Recognizing God's Discipline

One time Francis went to Rome to visit my Lord of Ostia.  And when he had stayed some days with him, he visited also My Lord Leo the Cardinal, who was very devoted to the friars.  And because it was then winter and altogether unfit for going on foot because of the cold and the winds and the rain, he asked him to stay with him some days, and as a beggar to receive his food from him, with the other beggars who daily used to eat in his house.  The Cardinal said this because he knew that Francis would only be received as a beggar wherever he visited, although the Cardinals and the Pope would receive him with the greatest devotion and reverence and would honor him as a saint.  The Cardinal added, “I will give you a fair house separated from the main house where you may stay and pray and eat as you wish.”  Then Friar Angelo Tancredi, who was one of the twelve first friars, who also stayed with the Cardinal, said to Francis, “Brother, there is a near here a tower that has room and is separated where you may stay as if in a hermitage.”  And when Francis saw it, the room pleased him and he returned to the Cardinal and said to him, “Perhaps I will stay with you for a few days.”  And the Cardinal rejoiced greatly. 

            So Brother Angelo went and prepared the place in the tower for the blessed man and his fellow.  And because Francis would not come down from the tower as long as he should remain with the cardinal, nor did he wish anyone to disturb him, Brother Angelo promised and took orders to daily carry food to him and his fellow.  And when Francis had gone there with his brother, on the first night while sleeping demons came and beat him terribly.  He called his brother, “Brother, demons have beaten me terribly and so please remain with me for I am afraid to stay alone.”  That night his brother stayed with him, for Francis trembled as a man who suffers from a fever, and so both brothers remained alert the whole night.  During the night, Francis asked his brother, “Why have the demons beaten me, and why is the power to hurt me given to them by the Lord?”  And he said, “The demons are the police of the Lord.  For as the Podesta sends police to punish the sinner, so the Lord sends his police—meaning, the demons who in this world are his servants, who corrects and chastens those whom He loves.  For many times the perfect Religious sins ignorantly; but since he does not know he sins, he is attacked by demons, so he might look and consider, within himself and outside, those things in which he has offended.  For the Lord loves with a true love, and nothing in them does he leave unpunished.   But by the mercy and grace of God, I do not know that I have stumbled in anything which I have not made right by confession and penance.  Rather, by his mercy, God has granted me this gift that I may receive in prayer a clear knowledge of all things in which I may please or displease Him.  Perhaps he chastens me now by his police and though it is necessary to my body to receive this rest, yet many friars suffer tribulations and there are other friars who live in hermitages and poor little dwellings.  Perhaps when they shall hear that I live with my Lord Cardinal, they may be tempted to murmur, saying, ‘We bear so many adverse things and he has his consolations.’   I am required to always give them a good example, and it was for this reason I was given to them.  For the brothers are more edified when I abide in their own poor little dwellings amongst them, than in others; and they bear their tribulations more patiently when they hear that I also bear the same.” 

So it was the highest concern of Francis the he might give all good example and that he might take away any occasion of murmuring concerning him from other friars.  And on account of this, whether for good or ill, he suffered so much that the friars who knew him as we who were with him to the day of his death did, as often as they read those things or called them to memory, cannot stop their tears from coming and they sustain all their tribulations and necessities with greater patience and joy.  

So Francis came down early from the tower and went to the Cardinal, telling him all the things which had happened to him and what he had borne with his brother.  He said to him, “Men think me to be a holy man, but demons have cast me out of a religious cell!”  And the Cardinal was happy with him.  Yet because he knew and honored him as a saint, he would not contradict him after he was unwilling to stay there.  And so Francis, after bidding the Cardinal farewell, returned to the hermitage of Fonte Palumbo, near Rieti.

                        Mirror of Perfection, Section IV, Chapter 67

Francis could rightly be called a madman.  He was crazy for God, but there is a time for everyone to listen to their personal insanity.  Clearly, that place was not for Francis, but he had no requirement to remain there, so he moved on.  In fact, Francis was really uncomfortable with comfort.  

The spiritual principle here, however, is that God will communicate to us in various ways what He wants, sometimes subtlety and sometimes with power.  Whatever the case, we need to listen to God's discipline, and not just dismiss it.  We are God's children and God doesn't discipline us because He hates us but because He greatly desires for us to be as functional as possible.