Chapter Nine
Monologues
Telling It Like It Was
Preaching In The First Person
Many people are acquainted with the fact that there was once a gentle soul by the name of Francis of Assisi who loved birds and animals, but they may have little awareness of where he lived, when he lived, or what he did. Such ignorance does not serve us well. In a day when heroes are determined by their capacity for violence or self-indulgence, we need to know that there have been people who have attempted to conduct themselves according to the teachings of Christ and that those people have made a difference in the world.
Reading several books on Francis gave me more than enough material. It was then necessary to ask what he might have to say to people today. His simple faith, humility, gentleness, and appreciation for nature make him appealing to this generation. My working proposition became: "Francis of Assisi shows us how to respond to the challenges of self-conquest, meaningful work, setting priorities, sharing our faith, and finding God." In order that the congregation might experience the spirituality of Francis, I included "A Thanksgiving Of Saint Francis," "The Prayer Of Saint Francis," and his hymn "All Creatures Of Our God And King" among the worship elements used that day. I felt that the two Scripture passages were illuminated by his life. So that people would know that service to God is very demanding, I included the following sentence under the sermon title in the worship folder: "Francis of Assisi died in 1226 at the age of 44."
Francis Of Assisi
Psalm 24:1-6; Matthew 10:5-14
One day, in the year 1205, a well-dressed young man of 23 guided his horse out of the city of Assisi and into the plain below. He was heading for the Lazaretto, the place where lepers were required to live. The young man trembled as he rode, as though he were proceeding to meet his destiny. He had traveled this way many times before to give small gifts of money to the poor unfortunates who lived in such desperate circumstances, but these gifts had really been payments to his own conscience. This day was to be different. As a leper approached, holding out his emaciated arms for alms, the young man, mustering up all his courage, leaped from his horse, embraced the leper, and kissed him. Only if you feel some of the horror which leprosy aroused in that vain, exhibitionist, snobbish young man can you measure the magnitude of this single act of self-conquest. It was a major turning point in that young man's life. Learning to love what he loathed, he was enabled thereafter to set aside his own personal desires. In conquering himself, he had conquered the world.
I know these things to be true, for I am that young man. I was baptized Giovanni Bernardone, but from the very beginning I was nicknamed Francesco, "The Frenchman," because my mother was French. Most people call me simply Francis of Assisi. From the very beginning of my life my parents indulged me. My father was a well-to-do cloth merchant, who expected that one day I would take over his business. I was always well-dressed, because that advertised my father's business. I always had plenty of money to spend, always out looking for a good time, a playboy, a leader in revelries.
My dream was to be a knight. That was unlikely, for though we were well-off, we were not nobles, and it was rare for a commoner to be a knight. Nevertheless, in 1202, at the age of twenty, I thought my opportunity had come. Assisi went to war with the nearby town, Perugia. I entered the battle, hoping for glory. Instead, I was captured by the enemy. I spent a year in a filthy prison cell. I kept jovial for a while, but eventually my health broke in those dreadful circumstances and I was released to return home. I regained my physical strength, but I lost my former zest for living. Things that formerly had given me delight lost their old magic. Things were going well at home, but I was in a terrible depression.
A year later I joined another military expedition, this time going to Sicily. I got as far as Spoleto, thirty miles away, when an overwhelming sense of the futility of all this came upon me. I had a dream which convinced me that I should return to Assisi and find my future there. I returned, and shortly after, I attended a feast, but I was no longer a riotous companion. Increasingly, the realization was coming on me that life was meant to be something other than having a good time.
It was just such thoughts about having one's life account for something which led to the incident with the leper. It is not a course of action I prescribe for anyone else, but it was my way of responding to a challenge that we must all face in the difficult task of self-conquest, the call to move from irresponsibility to responsibility, from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. For me, it was not simply a single act, it was the beginning of a new day of life, for from that time on I did all I could to minister to lepers, a group of people I learned to love. Increasingly, I sought places of solitary prayer and meditation, and these I found in abundance in the old, half-abandoned chapels around Assisi.
It was in one of those old chapels that I received my second challenge. I prayed often in the tumbled-down church of San Damiano. One day as I prayed, I felt sure I saw the lips of the crucifix move. I heard our Lord saying, "Francis, you see that my house is falling down. Go and repair it for me." I answered, "Willingly, Lord." I ran back to my father's store, took as many bolts of material as I could carry, and ran off to sell them at a reduced price in a neighboring town to get money for supplies. I even sold my horse and had to walk back to Assisi.
