I find this to be the most amazing.  Francis surrendered his leadership of the order he founded, and the vision he developed, to another and chose to put himself under the orders of another. 

It is natural for people to want to retain what they have received.  If they have gained a regular benefit—even at the generous hand of another—they will be angry if that benefit is taken away, for it feels like an injustice to them.  If we have obtained a certain amount of power, we want to keep that power long after the retaining of it has helped others.  Francis’ humility was such that not only did he surrender leadership, but he moved his position from one of authority to one of complete subservience.  Unbelieveable.

                                                                                                                                                            

And yet, this is the kind of leadership Jesus’ requires.  “The elder shall serve the younger.”  Jesus commands His leaders to undertake whatever sacrifice necessary to act for the benefit of all.  Sometimes this will mean making commands.  Sometimes this will mean receiving commands from those underneath.  Only God can grant us the grace to do either, and to give us the wisdom to know when one should be done or the other.

All Praise Goes To Jesus

When he ad been preaching to the people in Rieti in the market place of the city, after the preaching was finished, the bishop of that city straightway rose up, a man both discreet and spiritual and said to the people, “The Lord, from the first day in which He planted and built up His church has always adorned it with holy men, to nourish it by word and example.  But now, in this latest hour He has adorned it with the poor and despised and unlettered man, Francis, and therefore are we bound to love and honor the Lord, and beware of sin.  For he has not done after this manner to any nation.”  Having finished these words, the bishop came down from the place where he had preached and entered the Cathedral.  And Francis coming to him, throwing himself at his feet, bowed down before him and said, “In truth I say to you, my lord Bishop, that no man has done so much honor to me in this life as you have done to me today.  Now those men say, “This is a holy man” attributing to me glory and sanctity and not to the Creator.  But you, as one discreet, have separated the precious from the vile.”

            For when Francis used to be praised and called holy, he tended to respond to such speeches this way, “I am not yet so secure that I may not have sons and daughters.  For at whatever hour the Lord should take away from me the treasure which He has commended to me, what else would remain to me, what else would remain to me but body and soul, which even infidels have?  No, I ought to believe that if the Lord should have granted so many and so great gifts to a thief or an infidel as to me they would have been more faithful to their Lord than I.  For, as in the picture of the Lord and the Virgin painted on wood, the Lord and the Virgin are honored, and yet the wood and the picture take nothing of it to themselves, so the servant of God is in a manner a picture of God, wherein God is honored  on account of His goodness.  But he ought to take nothing of this to himself, since in respect of God, he is less than the wood and the picture—rather he is pure nothing.  And therefore unto God alone must the glory and honor be rendered but unto him only shame and tribulation while he lives among the miseries of this life.”

                        -Mirror of Perfection, Section IV, Chapter 45

Living With Lepers

Blessed Francis, from the beginning of his conversion, the Lord aiding him, founded himself like a wise builder upon the rock: namely, the great humility and poverty of the Son of God, calling his Order that of the Friars Minor because of his great humility. From the beginning of the order he wished that the friars should live in leper houses to serve the sick, and there lay a foundation of holy humility.  For when gentle and simple folk came to the order, amid the other things which were announced to them, he tended to say that it was good for them to serve lepers and abide in their houses.  

So it was in the first Rule: “They are willing to have nothing under heaven except holy poverty, by this they may be fed by the Lord in this world with bodily and spiritual food, and in the life to come they will attain their heavenly inheritance.”  In this way he chose for himself and others a foundation on the greatest humility and poverty.  He might have chosen to have been a great prelate in the church of God, he chose and wished to be lowly, not only in the church of God, but also among his brethren.  For this lowliness, in his opinion and desire, was very great exaltation in the sight of God and man.

-Section IV, Chapter 44

Humility isn’t about seeing yourself as some invalid or monster.  Humility isn’t lying about yourself to seem more-modest-than-thou.  Humility is putting oneself in situations that lowers your social standing.  Francis wanted his Brothers Minor to live with lepers partly to assist the lepers, and to give them a better context in which to live.  But mostly he did it because he realized that if they lived with lepers, they would also be outcast from normal society.

Isn’t that the way of it?  If you hang around with the outcasts, the outcastness rubs off on you.  In the Mosaic Law, that was a bad thing.  You didn’t want to be separated from society, to be declared “unclean”.  But Jesus had parties with the outcast, and welcomed their attention.  He touched the leper who was not supposed to be touched.  He forgave those who should not be forgiven. And he loved those who should not be loved.

This is the true way of humility: loving those who “should” not be loved.  Surrendering your own reputation and personal well being to do so.  This is the way of Jesus. 

Instructions to Sick Brothers

Francis was not ashamed to obtain meat for a sick friar in the public places of the cities, yet he warned them that lay sick to bear want patiently, and not to rise in scandal when they were not fully satisfied.  He wrote in the first Rule, “I beseech my brethren that in their infirmities they grow not angry, nor be disturbed against God or their brethren, nor demand medicines too eagerly, nor desire too greatly to set free the flesh that so soon shall die, which is the enemy of the spirit.  But let them give thanks for all things, and desire to be such as God would have them to be.  For those, whom the Lord hath preordained to life eternal, He teaches with the stings of scourges and infirmities, as He himself says, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.’”

                        -Section IV, Chapter 42

Growing up, it was a tradition that any of the men of the house (there were three of us), when we were sick, that we would be miserable and attempt to share that misery with those around us.  We would whine and complain, both about how we were feeling and about how we were being ignored.  Well, of course everyone ignored us.  We were awful.

Francis wisely points out that just because we are sick, we don’t forget that Jesus main command was to love one another.  We do not have permission to ignore this command just because we are sick, or weak, or mentally ill or poor or under other limitations.  Our weakness may limit our capacity to give love, but we never, for any reason, have to make others miserable. 

