First Encounter With Francis of Assisi

Foreward

ForEword First Encounter with Francis of Assisi was first published in its original French language in 1973. The author, Friar Damien Vorreux, who died in 1998, began to publish French translations of the early Franciscan documents in the early 1950s. A couple of decades later, he had certainly become a savvy translator of those documents, in particular, the writings of Francis of Assisi. When in 1968 the Editions Franciscaines of Paris published the first collection of Franciscan sources in one volume,1 his translations took the lion’s share of the book. After those years of companionship with the Franciscan sources, it is clear that Damien Vorreux was in a good position to write a very good introduction to the saint of Assisi, and he did. Almost forty years after its publication in French, First Encounter with Francis of Assisi remains a book very much worth reading, and that is why the Franciscan Institute Publications have decided to produce a new edition of it in the English language. It is my pleasure to bring back some personal memory. Damien Vorreux and I worked together when, with Théophile Desbonnets (†1978) and Thaddée Matura, we were preparing the volume of the writings of Francis of Assisi for the series “Sources chrétiennes.”2 I was in charge of the French translation of Francis’s writings, and we did have some animated moments since Damien Vorreux and I had a very different approach to the difficult art of translating. But humor and 1 Saint François d’Assise: Documents, Théophile Desbonnets and Damien Vorreux, eds. (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, 1968). 2 François d’Assise, Ecrits, Théophile Desbonnets, Thaddée Matura, Jean-François Godet and Damien Vorreux, eds., Sources chrétiennes, 285 (Paris:Editions du Cerf, 1981). First Encounter with Francis 8 mutual respect always prevailed, and I certainly benefitted more than once from Damien’s long experience. For this new edition of First Encounter with Francis of Assisi, the English translation provided in 1979 by Paul Schwartz and Paul Lachance for the Franciscan Herald Press has been totally revisited. The footnotes and the bibliography have been updated and brought to the level of current scholarship. The quotations of the Franciscan early documents have been made according to the current English translation.3 The translation of the writings of Francis is our own, based on the latest critical edition.4 It has been a privilege, and a labor of love and gratitude to prepare this new edition of Damien Vorreux’s First Encounter with Francis of Assisi. Jean-François Godet-Calogeras 3 Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann and William J. Short, eds., 3 vol. (New York: New City Press, 1999-2001). 4 Carlo Paolazzi, Francisci Assisiensis Scripta, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum , 36 (Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 2009). ...