Respectfully Yours: Signed and Sealed, Francis of Assisi: Aspects of His Authorship and Focuses of His Spirituality

Chapter 3 - Yours Respectfully in Bearing, Thanking, Serving

91 Chapter 3 Yours Respectfully in Bearing, Thanking, Serving The remarkable place which “bearing” and “rendering” or “returning” have in the collection of Admonitions makes the question about their deeper meaning in Francis’s writings even more important. It also makes the questions we asked ourselves in Chapter 1 more significant. In particular, the question is whether for Francis “faith,” in tandem with “praise,” is related to “giving back.” And what connection can be established between “doing penance” and “bearing” or “enduring”? These questions, however, remain all too abstract if they are not related to the life Francis lived. Therefore, we constantly have to be on our guard against playing games with some stray concepts. As we search for the concrete meaning which sustinere and reddere had for him, we will try to do justice to the biblical references he heard in these words and to the deeply emotional charge he gave them. We turn, then, to two texts in particular, which have a prominent place in the collection of Admonitions: Admonitions 2 and 18. This choice accounts for the structure of this chapter. 1. We will pay attention to Francis’s view of original sin in Admonition 2. There he formulates the power lines of his spirituality very concisely, “in negatives” as it were. In his interpretation of the Scripture text about the old Adam, the features of Jesus Christ, the new Adam as portrayed by Paul, begin to shine through (Phil. 2:5ff). 2. Then, we will listen to Admonition 18, as concise as it is rich in content. We will try to do justice to its two themes: bearing (carrying) the neighbor and giving back or rendering what God entrusted to us. In order to bring out the elements that are typical of Francis, we will compare his use of biblical language with an authoritative philosophical opinion. 3. Lastly, we will address the question how the concepts of bearing, rendering, and serving are interwoven and how they constitute three expressions of the respect which is an essential characteristic of Francis’s attitude toward life. 92 Yours Respectfully: Francis of Assisi Admonition 2: On the Core of Sin Not infrequently, Francis’s Admonitions characteristically expose deceptive images and actions that express the sometimes dubious attitude of religious persons. For what matters to Francis is the right attitude. It can be no coincidence, therefore, that in Admonition 2, immediately after he has opened the collection with a reflection on God’s hidden mystery, he examines the hidden core of human beings, viz. the will and its liberation. Sharply formulated, this Admonition demonstrates clearly Francis’s decisiveness in defining what is to be called right or wrong. It has a deep effect on the entire collection. For this reason we will pay considerable attention to Francis’s understanding of the hard core of sin in the first section of this chapter. Admonition 2: 1. Dixit Dominus ad Adam: De omni ligno comede, de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali non comedas (cf. Gn. 2:16,17). 2. De omni ligno paradisi poterat comedere, quia, dum non venit contra obedientiam, non peccavit. 3. Ille enim comedit de ligno scientiae boni, qui sibi suam voluntatem appropriat et se exaltat de bonis, quae Dominus dicit et operatur in ipso; 4. et sic per suggestionem diaboli et transgressionem mandati factum est pomum scientiae mali. 5. Unde oportet, quod sustineat poenam. 1. The Lord said to Adam: Eat of every tree; you may not eat, however, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 2. He was able to eat of every tree of paradise, because he did not sin as long as he did not go against obedience. 3. For that person eats of the tree of the knowledge of good who makes his will his own and, in this way, exalts himself over the good things the Lord says and does in him. 4. And so, through the suggestion of the devil and the transgression of the command, it became the apple of the knowledge of evil. 5. Therefore it is fitting that he suffer the punishment. Yours Respectfully in Bearing, Thanking, Serving 93 The Will in Discussion We recall that, in the structure of the collection of Admonitions, the text about Adam finds its counterpart in the one about the new Adam: Admonition 27.1 Following the Christian tradition, Francis probably saw the tree of knowledge of good...