READING BETWEEN THE LINES
OCTOBER 4: FRANCIS OF ASSISI,
Friar and Deacon, 1181-1226
OUR TEXTS
Matthew 11:25-30
(NIV)
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from
the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes,
Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
27 “All things have been committed to me by
my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light.”
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Luke 10:21-22
21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through
the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed
them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to
do.
22 “All things have been committed to me by
my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows
who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal
him.”
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Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon
of St. Francis
of Assisi
Most High, all-powerful, all-good
Lord, All praise is Yours,
all glory, all
honor and all blessings.
To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy
To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy
to pronounce Your Name.
Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially
our Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by
which You cherish all that You have made.
Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.
Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through
whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful
and
robust and strong.
Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth
who
sustains and governs us,
producing
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You
and
bear sickness and trial.
Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they will be
crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,
from
whom no-one living can escape.
Woe
to those who die in mortal sin!
Blessed are they
She finds doing Your Will.
No second death
can do them harm.
Praise
and bless my Lord and give Him thanks,
And serve Him
with great humility.
ENTERING THE STORY
Francis, the son of a
prosperous merchant of Assisi, was born in 1182. His early youth was spent in
harmless revelry and fruitless attempts to win military glory. Various encounters with beggars and lepers
pricked the young man’s conscience, however, and he decided to embrace a life
devoted to Lady Poverty. Despite his father’s intense opposition, Francis
totally renounced all material values and devoted himself to serve the poor.
One morning in February 1208, Francis was hearing Mass in the chapel of St.
Mary of the Angels, near which he had then built himself a hut. The Gospel of
the day was the "Commissioning of the Twelve" from the Book of
Matthew. The disciples are to go and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at
hand. Francis was inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty. Having
obtained a coarse woolen tunic, the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian
peasants, he tied it around him with a knotted rope and went forth at once
exhorting the people of the country-side to penance, brotherly love, and peace.
Francis' preaching to ordinary people was unusual since he had no license to do
so.[3] In 1210, Pope Innocent III
confirmed the simple Rule for the Order of Friars Minor (Lesser Brothers), a
name Francis chose to emphasize his desire to be numbered among the “least” of
God’s servants.
The
order grew rapidly all over Europe. But, by 1221, Francis had
lost control of it,
since his ideal of strict and absolute poverty, both
for the individual
friars and for the order as a whole, was found to be too difficult to maintain.
His last years were spent in much suffering of body and spirit, but his
unconquerable joy never failed. In his
later years he was ordained as a deacon, but he resisted all efforts to
persuade him to become a priest.
Not
long before his death, during a retreat on Mount La Verna, Francis received, on
September 14th, Holy Cross Day, the marks of the Lord’s wounds, the
stigmata, in his own hands and feet and side. Pope Gregory IX, a former patron
of the Franciscans, canonized Francis
in 1228 and began the erection of the great
basilica in Assisi where Francis is buried.
Of
all the saints, Francis is perhaps the most popular and admired but probably
the least imitated; few have attained to his total identification with the
poverty and suffering of Christ. Francis left few writings;
but, of these, his
spirit of joyous faith comes through most truly in
the “Canticle of the Sun,” which he composed
at Clare’s convent of
St.
Damian’s. [1]
A
hundred years before Francis’ birth the Italian Renaissance burst forth from
the Middle Ages, an epoch of the Crusades, the rise of towns and the earliest
city-states in Italy. It was the culmination
of Romanesque art and the beginnings of Gothic.
It saw the emergence of vernacular literature, the revival of Latin
classics and poetry and Roman law, the recovery of Greek science with Arabic
additions; and the origin of the first European universities .
Legal historian Vanja
Hamzić noted:
The eventful
twelfth century was, in many ways, a veritable paradox. On the one hand, it saw
a sudden surge in academic works and universities in western and southern
Europe that sought to bridge the worlds previously thought entirely
incommensurable and usher in an age of scholasticism that would eventually lead
to the fourteenth- to seventeenth-century Renaissance. For this reason, it has
been a staple of mediaevalist scholarship to describe those thorough-going
changes as the 'renaissance of the twelfth century'. On the other hand, the
same century also reads as a striking catalogue of most violent acts and
disasters: from the rise of inquisition and merciless Christian infighting,
over the first expulsions of Jews and the intensification of the Reconquista
on Muslim Spain to the blood and gore of the Second, Third and German Crusades.
