Part 25 (1/2)

But these are exceptions, and the greater part of the time the Saint withdrew himself from the entreaties of his companions when they asked miracles at his hands.

To sum up, if we take a survey of the whole field of Francis's piety, we see that it proceeds from the secret union of his soul with the divine by prayer; this intuitive power of seeing the ideal cla.s.ses him with the mystics. He knew, indeed, both the ecstasy and the liberty of mysticism, but we must not forget those features of character which separate him from it, particularly his apostolic fervor. Besides this his piety had certain peculiar qualities which it is necessary to point out.

And first, liberty with respect of observances: Francis felt all the emptiness and pride of most religious observance. He saw the snare that lies hidden there, for the man who carefully observes all the minutiae of a religious code risks forgetting the supreme law of love. More than this, the friar who lays upon himself a certain number of supererogatory facts gains the admiration of the ignorant, but the pleasure which he finds in this admiration actually transforms his pious act into sin.

Thus, strangely enough, contrary to other founders of orders, he was continually easing the strictness of the various rules which he laid down.[15] We may not take this to be a mere accident, for it was only after a struggle with his disciples that he made his will prevail; and it was precisely those who were most disposed to relax their vow of poverty who were the most anxious to display certain bigoted observances before the public eye.

”The sinner can fast,” Francis would say at such times; ”he can pray, weep, macerate himself, but one thing he cannot do, he cannot be faithful to G.o.d.” n.o.ble words, not unworthy to fall from the lips of him who came to preach a wors.h.i.+p in spirit and in truth, without temple or priest; or rather that every fireside shall be a temple and every believer a priest.

Religious formalism, in whatever form of wors.h.i.+p, always takes on a forced and morose manner. Pharisees of every age disfigure their faces that no one may be unaware of their G.o.dliness. Francis not merely could not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually counted mirth and joy in the number of religious duties.

How shall one be melancholy who has in the heart an inexhaustible treasure of life and truth which only increases as one draws upon it?

How be sad when in spite of falls one never ceases to make progress?

The pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that of the child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs growing strong and permitting it every day a further exertion.

The word joy is perhaps that which comes most often to the pen of the Franciscan authors;[16] the master went so far as to make it one of the precepts of the Rule.[17] He was too good a general not to know that a joyous army is always a victorious army. In the history of the early Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter which ring out high and clear.[18]

For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle Ages as much more melancholy than they really were. Men suffered much in those days, but the idea of grief being never separated from that of penalty, suffering was either an expiation or a test, and sorrow thus regarded loses its sting; light and hope s.h.i.+ne through it.

Francis drew a part of his joy from the communion. He gave to the sacrament of the eucharist that wors.h.i.+p imbued with unutterable emotion, with joyful tears, which has aided some of the n.o.blest of human souls to endure the burden and heat of the day.[19] The letter of the dogma was not fixed in the thirteenth century as it is to-day, but all that is beautiful, true, potent, eternal in the mystical feast inst.i.tuted by Jesus was then alive in every heart.

The eucharist was truly the viatic.u.m of the soul. Like the pilgrims of Emmaus long ago, in the hour when the shades of evening fall and a vague sadness invades the soul, when the phantoms of the night awake and seem to loom up behind all our thoughts, our fathers saw the divine and mysterious Companion coming toward them; they drank in his words, they felt his strength descending upon their hearts, all their inward being warmed again, and again they whispered, ”Abide with us, Lord, for the day is far spent and the night approacheth.”

And often their prayer was heard.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1 Cel., 62.

[2] 1 Cel., 66; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182; 1 Cel., 69; Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates were the first to come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135, 136, 138, 141; Bon., 275.

[3] As concerning: 1, fidelity to Poverty; 2, prohibition of modifying the Rule; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule; 4, the request for privileges at the court of Rome; 5, the elevation of the friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let that suffice! _Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super litteram sic apertam quia nulla est difficultas in regulae intelligentia. Arbor vitae crucifixae_, Venice, 1485. lib. v., cap. 3. _Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super regulae destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi videbatur insa.n.u.s. Id. ibid._

[4] _Heavens drop down your dew, and let the clouds rain down the Just One._ Anthem for Advent.

[5] _In foramibus petrae nidificabat._ 1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43; Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1 Cel., 6; 91; 103; 3 Soc., 8; 12; etc.

[6] Luke, xxii. 44.

[7] Felix Kuhn: _Luther, sa vie et son oeuvre_, Paris, 1883, 3 vols., 8vo. t. i., p. 128; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257.

Benvenuto Cellini does not hesitate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in company with a magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled the whole place. B.

Cellini, _La vita scritta da lui medesimo_, Bianchi's edition, Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.

[8] On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72; 3 Soc., 12; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13; _Fior._, 29; _Spec._, 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read the _Dialogus miraculorium_ of Caesar von Heisterbach.

[9] Matthew, x. 1.