Francis, fasting and praying, set himself to his impossible task. All he could do was to alter the arrangement of the rule, not its contents, which remained as before. He could neither add to nor take away from the commands of Christ. Incorporated in the first rule, that now gave such dissatisfaction to the brothers, there had been that great burst of joyful praise. Francis omitted that now, for the fountain of joy in him was sealed over with pain.
His days and nights of prayer and suffering ended, the rule written out again by Leo to his dictation, he went back to the Portiuncula and put it humbly into the hands of Elias. And now a dark confusion falls upon the story and the only thing that emerges clearly is the almost unbelievable cruelty of Elias. For after a few days he came to Francis and told him that the rule was lost. Who destroyed the rule, at whose command, has never been known. That they were the same man is only a guess, though it seems a safe one. Francis cannot have believed what he was told but he accepted the statement quietly and traveled all the way back to Monte Rainerio with Leo and Bonizzi to write out the rule again. But this time he was not left in peace, for Elias and some of the ministers came after him, climbed up the steep mountain path to the cave where he was praying and told him they would not observe his rule. “Make it for thyself and not for us,” they said. Francis heard them with indignation and answered, “Let those who will not obey it go out from the order.” The ministers looked at each other, and went away confused and frightened.
There was only one thing for Francis to do now, finish writing out the rule all over again and take it to Cardinal Ugolino, the Protector of the Order. The cardinal was in Rome, a long journey for a man as ill as Francis, but he set forth courageously. It was his last visit to Rome, the last time his mortal eyes saw the holy city on her seven hills. He had to leave Leo behind him, and it must have been a hard parting for them both, but he left a letter for him, a letter of quiet tenderness that evidently carried on some conversation they had had together. It seems to echo some quietness within his own soul, as though the shadows were beginning to lift a little. “Brother Leo, wish thy father Francis health and peace! I say to thee: Yes, my son, and as a mother; for in this word and counsel I sum up briefly all the words we said on the way, and if afterwards thou hast need to come to me for advice, thus I advise you: In whatever way it seemeth best to thee to please the Lord God and to follow his footsteps and poverty, so do with the blessing of the Lord God and in my obedience. And if it be necessary on account of thy soul or other consolation and thou wishest, Leo, to come to me, come!”
In Rome Francis and Cardinal Ugolino worked over the rule together. If the cardinal modified it in any way it was only slightly. It did not embody the changes that had been hoped for but it was not in him to hurt Francis any more. He lacked the cruelty of Elias when in pursuit of what he wanted. They took it to the pope, and Honorius, so in sympathy with Francis and all he stood for, solemnly approved it on November the 29th, 1223.
Francis traveled back to the Portiuncula and gave it to Elias. There was nothing Elias could say now, for the rule had the papal authority. On the face of it Francis had won the battle and could say with Saint Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,” but he was still intensely sad, foreseeing perhaps what skill Elias and his men would show in interpreting the rule according to their own ideas.
And then God comforted him, for he heard again the interior voice telling him not to be so distressed, but to lay all that he loved, his work, his order, his sons, in the hands of his master Christ and to leave them there. It is a touch of human weakness in Francis, making him akin to ourselves, that he had been forgetting that if he loved his sons so much God loved them infinitely more. He had done all that he could and now God would do the rest. “I will keep and feed them,” said the voice. “Be not therefore perturbed but work out thy salvation; for even if the religion should come to but three members, yet through My gift shall it remain unshaken.” Kneeling in Santa Maria degli Angeli, Francis realized that the great darkness of spirit in which he had been living for more than two years had been a temptation to despair, a temptation to doubt the love of God. He had been crying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” when God had been there all the time. He wept. Then a great peace fell upon him. The time had come now to work out his own salvation by such an abandonment of himself to the will of God that he would hold back from nothing whatever that God wished to do in him and with him for the salvation of others. For he knew that salvation is never a lonely thing. There was never a soul saved yet whose salvation was not a sort of net of glory for the catching of other souls. His prayer now was that of the mother of our Lord in whose own church he was kneeling. “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Chapter 17
Midwinter Spring
O ye sinners, erring throng,
Serving evil lords so long,
Come and hail this infant birth!
Come, and make a joyful sound;
God with men henceforth is found,
He is come to dwell on earth.
As a little boy he’s here;
Long-desired, we hold him dear;
Very precious shall he be.
Humble men, and innocent,
Upright men, and diligent,
Come before him, come and sing.
Let him not in vain entreat,
Come and kneel before his feet,
Giving glory to your king.
Ye shall have your heart’s desire,
Tasting, with the heavenly choir,
Feasts of love eternally.
