Today October 4

Today is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226). What can I say about this great man that hasn't already been said? I think the only thing I'd want to say is: take the man whole and all. Don't make him into a Protestant, or worse, an eco-worshiper. Many people have made him into a sentimental nature lover, totally editing out the very significant fact that he was very much a man of the Church. It's as if one took Gandhi as a yoga-practicing swami and made him into an imperialist -- totally denying what he was and what he stood for. St. Francis, not to put too fine a point upon it, is first of all a Catholic; all that other wonderful and appealing stuff is just gravy.

It's hard to categorize Francis -- he seems passionate to the point of impetuosity but I think he was much more logical than that. I think a clue is to be found in his given (as opposed to baptismal name, which was John) name: "the Frenchman." The French are passionate and sensitive, indeed, but they are also precise and logical. Francis was a man who took things seriously and to their ultimate conclusion. While a soldier, he had seen a vision of a heavenly court marked with the sign of the cross. Soon after he heard a voice: "Serve the master rather than the man." He immediately realized he needed to get his priorities in order. He left the service, went home and prayed (and served and visited the poor and sick) and while he was praying in St. Damiano heard the voice: "Francis, go and repair my house, which is falling down." He immediately got up, sold a horseload of cloth from his father's textile shop, brought the money to the priest at San Damiano and asked to live with him. He then set about actually repairing the old church. His father and the townspeople thought him mentally ill. They threw clods of soil on him and his father kidnapped him, beat him and put him in irons. With the help of his mother, he escaped and went right back to the old church. His father summoned him before the good bishop, Guido, who advised Francis to give back the money he'd taken as "[God] does not wish His Church to profit by goods which have been gotten unjustly." And Francis just took it a step further: "The clothes I wear are also his. I'll give them back." Which he dramatically did, then and there. He stood there naked, and was disowned by his father -- which he accepted. "Now I say 'Our Father, who art in heaven.' " He put on a simple brown garment, which he marked with the sign of the cross and tied with a rope for a belt. He went about the highways and byways singing and talking about the love of God (and Lady Poverty -- the Gospel poverty of "sell all you have and follow me") in terms of the great chivalry and troubadours of the time.

He was rejected by many, accepted by some. He was sometimes beaten and thrown in the snow. He was verbally maligned, which he bore with equanimity; he was ignored, but he was also welcomed. He did indeed literally help rebuild San Damiano and did himself rebuild the Portiuncula, a little abandoned chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, whom he loved. He predicted it would be the home of a group of dedicated nuns -- which it was, led by St. Clare, five years later. He greeted all with a sign of peace and embraced and kissed a man with a horrible cancer on his face; the man was instantly cured. "I know not which I ought most to wonder at, such a kiss or such a cure." - St. Bonaventure.

He attracted men to himself and when they had reached a dozen, Francis wrote up for them a short rule and applied for permission from the Pope. Francis, the Protestant, sought the Pope's approbation! Imagine. Innocent III was reluctant to give it to him, but John Cardinal Colonna cautioned that Francis was only following the Gospel, after all, and Innocent himself had had a vision in a dream of Francis propping up the Lateran church, the pope's own diocesan church. He gave his approval.

Francis and his spiritual brothers went back to Assisi and lived at the Portiuncula (plus little huts of wood and clay they built around it), but which they insisted on renting instead of accepting as an outright gift. They were ascetic but not excessive. When one brother cried out one night: "I'm dying of hunger!" Francis brought him food and even ate it with him so he would not be embarrassed. Francis was an "all or nothing" man, it's true, but at heart a kind and reasonable one. For that -- and for his magnificent poetry, his miraculous cures and talking to the animals, for his poverty and his chastity and holy obedience -- to the pope! -- I dearly love him. And in his last days, sprawled out on the grounds of the convent at the Portiuncula, he asked for an almond cookie from Clare (for some reason I always remember that), apologized to his body "Brother Ass" for treating him so roughly, and died: of all men, a truly happy man. His last words were "Blessed be God." and (to his spiritual brothers), "I have done my part; may Christ teach you to do yours." Good St. Francis, pray for us.