(1182-1226)
 

 
 
 
Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the
Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist
sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully,
without limit and without a mite of self-importance.

Serious
illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his
frolicking life as leader of Assisi's youth. Prayer—lengthy and
difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by
embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete
obedience to what he had heard in prayer: "Francis! Everything you have
loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if
you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now
seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but
all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and
exceeding joy."

From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of
San Damiano, Christ told him, "Francis, go out and build up my house,
for it is nearly falling down." Francis became the totally poor and
humble workman.

He must have suspected a deeper meaning to "build
up my house." But he would have been content to be for the rest of his
life the poor "nothing" man actually putting brick on brick in
abandoned chapels. He gave up every material thing he had, piling even
his clothes before his earthly father (who was demanding restitution
for Francis' "gifts" to the poor) so that he would be totally free to
say, "Our Father in heaven." He was, for a time, considered to be a
religious "nut," begging from door to door when he could not get money
for his work, bringing sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former
friends, ridicule from the unthinking.

But genuineness will tell.
A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be
Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: "Announce the kingdom!
Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag,
no sandals, no staff" (see Luke 9:1-3).

Francis' first rule for
his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no
idea of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and
accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion
and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time
when various movements of reform tended to break the Church's unity.

He
was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active
preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but
always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary
in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in
both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth
Crusade.

During the last years of his relatively short life (he
died at 44) he was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his
death, he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ
in his hands, feet and side.

On his deathbed, he said over and
over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, "Be praised, O
Lord, for our Sister Death." He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked
his superior to have his clothes removed when the last hour came and
for permission to expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his
Lord.

Chapter One of Greg Pierce’s new book “The World As It Should Be:
Living Authentically in the Here-and-Now Kingdom of God”,
to published in the fall of 2009 by Loyola Press

Copyright © 2009 by Gregory F. Augustine Pierce.  All rights are reserved.  No portion of this essay may be reproduced or disseminated in any form without the express permission of the publisher.