The Legend of St Francis: Index of all posts

As all far and wide began to know Francis by reputation, great expectations for him grew. Francis also began to notice his own behaviour. It began to seem to him that his talent for pleasing men was great, he sensed his ability to garner favour with the great. But his thoughts also turned toward God. What about God? Where did the One fit in Who was greater than all of these great men of the world? Did he not need the favour of the Greatest of all to succeed?

All at once an idea came to him, a providential idea: God’s favour was garnered by generosity to the poor! And so he reasoned to himself, thinking: Francis, you are generous and strive to be courteous, but all of those that you are generous with, they are but men! And men, what can they repay you with? They can only give you passing things, temporal and transitory. Now God, is not He greater, richer, more noble? Is He not more honourable than all! And what can He give you? His riches – the riches He gives – those are the riches that never perish or fade! So, Francis, if it makes sense to be generous to the great amongst mortals, this also makes sense: You must be generous the poor, for they are not great, but God is great, and He is magnanimous in repaying generosity to the poor! These thoughts marked a change in Francis, and from that day he strove successfully to be generous in welcoming and giving to the poor.

One day Francis was busy. And it happened on that day that, immersed in the hustle and bustle of business, Francis forget himself and all his good thoughts. For a beggar approached, yet Francis was preoccupied by the noise – exterior and interior – of this work-a-day world.

“An alms, please,” the beggar said. Francis returned to himself some little and seemed to notice the beggar for the first time, though he had been there for some moments.

“Alms, for the love of God,” the beggar said. But Francis, still intent on the business of making money, had his attention drawn back to his customers. I will give the beggar something in a moment, he thought. But before he could turn back to the beggar, the beggar was gone.

The beggar had gone away away empty handed! Nay, Francis felt, he himself had sent him away empty handed by being so embroiled in his own little world.

The sorrow Francis felt distracted his thoughts from the very business that had formerly distracted him. He began to accuse himself harshly. What do you think, he said to himself, you would have done if this man had said he represented some count or baron? Wouldn’t you have given him what he asked? And shouldn’t you have done at least as much when he asked in the name of the King of Kings, the Lord of all?

Then and there, Francis promised and vowed to God that never ever again, as long as he lived, would Francis refuse anyone who asked him “for the love of God”, so long as he had anything to give.

A rash vow by all appearances! Only justified by the keeping of it, seemingly! Francis kept it, with unwavering faith. And yet still he was a lover of the world! Not yet had he discovered God’s plan for him, nor yet had he put on Jesus Christ, his perfection and ours, to Whom belongs glory forever and ever. Amen

Sources: Celano, Legenda Major, Legenda Trium Sociorum, Julian of Speyer

Saving Graces

One of the three vows a Benedictine monk takes is the vow of conversatio morum which is the vow to continually forsake the ways of the world and live the life of monastic perfection. Saint Francis was far from this conversatio when he made the decision to honour the poor. This decision was a calculation of a mind still in love with worldly esteem, a heart yet enthralled by what the world calls greatness. Yet his worldly way of thinking led him to a correct conclusion: If great men’s esteem is worth having, how much more God’s? If the friendship of the great is so worthwhile, how much more the friendship of the Almighty?

This calculation did not yet lead him to set aside all earthly desires, as later it would. But it did lead him to a behaviour that would become his “saving grace,” so to speak. He wanted the blessing of God, and he knew that God needed nothing of what he had; but he also know that God loved the poor, and he determined to broker God’s favour through a special concern for the poor. All the while, he remained a man in love with the world.

Saint Francis was not yet Saint Francis when he made this good resolution! He was still seeking himself and the glory of the world. Yet his decision to never refuse a poor man who asked for the love of God was to have tremendous consequences for his life. It was to make all the difference, to open the path of his total renunciation of the world and of self; it was to lead him to the perfection of religious conversion, to his form of conversatio morum.

The decision to value and do good for the poor was Saint Francis’ “saving grace”. How good God is that He takes whatever glimmer of goodness we have and uses it – if we allow Him – to transform us utterly. May God also be so generous with us and with all those we love. Whatever good we encounter in ourselves or in others is a created participation in God, and God can use the least habit of moral goodness as the basis of conversion. So let us always pray for each man – seem he ever so far from God – and never lose hope. Let us also be confident that God can work our own conversion, and we too can become saints.