Free books! The apostle of poverty would have a great love for those, I think. There is in fact a lot of free stuff about St. Francis out on the Internet.
They include one of the most important sources for his life: The Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano. The First life was completed only a couple of years after his death.
You can also read a first class little book about St. Francis by G. K. Chesterton.
I have been on an audio book kick lately - I enjoy listening while I work on my translations for my job. The wonderful news is that there are some FREE audio books about St. Francis put out by a group called Librivox. You might try the well-regarded biography by Johannes Joergensen.
God’s Troubadour is the story of St. Francis written for young people.
All brought to you by the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). Tons of great public-domain and other free stuff there from books to music to movies. Check it out!
And happy feast of St. Francis!
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Because of an enormous crush of work finishing the documentary, I wasn’t able to put anything up for the feast of St. Francis. But today, Papa Luciani’s 98th birthday, I thought of this little piece of his, which really says it all. Enjoy. (1)
The time of St. Francis of Assisi has been defined by Daniel-Rops as “the age of the cathedrals and the crusades.” An age of splendor at first sight; but behind the facade, how many painful events and situations! Popes succeed one another too quickly: five in only 16 years (1182 98). Lucius III has to flee from Rome and Urban III and Gregory VIII cannot return there. The emperors Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VI and Frederick II carry on a constant struggle against the papacy. The hordes of Genghis Khan overflow from Asia, making all of Europe tremble. Saladin seizes Jerusalem from the Christians. Cities fight against one another: Francis himself, as a young man, takes part in the war between Assisi and Perugia. Pope Innocent III, with a little too hard of an iron hand, gives back a certain amount of peace to the Christian world, but when he launches an interdict against the king of France in order to induce him to take back the legitimate wife he has repudiated, he sees the majority of the French bishops side with the king against the Pope. In turn, even the bishops, who have unfortunately become politically powerful, are molested by the same bourgeoisie that is committed with such zeal to erecting the splendid cathedrals.
Any number of errors threaten the purity of the faith. Translations of Aristotle seasoned with the pantheistic sauce of Averroes are multiplying; Joachim da Fiore, by prophesying that the “age” of the Spirit is near, provokes the anarchical charismatic movement of the “Fraticelli;” Peter Waldo becomes the founder of the “Poor Men of Lyon,” good men when they live an exemplary poverty, but heretics when they claim that the whole of sanctity consists solely of being poor, and when they assert that everyone is a priest and a trustee of the Holy Spirit in the same way; the Albigensians are spreading very dangerous religious and social theories and have set themselves up in a separate church with their own bishops, provoking an exaggerated repression from the Catholic side.
Into this picture, with his life and his message, comes Francis. Is he a protester in a Church and a society that have gone so far wrong? Yes, but he protests against himself, not against others. While walking with Brother Leo, who was called the “lamb of God” because of his ingenuousness, and not having a Psalter, Francis, in a “creative” spirit, attempts a psalter of his own. “We will recite some alternate verses,” he says to his companion. “I will say: Oh Brother Francis, you have done such terrible things that that nothing but hell awaits you! You will answer: It is true, you deserve to go to the bottom of hell.” They begin. Brother Leo is the most obedient of brothers, he is as docile as a child, and he is ready to say the antiphon as learned, but he can’t manage it. The untruth sticks in his throat, and instead his lips pronounce: “Oh Brother Francis, God will do so much good through you that you will go to heaven.”
Saddened, Francis says: “Pay more attention, let’s start over.” And they start over again and again, but every time it is the same fiasco: the more Francis humbles himself, the more
his companion exalts him. “I cannot do otherwise, it is God who is making me speak this way,” concludes poor Brother Leo. (2)
In line with this peaceful, humble and gentle spirit, comes all the rest.
They make war and Francis says: “Peace and good.” He directs his brothers: “Whoever may come to the Friars Minor, friend or foe, thief or robber, let them receive him kindly.” (3) They hunger and thirst for power; he leaves everything for the Kingdom of God and orders that his religious family be called, and feel themselves to be, “Lesser Brothers.”
The heretics spread new writings, he, on the other hand, insists on the whole Gospel, “without a gloss.”
