First Encounter With Francis of Assisi

II. “I was seized by Christ”

ii. “i was seizeD by chrisT” (Phil 3:12) The legendary details of Saint Francis’s life are familiar to everyone; the Fioretti has for quite some time been considered one of the classics of Christianity and it has its place alongside the Bible, the Missal, and the Imitation of Christ on family bookshelves. So we won’t repeat all those stories here. Our aim here is to tell how Francis discovered Christ and the gospel, and how his discovery shone out over all the world. Our interest is to better understand the man in order to better understand his accomplishments. To do so we must follow a long route, for Francis would not suddenly become perfect, but he was to pass “gradually from flesh to spirit.”16 For some people, an apparently balanced life is nothing but the sign of a deeper inertia. There are others, however, for whom such balance is the fruit of a continual struggle, one facet of a dynamic tension where opposing forces become reconciled. Francis was one of these exceptional and gifted people. Umbria and Assisi Having Umbria for his cradle was his first blessing.17 Umbria – a land with rolling hills steep enough to produce variety and contrast and to call forth an effort; yet gentle enough 16 2C 11 (FA:ED 2, 250). 17 “In Umbria one still sees peasants dressed in robes with knotted belts, which was the first outfit of the brothers. The whole countryside reminds one of Saint Francis. It seems that Saint Francis of Assisi could not have been born or have lived anywhere but in Umbria.” L. Veuillot, 22 First Encounter with Francis not to distract eyes looking for contemplation; a permanent invitation to a concrete and rooted prayer. A region where the very air possesses a radiant and almost tangible luminosity, where what is not simple and naive seems to be out of place. A sky whose intense, expansive blue seems so fresh, bringing crickets and hearts to sing. Of all the praises written about Umbria, the most beautiful is undoubtedly the one that compares its springtimes with those of Galilee;18 more than mere praise, this parallel is a mystery: two countrysides so similar have been able to give the world the Master and his most perfect imitation. And, on the slope of a little hill, there sits a small city of pink stone: Assisi – a living, even turbulent, town, the opposite of a lazy Romorantine.19 A town of song and trade, overlooking the road from France to Rome that carries pilgrims and crusaders in rags and fine velvet. A hot-blooded town where talk about taking up arms against Perugia heats up every couple of months. A town where money, politics, and religion (three absolutes then inseparable) are all the topic of conversation; where the bishop and the podestà square off for a fight amid great shouts before being reconciled amid crocodile tears: sincerely, but only for a short time. A commune where all the inhabitants fraternize in the cool breeze of the evening on the piazza with an easy-going familiarity. There is nothing like a modern city here, that “bourgeois shop, a silo full of tenants, barrel upon barrel of human sauerkraut .” (Paul Claude!).20 Renan, that master craftsman, deCarnet de voyage, 1874, cited by E. Veuillot, Louis Veuillot, vol. IV (Paris: Lethielleux, 1913), 494 18 E. Renan, Lettre à Berthelot, May 11, 1850 (Rome: Forzani, 1888). 19 Editor’s note: Romorantin is an archetypical French provincial city, off the beaten path and known for its wine produced from grapes of the same name. Used here it indicates the opposite of the bustling Assisi. 20 P. Claudel, Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher (Paris: Gallimard, 1935), 143. 23 First Encounter with Francis clared: “Florence seems like a Boeotia21 to me ever since I’ve seen Assisi.”22 This was the backdrop for Francis’s first twenty years. A happy country, a happy temperament. Blessings such as these pointed toward really harsh demands. But the gentle mercy of the Lord does not stop there. Milord Bernardone and Lady Pica Did Francis’s father have a great moral influence on his son? When he appears on the historical scene, he behaves in an unfortunate way and with a surly disposition that cannot be taken as a sign of a very elevated spirituality.23 He was a red-faced blusterer, a rich fabric...