JACOPONE DA TODI
LAUDA LXIV
FRANCIS WENT BACK once more to the valley of Rieti, that he might spend Christmas there. This more southerly valley is gentler than Assisi’s valley of Spoleto, and its people are happy and kindly. Francis had always loved it and now it was to be the setting for a wonderful resurgence of happiness in him, almost a return to the happy days of the springtime of the order. The Portiuncula was now the stronghold of Elias, but the little towns of Greccio, Rieti and Poggio Bustone, the villages that clung to the mountainsides, the hermitages of the brethren that hid themselves among the rocks and the woods, were full of his old friends who loved him. For a few months he went in and out among them as he had always done, doing what he could for them. It was almost like the old days, and yet not quite like them, for in spite of his love and ceaseless thought for them they were aware of some fragile quality about this exquisite return, some quality about Francis himself that made their hearts ache. The peace that enclosed him, though he shared it with them, gave them a feeling of loneliness. More than ever they treasured up every word and action in their memories that they might not forget.
Francis had a plan for this Christmas, a plan for himself and for them. He had a good friend who lived at Greccio, Giovanni da Vellita, a member of the Third Order. He had been, and still was, a well-to-do man, but he used his money and land now for God and his poor. He had wanted to do something for Francis and his brothers, and had made them a hermitage, and because he understood their tastes he had been very careful not to make it too luxurious. Greccio is built within a hollow in the mountains, and opposite the little town, on land he owned, were some caves in the rocky hillside, with woods above and below them. He built a rough hermitage about these caves. It was an ideal Franciscan hermitage, for although it was not particularly comfortable it gave shelter from cold winds and had a distant view of the lovely valley of Rieti and the snow-capped mountains beyond. Views, like flowers, were not luxuries to Francis but revelations of the glory of God. He decided that he would spend this Christmas at the Greccio hermitage, and he asked Giovanni to help him make it memorable.
His mind was back in Bethlehem and he remembered the night when he had knelt in the cave of the nativity. The child in the manger had been as near to him then as though he had held him in his arms. It had been one of those experiences that cannot be entirely shared, but he wa
nted to share it as far as possible. What could he do that these good people of the Rieti valley should be able to say, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” not just with their lips but as a cry of conviction from adoring hearts? They were a simple and childlike people, even as he was himself, and to behold with their bodily eyes the stable and the manger, and the gentle beasts, would help them to see the Babe. He opened his heart to Giovanni, and Giovanni understood what he wanted and did what Francis told him. He built a stable in the woods near the hermitage and he put a real manger in the stable and filled it with hay, and beside the manger he built a simple altar. He arranged that there should be a real ox and ass there on Christmas Eve, and he kept it all the deep secret that children love. Francis, meanwhile, sent messages to the brethren who lived in the valley of Rieti, and to the people of Greccio and of the villages, and asked them all to come to mass at the hermitage on Christmas Eve.
They counted the days to the holy night and then they came. Down in the darkness of the valley of Rieti lights began to twinkle, as men and women and children carrying lanterns made their way along the narrow paths toward the mountain. Across the upland valley the lights of Greccio had been shining out of the little windows for some while. Now the citizens came winding down the hillside, some of them with lanterns and some with candles. All the myriad twinkling lights were like stars and there were stars in the sky. The people came singing the ancient laude of Umbria that had been handed down from generation to generation, laude in honor of the Christ child so soon to be born, and as the converging bands of pilgrims met together the sound of their singing floated up strongly and beautifully to those who were waiting for them high up in the darkness of the woods. They could not sing as they climbed, for the rocky paths were steep, but in the soft thick darkness under the trees, where the air was warm and sweet-scented with the resinous pines and larches, the candle flames burned brightly. Up above them it was the brothers who were chanting now, and light streamed down from some place within the woods. The youngest got there first, scrambling up the last steep bit of the way to the more level ground, and then running toward the light. Their elders, toiling behind them, heard their high excited cries of awe and joy, like the calling of birds, and then perhaps a few came flying back saying, “Padre! Madonna! There is a stable there. There is a manger for the bambino, and an ox and an ass, a real ox and ass! And Father Francis is there. Come quickly! Quickly!”
The wood became a church and the stable the chancel of the church. They knelt with bowed heads on the carpet of moss and pine needles. The lanterns were set on the ground or hung on the branches of trees and the pools of light about them showed ferns growing in the earth, lichens and bright toadstools about the roots of trees. Some of those who had brought candles still held them between their hands and the flames, symbols of their prayer, showed the young faces sunburnt and rosy, the older ones lined and weather-beaten. Those who were nearest to the stable could see a manger and the gentle beasts, the vested priest before the altar and Francis the deacon, but those who were too far away to see much were not aware of any loss, for the great peace and joy of this holy night enclosed them all.