There is the temporal power of the Popes; he does not attack it. There are many corrupt prelates; he does not denounce their vices. On the contrary: in the bishops and priests, even the sinful ones, he sees the Son of God, (4) he calls the Roman Church “our Mother” and orders that his brothers, above all the superiors, must “promise respect and obedience to the Lord Pope and to the Roman Church.” (5)
The people are demanding an authentically Christian life. But a holy life is lived only by imitating Jesus, says Francis, and he tries to make himself into a copy of the Lord. This is the message of Francis for his own times.
But it is also valid for ours. Today too, society has the impression that it is on the brink of an abyss. Today the Church finds itself faced with the expansion of atheism, with many errors, the most representative example of which is the baptizing of the class struggle and making it into a myth with imprudent and reckless experiments, and with constant appeals to charismatic gifts that are recognized in everyone, except the Pope and the bishops, whose authority is rejected even by a bishop. (6)
Many people are asking themselves: from where is the remedy to come? St. Francis answers: “From the saints: from Christians who, after my example, try to reproduce in themselves the life of Christ, and who live in the love of God and their neighbor, in humility and the spirit of poverty.”
It sounds incredible, but Lenin himself once said: “It would have taken only ten Francis of Assisis to save Russia.” Let’s multiply the saints, and the whole world will be saved.
NOTES
1 This article was originally published in Gente Veneta, October 2, 1976; Opera 7:452 54.
2 Cf. The Little Flowers of St. Francis, ch. 9. Trans.
3 First Rule of the Friars Minor, ch. 7.
4 The Testament of St. Francis.
5 First Rule, ch. 1.
6 A reference to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose rebellious attitude against the Church and the teachings of Vatican II, were in the headlines when this article was published.
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I could write so much about the patron saint of my order (the Secular Franciscans) on his feast day, but this will have to do — check out this lovely post by Rocco Palmo and be to click and see the new brick-by-brick replica of the Portiuncula chapel in San Francisco!
The Portiunucula is the birthplace of the Franciscan movement, the place where St. Clare and St. Francis met, and the woods blazed with light, the place where the first Franciscan missionaries left for Germany, where Elizabeth would learn of them in her castle in Thuringia, and dedicate herself heart and soul to Francis and his apostolic movement and to the same love for the poor. The place were St. Francis died, on October 3, 1226.
I was in the real Portiuncula chapel a year ago — how I’d love to return!
Pray for us, Seraphic Father, along with St. Clare and St. Elizabeth.
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Today is Memorial Day, and the horrors of the war in Iraq have been brought home to us more than ever. Not only are we recalling the servicemen and -women who have been killed and injured since the war began, just today two civilian journalists were killed and others seriously injured (bringing the total of journalists killed since the war began to 71). More than ever we are aware that the Muslim countries and nations of the West are only getting worse.
I wrote this little piece in 1990, during the first Gulf War, when it was published in Our Sunday Visitor. Later, not long after 9/11, I rewrote it slightly and had it distributed in my Secular Franciscan fraternity. Today, once again, not much needs to be changed.
Imagine this scene: the allied and Iraqi armies are facing each other in the desert, preparing for battle. Suddenly two men from the allied side slip across the lines into enemy territory. When captured by Iraqi soldiers, they ask to be taken to Saddam Hussein, saying they have a message for him. When they are brought to Saddam, he asks, “Do you have a message from your military leaders?†“No,†they answer, “we have a message from God. We want you to believe in Jesus Christ.â€
This scene did not take place during the war with Iraq, but something very like it happened more than 750 years ago, when Christians were also at war with a Muslim country. The Muslim leader then was the sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil, and the two foolhardy souls were Brother Francis of Assisi and his companion Brother Illuminato. In his day, St. Francis was considered a lunatic for even considering that the sultan might want to listen to him. Today he is considered a pioneer in Catholic-Muslim dialogue.
As a young man aspiring to knighthood, Francis had loved reading the legends of chivalry which told how Christian hereoes Roland, Oliver and Charlemagne had fought the Muslims. Like other Christians of his time, he believed that those who died in battle against the infidels were martyrs for the faith. He often dreamed of going on the Crusades.
But then God touched his heart and changed his entire life. He devoted himself to a life of poverty and preaching God’s love. He now burned with the desire to convert the Muslims instead of fighting them. Francis obtained Pope Innocent III’s blessing for his project, but illness cut short his first efforts to travel to Morocco and Syria to preach to the Muslims.