In my zeal, I lost all my senses. I was so excited at the prospect of doing something worthwhile that I did not stop to think of how my father would feel. My father was furious. He felt that he had been robbed and came to the little church where I was staying to get me and have me put in jail. I fled from my father and lived in a cave for a month, where I had a lot of time to think.
When I finally came back to town, most of my friends felt I had gone mad. My father put me in a cell in our house until I should come to trial, but my mother helped me escape and I returned to San Damiano, asking the priest to receive me into the religious life.
It was the bishop who finally called me to trial. He required me to return the money to my father, which I did. It was apparent to me that I could no longer live under my father's supervision; he had one set of expectations for me, I had another. Now was the time to act in a dramatic and public way so that I would not be tempted to give up on my newly chosen path, so I publicly took off all my clothes, piled them neatly, returned them to my father with thanks, and stood naked before the bishop. "Now at last," I said, "I can look to our Father in heaven to provide and no longer to my father, Pietro di Bernardone." The bishop put his cloak around me and accepted me into the religious life.
Thereafter, I spent much time in prayer and meditation, seeking to find my destiny. I wore old and tattered clothing as a part of my rejection of my past style of life. A friend gave me a coarse, brown tunic, a pair of sandals, a leather belt and a walking stick; from that point on, that is what I wore.
I returned to the church of San Damiano in Assisi to carry out what the crucifix had told me to do. I begged for building materials from the people of Assisi and received them. I was frightened, I was mocked by my own family, but the people responded, many joining me in the hard work of restoring the church. When that was done, I repaired another church, and then another, taking several years. But all during this time something was happening. I felt I was doing what I should be doing, that it was worthwhile. But I began to see that there was a far greater task than putting stone on stone in disused churches. The real church was people, ordinary men and women bound together in the mystical body of Christ, whose hearts were in need of rebuilding.
I tell you these things, not to get you to do things the way I did, but to demonstrate that every one of us is challenged to do something worthwhile. I took my challenge quite literally at first and repaired churches. You too, I am sure, are called to do something worthwhile. I was wrong to try to make my father pay for what I wanted to do; each of us must find our own place and fill it, not expect others who do not share our vision to participate. But there is something for every one of us to do.
My third challenge came after I had repaired a 700-year-old Benedictine chapel that we called "the little portion." While participating in the mass one day, I heard the priest read that part of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus urges his followers to go and preach and to take no staff, no sandals, no extra tunic. "This is what I have been waiting for," I thought. I took off my shoes, threw away my staff, replaced my leather belt with a piece of rope, and set out to preach the gospel. I sought no followers, yet there were those who desired to be my companions. We set up simple rules based on the Bible. "Sell what you have and give to the poor. Go and preach, taking nothing for your journey. Take up your cross and follow Christ." It was the only way we knew to divorce ourselves from the temptations of the flesh and of money. Within a year there were twelve of us, eleven laymen and one priest. Always, our order would be essentially one of laymen. We set out to preach, two by two, calling ourselves the "Penitents of Assisi." We were in love with God and all God's handiwork: the world, nature, animals, and people! We urged all to love and fear the Creator and to keep God's commandments.
In time, women also came seeking admission to our order. First among them was Clare Scipioni, who started a convent for religious women at the San Damiano church. Their order came to be known as the "Poor Clares." The order for men, which we called the "fratres minores" or "lesser brethren," were permitted to use "the little portion," which I mentioned earlier, as our headquarters. A third order was established for people who agreed with our basic views of simple life, but who did not wish to enter the cloistered life.
I don't want you to think that I expect everyone to enter the religious life, but I do think that every Christian is called upon to share the gospel of love in some way. Some will do it by preaching, others by deeds of mercy and compassion. I do not think that every Christian should take the vow of poverty, but I do think that every Christian is being challenged to set priorities in his or her life. What comes first, God or money? What do you love more, things or people? What does your style of life say about what you believe?