Francis was more in heaven than on earth, all his being centered on the manger, and seemed hardly conscious of the people, yet when after the reading of the gospel he came forward to preach to them he was the same great preacher who had shaken the crowd in the piazza at Bologna. Celano says, “His voice, his strong and glad voice, his clear and ringing voice, invited all to seek the highest good.” Yet still he seemed not to see them. He saw the child of Bethlehem, and greeted him who was coming, and when he spoke the word “Jesus” his hearers were awed with the sense of a presence already amongst them. He saw the shepherds leaning on their crooks, looking up to the stars, and the Italian folk sitting in the wood were with him on the hillside above Bethelehem. Their lanterns lit the sheepfold and they heard the sheep bleating. Across the dark valley the lights of Greccio shone from white-walled Bethlehem. It was toward midnight. Francis blessed them and turned from them and there was a rustling in the wood as they once more knelt and put their brown hands palm to palm in prayer. It was midnight and the Host was lifted. “While all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne.” Giovanni da Vellita said afterward that when he looked toward the crib he saw a bambino in the hay.
Francis stayed on at Greccio until the late spring, coming back from each visit to the people in the valley to spend days and nights in prayer, in the hermitage or in the woods that were now ringing with birdsong. Down below in the valley the vines were green and the orchards were pink and white with blossom. He was at the hermitage for Easter and preached to the brothers a very memorable sermon.
This was the manner of it. The brothers had thought to make their Easter dinner something special this year, for Father Francis was with them. They borrowed a white tablecloth and some fine dishes, and they arranged the table with pride and care. While they were busy in the kitchen Francis came into the refectory and it seemed to his startled eyes that the table was laid as though this were a nobleman’s house. The brothers who were with him in the hermitage were his good and loyal sons but it seemed that even they had been unconsciously affected by the love of comfort that was creeping so insidiously into the order. What could he do? He could not be angry with them on Easter day. He thought what he would do. A poor man had come to the hermitage that day and had had a pilgrim’s staff and scrip with him. Francis borrowed them and went quietly away into the woods.
When the brothers came to dinner Francis was not there, but he was sometimes late for meals when prayer absorbed him and he had told them when that happened not to wait for him, and so they sat down and began to eat. Then came a knock at the door and one of the brothers went to open it. On the threshold stood Francis, the scrip slung over his shoulder and the staff in his hand. He walked to the open door of the refectory and cried out, “For the love of the Lord God give an alms to this poor and infirm pilgrim.” Knowing and loving Francis’s fine childlike dramatic instinct the minister entered into the spirit of his performance and replied, “Brother, we also be poor, and since we be many, the alms we have be necessary to us. But for the love of that Lord whom thou hast named, enter the house, and we’ll give you of the alms which the Lord hath given to us.” And he gave Francis a platter with food upon it and Francis carried it to the fire and sat down on the earth floor with the plate on his knees, as they had done at the Portiuncula in the old days. And then he sighed and said, “When I saw the table worshipfully and sumptuously laid out, I thought within myself it was not the table of poor religious who daily go from door to door for alms. For it becomes us, dearest, more than other religious to follow the example of the humility and poverty of Christ, because we are professed and called to this before God and men.” And then some of the friars began to weep because they were so ashamed.
Francis went as usual to the Whitsun chapter at the Portiuncula, for that was his duty, but there was no fighting sermon, no protest of any sort, for that was all over. Yet that chapter of 1224 was a memorable one, for it was then that Agnallus and his brothers were commissioned for England. English people can hold as one of their particular treasures the knowledge that Francis blessed these friars as one of his last actions before he went away into the wilderness to meet his God. They carried his “The Lord give thee peace” with them as a gift to England. On the September day when they landed in England, Francis was kneeling in prayer upon Monte Alvernia.
Chapter 18
Alvernia
Gazing on thee, thou bright and morning star,
I am led far, I know not where I be;
My heart is melted like a waxen bar,
That molded in Christ’s likeness it may be;
O Christ, thy barters keen and wondrous are!
I am stript naked, to be dust in thee:
My heart transformed in
me,
My mind lies dumb, to see thee come,
In sweetness and in love.
Now on no creature can I turn my sight,
But on my maker all my mind is set;
Earth, sea, and sky are emptied of delight,
For Christ’s clear love all else I clean forget:
All else seems vile, day seems as dark as night:
Cherubim, seraphim, in whom are met
Wisdom and love, must yet
Give place, give place, to that one face
To my dear Lord of love.
JACOPONE DA TODI
LAUDA XC: “AMOR DE CARITATE”
THE THOUGHT OF ALVERNIA must always have been at the back of Francis’s mind, that mountain that had been a gift to him and would lift him up to receive a gift from God of which perhaps he had some foreknowledge in the mingled fear and longing that came to him whenever he thought of Alvernia. Now, in the burning days of harvest, his thoughts turned to the holy angels. In common with the men of his time he had a great devotion to the angels, especially to the archangel Michael. He told his sons that the angels are companions to be revered and guardians to be called upon, that their presence must not be outraged and that we ought not to presume to do before them what we should not do before men. In those days a Lent was kept in their honor, and the honor of Mary Queen of Heaven, a fast which lasted from the Feast of the Assumption on August 15th until the Feast of Saint Michael on September the 29th. Francis knew that this year God had called him to keep the angels’ Lent on Mount Alvernia.