Francis’ dream was unusual for his time. He told his friend, Cardinal Ugolino, “God has sent my brothers for the good and salvation of all men in the entire world. . . They will be received not only in believing countries but also among the infidels.†He explained that if they were faithful to their life of poverty and humility, they would be able to live among the Muslims, who would supply for their needs as the Christians had done. This was at a time when even the clergy called Muslims “Sons of the devil,†“an abominable race,†and “vermin to be cleared from the Holy Land.†Few believed that Christians and Muslims could live in peace.
In 1219, Francis and his brothers finally managed to reach Egypt during the Fifth Crusade, where Christians from nearly every European nation (a sort of U.N peacekeeping force) were besieging the city of Damietta. When they captured the city, the infuriated sultan offered his soldiers a large sum in gold for the head of every Christian brought to him.
Francis and Illuminato approached Cardinal Pelagius, the papal legate in Damietta, to ask permission to visit the sultan. The cardinal thought they were crazy. He warned them that if they went, he would not be responsible for their deaths. Undaunted, the two headed into Muslim territory, where they were captured and brought before the sultan.
Malik al-Kamil was often cruel to Christians, but he was a religious Muslim and had great respect for holy men. He received the friars courteously and suggested that they debate with his own theologians. Instead, Francis proposed a “trial by fire,†a common practice in the Middle Ages. He offered to enter a fire alone or with one of the Sultan’s men, asking the sultan to promise that if he were to come out alive, he and his people would accept it as proof that Jesus Christ was truly God.
Some scholars think that Francis may have been inspired to make this proposal after learning of an incident in the life of Mohammed, the founder of Islam. Mohammed had regarded Jesus as a prophet, though not as the Son of God. According to Muslim tradition, he once invited the Christian clergy from Najran to undergo a similar ordeal to prove Christ’s Incarnation. The Christians had refused the test, and the Muslims attributed it to their lack of sincere faith. In offering to do what those Christians hadrefused to do, Francis was the only Christian of his time who tried to enter into the Muslim psychology.
The sultan would not agree to the test because it would make him look like a doubter of his faith to his people. But he was touched by Francis’ willingness to risk his life to save Muslim souls, and gave him and his brothers permission to visit the Holy Land without the usual payment demanded of Christians. Before the brothers left, he said to Francis, “Pray for me, so that God may reveal to me the law and the faith that are most pleasing to him.†He then had the two escorted safely back to the Christian camp, where the Crusaders could not contain their amazement that they had escaped alive.
After Francis returned to Italy, he found out that five of the brothers who had gone as missionaries to Morocco had provoked the local Muslim leader by insulting Mohammed and had been put to death. It may have been this which led him to spell out the attitude that his brothers should adopt towards Islam in a revised rule for his order, finished in 1221. In it he asked the friars who “go out among Saracens [Muslims] and other unbelievers . . . not to dispute or be contentious, but to be submissive to every human creature for God’s sake, and to acknowledge that they are Christians.†He knew that this would mean submitting to laws in Muslim countries that restricted the practice of the Christian faith, but he felt that a peaceful and humble attitude would touch hearts more than any argument would.
After Francis’ death, and after his own brothers were recruited by the Pope to preach in support of the Crusades, his ideas about relations with the Muslims were almost forgotten by his own order, and remained forgotten for more than 700 years. But in 1985, in line with the 2nd Vatican Council, which called for friendly dialogue with non-Christians, the Franciscan order once again adopted Francis’ words as their mission charter, and are following them in their missions among Muslims. Brother Jean GwenoleJeusset, the President of the order’s Commission on Islam, has called St. Francis’ words “a prophetic commentary on Vatican II.”
St. Francis’ example has perhaps never been so important as it is now, when hatred between Muslims and Christians has been stirred up by the war in Iraq. Muslims in the U. S. have been the target of hate messages. Beheadings are continuing, and no end is in sight.
St. Francis shows us that efforts to understand others and simple acts of love can be more effective than any words. If all Christians followed his example, and preached love and respect for those of other faiths by our lives, is it possible that we might have more of the peace he preached so fervently?
If you think this couldn’t happen in the age of Saddam Hussein, think about Francis and the sultan.
No matter what we think about the war, let’s remember that violence can never accomplish as much as love can.
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