Life of St. Francis of Assisi | Page 3

cure of souls in
the Church, felt himself suddenly impelled to lift up his voice. The
child of the people, he knew all their material and moral woes, and their
mysterious echo sounded in his own heart. Like the ancient prophet of
Israel, he heard an imperious voice saying to him: "Go and speak to the
children of my people." "Ah, Lord God, I am but a child, I know not
how to speak." "Say not, I am but a child, for thou shalt go to all those
to whom I shall send thee. Behold I have set thee to-day as a strong city,
a pillar of iron and a wall of brass against the kings of Judah, against its
princes and against its priests."
These thirteenth-century saints were in fact true prophets. Apostles like

St. Paul, not as the result of a canonical consecration, but by the interior
order of the Spirit, they were the witnesses of liberty against authority.
The Calabrian seer, Gioacchino di Fiore, hailed the new-born
revolution; he believed in its success and proclaimed to the wondering
world the advent of a new ministry. He was mistaken.
When the priest sees himself vanquished by the prophet he suddenly
changes his method. He takes him under his protection, he introduces
his harangues into the sacred canon, he throws over his shoulders the
priestly chasuble. The days pass on, the years roll by, and the moment
comes when the heedless crowd no longer distinguishes between them,
and it ends by believing the prophet to be an emanation of the clergy.
This is one of the bitterest ironies of history.
Francis of Assisi is pre-eminently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing
nothing to church or school he was truly theodidact,[3] and if he
perhaps did not perceive the revolutionary bearing of his preaching, he
at least always refused to be ordained priest. He divined the superiority
of the spiritual priesthood.
The charm of his life is that, thanks to reliable documents, we find the
man behind the wonder worker. We find in him not merely noble
actions, we find in him a life in the true meaning of the word; I mean,
we feel in him both development and struggle.
How mistaken are the annals of the Saints in representing him as from
the very cradle surrounded with aureole and nimbus! As if the finest
and most manly of spectacles were not that of the man who conquers
his soul hour after hour, fighting first against himself, against the
suggestions of egoism, idleness, discouragement, then at the moment
when he might believe himself victorious, finding in the champions
attracted by his ideal those who are destined if not to bring about its
complete ruin, at least to give it its most terrible blows. Poor Francis!
The last years of his life were indeed a via dolorosa as painful as that
where his master sank down under the weight of the cross; for it is still
a joy to die for one's ideal, but what bitter pain to look on in advance at

the apotheosis of one's body, while seeing one's soul--I would say his
thought--misunderstood and frustrated.
If we ask for the origins of his idea we find them exclusively among the
common people of his time; he is the incarnation of the Italian soul at
the beginning of the thirteenth century, as Dante was to be its
incarnation a hundred years later.
He was of the people and the people recognized themselves in him. He
had their poetry and their aspirations, he espoused their claims, and the
very name of his institute had at first a political signification: in Assisi
as in most other Italian towns there were majores and minores, the
popolo grasso and the popolo minuto; he resolutely placed himself
among the latter. This political side of his apostolate needs to be clearly
apprehended if we would understand its amazing success and the
wholly unique character of the Franciscan movement in its beginning.
As to its attitude toward the Church, it was that of filial obedience. This
may perhaps appear strange at first as regards an unauthorized preacher
who comes speaking to the world in the name of his own immediate
personal inspiration. But did not most of the men of '89 believe
themselves good and loyal subjects of Louis XVI.?
The Church was to our ancestors what the fatherland is to us; we may
wish to remodel its government, overturn its administration, change its
constitution, but we do not think ourselves less good patriots for that.
In the same way, in an age of simple faith when religious beliefs
seemed to be in the very fibre and flesh of humanity, Dante, without
ceasing to be a good Catholic, could attack the clergy and the court of