Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (best historical biographies txt) 📕

accursed ones, those who have not repented and have not known
thee; and to say to those who have known and adored thee and
served thee by repentance, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation
of the world.' And since we, wretched and sinful, are not worthy
to name thee, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, thy
well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased, that he may
give thee thanks for everything; and also the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete, as it may please thee and them; for this we
supplicate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou
hast done such great things for us. Alleluia.

"And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin,
St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the choir of blessed
Spirits, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities
and Powers, Virtues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist,
John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the
Prophets, the Holy Innocents, Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples,
Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the blessed ones, Elijah and
Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall be, and are, we
humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for these
things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living
God, and also to thy Son, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and
to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia.

"And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God,
in the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests,
deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters,
all clerks, all monks and nuns, all children and little ones,
paupers and exiles, kings, and princes, workmen and laborers,
servants and masters, the virgins, the continent and the
married, laics, men and women, all children, youths, young men
and old men, the sick and the well, the small and the great, the
peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all men in every
part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be, we pray
and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants,
that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true
faith and in penitence, for outside of these no person can be
saved.

"Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our
strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our
effort, with all our affection, with all our inward powers, our
desires, and our wills, love the Lord God, who has given to us
all his body, all his soul, all his life, and still gives them
every day to each one of us. He created us, he saved us by his
grace alone; he has been, he still is, full of goodness to us,
us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful,
ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else;
may nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us,
except the Creator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true
God, who is full of goodness, who is all goodness, who is the
true and supreme good, who alone is kind, pious, and merciful,
gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, righteous, true,
upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity; of
whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all
the glory of all penitents, of all the righteous and all the
saints who are rejoicing in heaven.

"Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate,
nothing again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in
every place, at every hour, at every time, every day and
unceasingly, truly and humbly believe. Let us have in our
hearts, let us love, adore, serve, praise, bless, glorify,
exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign, eternal God,
Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator of all
men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those who
love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable and
invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed,
lauded, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely,
delectable, and always worthy of being desired above all things,
in all the ages of ages. Amen."

Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm which steals deliciously into the very depths of the heart? Is there not in them a sort of sacrament of which the words are only the rude vehicle? Francis is taking refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy stammers out all the words it knows, repeating by them all only the eternal "I am thine" of love and faith.

There is in them also something which recalls, not only by citations, but still more by the very inspiration of the thought, that which we call the sacerdotal prayer of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears here as if suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength of his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by the inward and irresistible unction of the Spirit. He does not offer sacrifice like the priest of the past time; he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body all the woes of humanity.

The more beautiful are these words from the mystical point of view, the less do they correspond with what is expected in a Rule; they have neither the precision nor the brief and imperative forms of one. The transformations which they were to undergo in order to become the code of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the definitive intervention of the Church of Rome to direct the Franciscan movement.

It is probable that this rough draft of a Rule, such as we have it now, is that which was distributed in the chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The variants, sometimes capital, which are found in the different texts, can be nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed by the provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of considering this document as a rough draft, we are very soon brought to think that it had already undergone a rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that was in flagrant contradiction with its own projects for the Order.

If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments, one name springs at once to our lips--Ugolini. He criticised its exaggerated proportions, its want of unity and precision. Later on it is related that Francis had seen in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself unable to satisfy their wants, because though all around him lay innumerable crumbs of bread, they disappeared between his fingers when he would give them to those about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him: "Francis, make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou shalt feed these starving ones."

There is little hazard in assuming that this is the picturesque echo of the conferences which took place at this time between Francis and the cardinal; the latter might have suggested to him by such a comparison the essential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took place during Francis's stay in Rome, in the beginning of 1221.[4]

Before going there, we must cast a glance over the similarity in inspiration and even in style which allies the Rule of 1221 with another of St. Francis's works, that which is known under the title of The Admonitions.[5] This is a series of spiritual counsels with regard to the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find place in a Rule.

However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in The Admonitions all the anxieties with which the soul of Francis was assailed in this uncertain and troubled hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from a private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity of perfect humility, for reasons for submitting himself, renouncing his ideas, and not quite succeeding in finding them. He repeats to himself the exhortations that others had given him; we feel the effort to understand and admire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have proposed to him for an example:

The Lord says in the Gospels: "He who does not give up all that
he has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life
shall lose it." One gives up all he possesses and loses his life
when life gives himself entirely into the hands of his superior,
to obey him.... And when the inferior sees things which would be
better or more useful to his soul than those which the superior
commands him, let him offer to God the sacrifice of his will.

Reading this one might think that Francis was about to join the ranks of those to whom submission to ecclesiastical authority is the very essence of religion. But no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced, he mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, timid, indeed, but revealing his deepest thought; always ending by enthroning the individual conscience as judge of last resort.[6]

All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to ourselves moments when his wounded soul sighs after passive obedience, the formula of which, perinde ac cadaver , goes apparently much farther back than the Company of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when inspiration was silent.

One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to
groan and say: "There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly
obeys his superior." His companions, much astonished, said:
"Explain to us, father, what is