Might it not be more appropriate, then, to characterize this period as an age
of profound crisis, in which the true contours of a 'persecuting society' were
drawn?[9]
British art
historian Kenneth Clark wrote that Western Europe's first
"great age of civilization" was ready to begin around the year 1000.
From 1100, he wrote, monumental abbeys and cathedrals were constructed and
decorated with sculptures, hangings, mosaics and works belonging to one of the
greatest epochs of art and providing stark contrast to the monotonous and
cramped conditions of ordinary living during the period. Abbot Suger of the Abbey of St. Denis is considered an influential early patron
of Gothic architecture and believed that love of beauty brought people closer
to God: "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is
material". Clark calls this "the intellectual background of all the
sublime works of art of the next century and in fact has remained the basis of
our belief of the value of art until today".[8]
EXPLORING
THE STORY
1.
Read
again the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon again after hearing about the
period in which Francis lived. Underline the verses that stir you in this
second reading.
Vanja
Hamzić says the eventful twelfth century
was, in many ways, a veritable paradox.
·
A paradox is describes as a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory
statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be
well founded or true.
·
As
you hear the overview of the time of Francis’ life and his canticle what would
you name as the veritable paradox?
How
might his words stand in contrast with what you know about the spirituality and
theology of the Middle Ages? Where might
Francis’ words have been consistent with the Italian Renaissance, whose air he
was breathing all around him in Assisi and Umbria?
·
Even
today there is criticism of this text and its reference to Sister Moon and Brother Wind, Air, and Fire and Mother Earth and Sister
Death as being pagan. What is the
nature of something that is pagan? How
might critics use the term pagan in
denouncing this text?
·
What
might have been so threatening in his words?
Imagine
those who heard his words? What do we
know of the people who responded to him?
From what walks of life do you imagine these people came?
Richard
Rohr, in his daily on-line meditations, has been focusing this week on the
Franciscan Way, himself being a Franciscan Friar. On Monday he wrote:
Francis’ holiness, like all holiness, was unique and never a
copy or mere imitation. In his
“Testament,” he said, “No one showed me what I ought to do,” and then at the very end of his life, he said, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ
teach you what is yours!”[2]
·
Imagine
yourself listening to Francis in these two statements: How would you respond? What permission, freedom and space, to use
Rohr’s words, did Francis give his listeners?
·
How
does this contrast to what we know of the Medieval Church or the Church in many
ways over the last 800 years?
·
Towards
the end of his life Francis finally puts into print this canticle. Rohr refers to the words of Francis as “his
testament,” or we might say “gospel” – good news. Rohr goes on to say
The visible world is an active doorway to the invisible
world, and the invisible world is much larger than the visible world. [3]
·
What
might Francis have been saying about what was hiding in his outer world?
·
What
other words would you use to describe his testament/his gospel?
·
What
might they have been communicating about Creation?
The
Franciscan Way was a movement within the Western Church, which remember had not
been torn apart by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. To understand this
movement we must include Clare of Assisi if we are to comprehend the “Franciscan
Way.”
Clare was born on July 16, 1194,
whose wealthy parents were descendants of ancient Roman families. She was among the first followers of
Francis. Like Francis, who gathered many
men around him, Clare gathered many women and founded the Order of Poor Ladies,
a monastic religious order. She wrote
their Rule of Life, the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written
by a woman. After her death the order
was renamed in her honor as the Order of St. Clare, commonly referred to today
as the Poor Clares. The first
missionaries to California were Franciscans under Fray Junipero Serra with San
Francisco and Santa Clare carrying forward the memory of these two saints.
So deep was the spiritual love that Francis and Clare shared together
that it was said that when they were praying together that those who were
outside said it was as though the whole room was on fire.
Clare
wrote:
“We become what we love and who we love
shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love
nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ,
rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through
transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God's compassionate love
for others.”
What
might this have added to the women and men who were becoming followers of Clare
and Francis?