Another challenge I had to face was the challenge of organized religion. I had not sought to develop an order. Yet, as I have said, many chose to be a part of my work. We tried to keep things simple. Certain verses of Scripture were our guide. Members of our order left our house and went all over the world proclaiming the love of God. The church began to insist that our requirements were too harsh, that we needed a written rule or standard, something that could be interpreted, and that we needed to have an organization with someone in charge. I did not want the responsibility, but I was placed in charge and told to write a rule for our order. I put it off as long as I could. What I had was a simple and personal revelation; if others wanted to join me, well and good; if they thought the expectations were too stern, let them not participate, but why should a spirit of freedom be stifled by rules? Alas, it was to no avail. I resisted the necessity of a written rule for as long as I could, but the more people we had working with us, the more insistent the church was that we should have a rule, so finally, one was adopted.
I tell you this because it is the common lot of every good idea. One person can do something in an unorganized manner if he wishes, but when others come to join that person, inevitably organization is required. The person who first had the idea will spend less and less time doing what he feels called to do, and more and more time giving direction. I wanted to go out as a missionary, but I could not leave our little flock. Yet, because some of us did stay in Assisi, hundreds of others were able to go out and carry the message of Christ to the whole world.
I came to understand, therefore, that all organization is not bad. It is organization that keeps a good idea going, that helps pool resources and energies. But we must not let organization take the place of personal commitment to God; we must have both. The church is the organized body of Christ.
The final thing I would like to share with you is my discovery that if we approach life with love, we find God. All my life I have loved nature: the sweetness of new-mown fields, the whispering of wind in the trees, the warmth of sun, the light of the moon, the refreshment of cooling rivers, and all of these things have led me to the Creator whose handiwork they are.
It is the same with the love of animals. We built nests in our church yard for the doves, and they would light upon us just as God's spirit came upon our Lord. I once let a rabbit out of a trap and it followed me for a day. I let a fish go from a hook and it stayed by our boat all afternoon. I tamed a wolf once by showing him he had nothing to fear. All these things show me that we are bound together with all creation by ties of love.
I have found this to be especially true with regard to people. I learned to love the leper as a child of God and in so doing I found my own freedom to be a child of God. I have seen enemies turned into friends when reminded of God's forgiveness of all of us. I have seen the rich released from captivity to their wealth by the awareness of the needs of others.
It is true, whatever our circumstance, that when we approach life with love, we find God. I have been in love with Lady Poverty and it has been treasure enough. I have experienced severe illness, but the love of God was my consolation. I was willing to suffer with Jesus Christ, and God has exalted my spirit.
For all these reasons I call upon you and all creation to praise the Lord, thanking God for all God's goodness. For God is love, and he has so made the world that whenever we approach life with love, we find God, and in finding God, we find our own contentment.
Reading several books on Francis gave me more than enough material. It was then necessary to ask what he might have to say to people today. His simple faith, humility, gentleness, and appreciation for nature make him appealing to this generation. My working proposition became: "Francis of Assisi shows us how to respond to the challenges of self-conquest, meaningful work, setting priorities, sharing our faith, and finding God." In order that the congregation might experience the spirituality of Francis, I included "A Thanksgiving Of Saint Francis," "The Prayer Of Saint Francis," and his hymn "All Creatures Of Our God And King" among the worship elements used that day. I felt that the two Scripture passages were illuminated by his life. So that people would know that service to God is very demanding, I included the following sentence under the sermon title in the worship folder: "Francis of Assisi died in 1226 at the age of 44."
Francis Of Assisi
Psalm 24:1-6; Matthew 10:5-14
One day, in the year 1205, a well-dressed young man of 23 guided his horse out of the city of Assisi and into the plain below. He was heading for the Lazaretto, the place where lepers were required to live. The young man trembled as he rode, as though he were proceeding to meet his destiny. He had traveled this way many times before to give small gifts of money to the poor unfortunates who lived in such desperate circumstances, but these gifts had really been payments to his own conscience. This day was to be different. As a leper approached, holding out his emaciated arms for alms, the young man, mustering up all his courage, leaped from his horse, embraced the leper, and kissed him. Only if you feel some of the horror which leprosy aroused in that vain, exhibitionist, snobbish young man can you measure the magnitude of this single act of self-conquest. It was a major turning point in that young man's life. Learning to love what he loathed, he was enabled thereafter to set aside his own personal desires. In conquering himself, he had conquered the world.
I know these things to be true, for I am that young man. I was baptized Giovanni Bernardone, but from the very beginning I was nicknamed Francesco, "The Frenchman," because my mother was French. Most people call me simply Francis of Assisi. From the very beginning of my life my parents indulged me. My father was a well-to-do cloth merchant, who expected that one day I would take over his business. I was always well-dressed, because that advertised my father's business. I always had plenty of money to spend, always out looking for a good time, a playboy, a leader in revelries.