Surrendering Leadership

To observe the virtue of holy humility, a few years after his conversion he resigned the office of his prelacy in a certain chapter before the friars, saying, “From now on I am dead to you, but behold Brother Peter of Catana, whom both I and we all will obey.”  And throwing himself on the earth before him, he promised him obedience and reverence. At this point all the friars wept and their exceeding great grief forced from them deep sighs, when they saw themselves in a manner become orphans of such a father.  But the holy Father rising, with his eyes raised to heaven and his hands joined, said, “Lord, I commend to You your family which you have previously committed to me.  Now on account of the infirmities which You know, O most sweet Lord, being unable to have the care of it, I commend it to its Ministers, who shall be held in the day of judgment to show cause before You, O Lord, if any brother should perish through their negligence or evil example or bitter correction.”  He remained therefore from that time a subject until the day of his death, bearing himself more humbly in all things than any of the others.

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section IV, Chapter 39

The person who has power wants to retain that power.  But the leader under Christ knows the time to relinquish power and surrenders it with humility.  Even then, it is difficult to do this correctly.  To assist others to follow the new leader.  To stop up all bitterness that some would have against the new leader simply because they are not the old leader.

Francis, as always, leads by example and prayer.  He shows his own willingness to completely submit to the new leader, and insists for the rest of his life that he is just one among the brothers.  And in his prayer he does the greatest act—he surrenders his leadership, not to the new leader, but to God.  So now God rules over the brothers and guides them by His mercy. 

Judging the Poor

When Francis had gone to preach at a certain dwelling of the friars near Rocca Brizzi, it happened that on that day on which he should preach a certain poor and infirm man came to him.  Francis had much compassion on him, so he began to speak to his friend of the man’s poverty and sickness and his friend said to him, “Brother, it is true that he seems poor enough; but it may be that in the whole province there is no one who wishes more to be rich than he.”  Francis immediately reproved the monk, and he confessed his fault.  Blessed Francis said, “Will you do the penance that I ask you to do?”  He answered, “Willingly, I will.”  Francis said to him, “Then go and take off your tunic and throw yourself naked at the poor man’s feet, and tell him how you have sinned against him in speaking evil and ask him to pray for you.”  The friar went and did all the things which blessed Francis had told him.  When he had done it, he arose and put on his tunic and returned to Francis.  And Francis said to him, “Would you like to know how you have sinned against him—and Christ, as well?  When you see a poor man, you should consider Him in whose name he comes, namely, Christ, who took our poverty and infirmity on Him.  For the infirmity and poverty of this man is as a mirror to us, on which we may see and consider with compassion the sickness and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

                        -Section III, Chapter 37

Poor people aren’t perfect.  They have a lot of errors, as do we all.  However, it is easy to look at the faults of the poor and to use that as an excuse to neglect generosity, mercy and humility.  If we use the faults of others to neglect our own Christlikeness, it is our own responsibility and we must repent. 

To see Christ in the poor is not to be ignorant of other’s sins or weaknesses.  Rather, it is to see Jesus in them despite their sin and weakness.  It is to provide for Jesus’ people despite the difficulties.  In fact, love sees other’s weaknesses and gives in a way to meet their need, not to encourage sin.  To see Christ is the poor means that we will never, ever, neglect them, for they are our brothers and sisters.

Anger in Poverty

At the hill of the lordship of Perugia, Francis met a certain poor man whom he had known before in the world, and said to him, “Brother how is it with you?”  But he with angry mind began to utter curses on his lord, saying, “By the grace of my lord, whom may the Lord curse, I can be nothing but ill, since he has taken away from me all my goods.”  But blessed Francis, seeing that he persisted in mortal hatred, having pity on his soul, said to him, “Brother, forgive your lord for the love of God and free your own soul.  It may be that he will restore what was taken away, but if you don’t you will have lost your goods and you will lose your soul.”  And he said, “I cannot forgive him at all, unless he first returns what he has taken away from me.”  Then Francis answered, “Behold, I give you this mantle—I beg you to forgive your lord for the love of the Lord God.”  And immediately his heart was sweetened, and moved by this good deed, he forgave his lord his injuries.

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section III, Chapter 32

Psalm 73 was written by a man in anger against the rich because of their oppression against the poor.  At the same time, the psalmist recognized that he was unworthy of being in God’s presence because of such anger.  The Lord allows us all the shame of being wronged, partly so we can share in the forgiveness God grants us.  To forgive is to share in the nature of God, and to refuse forgiveness—to retain bitterness and rage—is to separate ourselves from God, whose nature is love. 

Francis here is not only forgiving, but teaching forgiveness.  He is willing to part from that which is his own in order to grant another what he cannot give directly—a soft heart toward God’s nature.  This is spiritual discipleship; this is, in truth, imparting the imitation of Christ.  We must seek how to offer such participation in God’s love, by any means possible. 

Francis: Fundraiser for the Poor

At the cell of Cortona, the blessed Father was wearing a new mantle which the friars had been at some trouble to obtain for him.  A poor man came to the dwelling, weeping for his dead wife and his wretched orphaned family.  To whom the compassionate saint said, “I give you this mantle on the condition that you will not surrender it to anyone unless they buy it from you and pay you well for it.”  The friars, hearing this, ran together to the poor man to take the mantle away from him.  But the poor man, gathering boldness from the face of Francis, with clasped hands was carrying it away as his own.  At last the friars redeemed the mantle, procuring that the due price should be given to the man.

                        -Mirror of Perfection Section III, Chapter 31

At times, providing for the needy requires imagination and a sneaky nature.  Francis, taking advantage of his popularity, used it for the sake of a needy man.  Manipulation is not always wrong, if it is used for the benefit of those around us.