In John 10:7 Jesus says, “I am the gate,”, Rohr says,
Francis and Clare carried this
mystery to its full and lovely conclusion.
Or more rightly, they were fully carried by the mystery. They somehow
knew that the beyond was not really beyond, but in the depth of the here.[4]
What do you hear him saying? What made the Way of Francis and Clare so
radical in the 13th Century?
Why might it be so radical today?
2. Francis’ thoughts were revolutionary in an age of Holy Crusades and acquiring
wealth, with an emphasis on the poor, the naked and the marginalized. Francis
agreed with Luke’s understanding of “perfect” as meaning merciful or
compassionate. [5]
·
Where are there parallels in our
world today?
·
Who are the revolutionaries who are
emphasizing mercy, compassion and a preference for the poor, naked and
marginalized?
The visible world is
an active doorway to the invisible world, and the invisible world is much
larger than the visible world.
·
What
are the doorways that they are looking through? What do we hear about what they
see through the ordinary?
·
How
would you describe the much larger invisible world they are pointing to?
·
What
reaction do they have to people around them and beyond? Why might that be?
What
in your visible world do you know of doorways that lead to an invisible world
that is much larger than the visible world?
·
How
do you consider or value these doorways?
What have they meant to you in the past?
How did you regard them?
·
How
have you entered them and what “world much large” did you find?
·
How
has this effected your life? How might
you say that you were carried by the
mystery?
What are the doorways in your
visible world today might you spend more time in?
·
What
keeps you for making this a priority?
Consider setting aside a certain
amount of time each day at one of these doorways and entering in.
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
Our outer world and its inner significance must come
together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is deep joy and
a resounding sense of coherent beauty. What was personified in the body of
Jesus was a manifestation of this one universal truth: Matter is, and has
always been, the hiding place for Spirit, forever offering itself to be
discovered anew. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “I am
the gate” (John 10:7). Francis and his female companion, Clare (1194–1253), carried
this mystery to its full and lovely conclusion. Or, more rightly, they were
fully carried by the mystery. They somehow knew that the beyond was not really
beyond, but in the depths of here.
Discovery Anew - R. Rohr September 29, 2019
I hope to show what Francis of Assisi clearly changed and
did differently and what flowed from his unique wholeness. We will see that
Francis was at once very traditional and entirely new in the ways of holiness—a
paradox. He stood barefoot on the earth and yet touched the heavens. He was
grounded in the Church and yet instinctively moved toward the cosmos. He lived
happily inside the visible and yet both suffered and rejoiced in what others
thought was invisible. Francis was at home in two worlds at the same time, and thus
he revealed it was all one world. –
One World – R. Rohr Sept 30, 2019
Most Christians believe that God created the cosmos for our
species alone and that any reference to nonhuman creation as related to us is
to be taken as naïve or romantic at best, or “pagan” or “anti-Christian” at
worst. Instead, we are told to believe
our species is not only the pinnacle of creation, but also the only aspect of
the created order that really matters…By “birdbath industrial complex” I mean
all those diffuse factors and judgments that go into keeping St. Francis a
caricature of the profoundly insightful theological vision he articulated in
“Canticle of the Creatures” and throughout his entire life. Anytime we reduce the saint to a medieval
petting-zoo mascot or state simply that he “loved animals” without regard for
the radical truth about God and creation he intended, we are contributing to
and operating according to the logic of the “birdbath industrial complex.”
– Father Daniel P Horan, OFM “Beyond the ‘birthbath
industrial complex’ is the radical St. Francis of Assisi.” Commonweal, September 2019
[1] In part from Lesser
Feasts and Fasts of the Episcopal Church. The Feast of St. Clare of Assisi
is August 11. She died in 1253.
[2] Richard Rohr, Daily
Meditations, Monday, September 30, 2019 “One World” – Franciscan Way-Part 1
[3] Rohr, Sunday, September 29
[4] Rohr, Sunday, September
29.
[5] Father John Quigley, OFM
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
frharry@cfl.rr.com
hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com
If the unexamined life is not worth
living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is
not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
For what does G-d require of you but
to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? (Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)
Do not be daunted by the enormity of
the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are
not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
- Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston 2019
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