My dream was to be a knight. That was unlikely, for though we were well-off, we were not nobles, and it was rare for a commoner to be a knight. Nevertheless, in 1202, at the age of twenty, I thought my opportunity had come. Assisi went to war with the nearby town, Perugia. I entered the battle, hoping for glory. Instead, I was captured by the enemy. I spent a year in a filthy prison cell. I kept jovial for a while, but eventually my health broke in those dreadful circumstances and I was released to return home. I regained my physical strength, but I lost my former zest for living. Things that formerly had given me delight lost their old magic. Things were going well at home, but I was in a terrible depression.
A year later I joined another military expedition, this time going to Sicily. I got as far as Spoleto, thirty miles away, when an overwhelming sense of the futility of all this came upon me. I had a dream which convinced me that I should return to Assisi and find my future there. I returned, and shortly after, I attended a feast, but I was no longer a riotous companion. Increasingly, the realization was coming on me that life was meant to be something other than having a good time.
It was just such thoughts about having one's life account for something which led to the incident with the leper. It is not a course of action I prescribe for anyone else, but it was my way of responding to a challenge that we must all face in the difficult task of self-conquest, the call to move from irresponsibility to responsibility, from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. For me, it was not simply a single act, it was the beginning of a new day of life, for from that time on I did all I could to minister to lepers, a group of people I learned to love. Increasingly, I sought places of solitary prayer and meditation, and these I found in abundance in the old, half-abandoned chapels around Assisi.
It was in one of those old chapels that I received my second challenge. I prayed often in the tumbled-down church of San Damiano. One day as I prayed, I felt sure I saw the lips of the crucifix move. I heard our Lord saying, "Francis, you see that my house is falling down. Go and repair it for me." I answered, "Willingly, Lord." I ran back to my father's store, took as many bolts of material as I could carry, and ran off to sell them at a reduced price in a neighboring town to get money for supplies. I even sold my horse and had to walk back to Assisi.
In my zeal, I lost all my senses. I was so excited at the prospect of doing something worthwhile that I did not stop to think of how my father would feel. My father was furious. He felt that he had been robbed and came to the little church where I was staying to get me and have me put in jail. I fled from my father and lived in a cave for a month, where I had a lot of time to think.
When I finally came back to town, most of my friends felt I had gone mad. My father put me in a cell in our house until I should come to trial, but my mother helped me escape and I returned to San Damiano, asking the priest to receive me into the religious life.
It was the bishop who finally called me to trial. He required me to return the money to my father, which I did. It was apparent to me that I could no longer live under my father's supervision; he had one set of expectations for me, I had another. Now was the time to act in a dramatic and public way so that I would not be tempted to give up on my newly chosen path, so I publicly took off all my clothes, piled them neatly, returned them to my father with thanks, and stood naked before the bishop. "Now at last," I said, "I can look to our Father in heaven to provide and no longer to my father, Pietro di Bernardone." The bishop put his cloak around me and accepted me into the religious life.
Thereafter, I spent much time in prayer and meditation, seeking to find my destiny. I wore old and tattered clothing as a part of my rejection of my past style of life. A friend gave me a coarse, brown tunic, a pair of sandals, a leather belt and a walking stick; from that point on, that is what I wore.
I returned to the church of San Damiano in Assisi to carry out what the crucifix had told me to do. I begged for building materials from the people of Assisi and received them. I was frightened, I was mocked by my own family, but the people responded, many joining me in the hard work of restoring the church. When that was done, I repaired another church, and then another, taking several years. But all during this time something was happening. I felt I was doing what I should be doing, that it was worthwhile. But I began to see that there was a far greater task than putting stone on stone in disused churches. The real church was people, ordinary men and women bound together in the mystical body of Christ, whose hearts were in need of rebuilding.
I tell you these things, not to get you to do things the way I did, but to demonstrate that every one of us is challenged to do something worthwhile. I took my challenge quite literally at first and repaired churches. You too, I am sure, are called to do something worthwhile. I was wrong to try to make my father pay for what I wanted to do; each of us must find our own place and fill it, not expect others who do not share our vision to participate. But there is something for every one of us to do.
My third challenge came after I had repaired a 700-year-old Benedictine chapel that we called "the little portion." While participating in the mass one day, I heard the priest read that part of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus urges his followers to go and preach and to take no staff, no sandals, no extra tunic. "This is what I have been waiting for," I thought. I took off my shoes, threw away my staff, replaced my leather belt with a piece of rope, and set out to preach the gospel. I sought no followers, yet there were those who desired to be my companions. We set up simple rules based on the Bible. "Sell what you have and give to the poor. Go and preach, taking nothing for your journey. Take up your cross and follow Christ." It was the only way we knew to divorce ourselves from the temptations of the flesh and of money. Within a year there were twelve of us, eleven laymen and one priest. Always, our order would be essentially one of laymen. We set out to preach, two by two, calling ourselves the "Penitents of Assisi." We were in love with God and all God's handiwork: the world, nature, animals, and people! We urged all to love and fear the Creator and to keep God's commandments.
In time, women also came seeking admission to our order. First among them was Clare Scipioni, who started a convent for religious women at the San Damiano church. Their order came to be known as the "Poor Clares." The order for men, which we called the "fratres minores" or "lesser brethren," were permitted to use "the little portion," which I mentioned earlier, as our headquarters. A third order was established for people who agreed with our basic views of simple life, but who did not wish to enter the cloistered life.
I don't want you to think that I expect everyone to enter the religious life, but I do think that every Christian is called upon to share the gospel of love in some way. Some will do it by preaching, others by deeds of mercy and compassion. I do not think that every Christian should take the vow of poverty, but I do think that every Christian is being challenged to set priorities in his or her life. What comes first, God or money? What do you love more, things or people? What does your style of life say about what you believe?
Another challenge I had to face was the challenge of organized religion. I had not sought to develop an order. Yet, as I have said, many chose to be a part of my work. We tried to keep things simple. Certain verses of Scripture were our guide. Members of our order left our house and went all over the world proclaiming the love of God. The church began to insist that our requirements were too harsh, that we needed a written rule or standard, something that could be interpreted, and that we needed to have an organization with someone in charge. I did not want the responsibility, but I was placed in charge and told to write a rule for our order. I put it off as long as I could. What I had was a simple and personal revelation; if others wanted to join me, well and good; if they thought the expectations were too stern, let them not participate, but why should a spirit of freedom be stifled by rules? Alas, it was to no avail. I resisted the necessity of a written rule for as long as I could, but the more people we had working with us, the more insistent the church was that we should have a rule, so finally, one was adopted.
I tell you this because it is the common lot of every good idea. One person can do something in an unorganized manner if he wishes, but when others come to join that person, inevitably organization is required. The person who first had the idea will spend less and less time doing what he feels called to do, and more and more time giving direction. I wanted to go out as a missionary, but I could not leave our little flock. Yet, because some of us did stay in Assisi, hundreds of others were able to go out and carry the message of Christ to the whole world.
I came to understand, therefore, that all organization is not bad. It is organization that keeps a good idea going, that helps pool resources and energies. But we must not let organization take the place of personal commitment to God; we must have both. The church is the organized body of Christ.
The final thing I would like to share with you is my discovery that if we approach life with love, we find God. All my life I have loved nature: the sweetness of new-mown fields, the whispering of wind in the trees, the warmth of sun, the light of the moon, the refreshment of cooling rivers, and all of these things have led me to the Creator whose handiwork they are.
It is the same with the love of animals. We built nests in our church yard for the doves, and they would light upon us just as God's spirit came upon our Lord. I once let a rabbit out of a trap and it followed me for a day. I let a fish go from a hook and it stayed by our boat all afternoon. I tamed a wolf once by showing him he had nothing to fear. All these things show me that we are bound together with all creation by ties of love.
I have found this to be especially true with regard to people. I learned to love the leper as a child of God and in so doing I found my own freedom to be a child of God. I have seen enemies turned into friends when reminded of God's forgiveness of all of us. I have seen the rich released from captivity to their wealth by the awareness of the needs of others.
It is true, whatever our circumstance, that when we approach life with love, we find God. I have been in love with Lady Poverty and it has been treasure enough. I have experienced severe illness, but the love of God was my consolation. I was willing to suffer with Jesus Christ, and God has exalted my spirit.
For all these reasons I call upon you and all creation to praise the Lord, thanking God for all God's goodness. For God is love, and he has so made the world that whenever we approach life with love, we find God, and in finding God, we find our own contentment.
