V

VOICES OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

The mystic pilgrimage to Assisi, the “Seraphic City,” prefigures itself almost as a journey to the Mount of Vision. “Any line of truth that leads us above materialism,” says Dr. Wilberforce, Venerable Archdeacon of Westminster Abbey, “that forces us to think, that encourages the imagination to pierce the world’s cobwebs, that forces us to remember that we are enwrapped by the supernatural, is helpful and stimulating. A human life lived only in the seen and felt, with no sense of the invisible, is a fatally impoverished life, a poor, blind, wingless life, but to believe that ever around us is a whole world full of spiritual beings; that this life, with its burdens, is but the shadow which precedes the reality; that here we are but God’s children at school, is an invigorating conviction, full of hope, productive of patience and fruitful in self-control.”

To an age imprisoned in the fear of God the “sweet saint,” Francis, brought the message of the love of God. To an age crushed under the abuses of religion as an organization of feudal bishops and ecclesiastics, St. Francis brought the message of hope and of joy. He revealed to his age the absolute reality of the spiritual world that surrounds us. He was born into a time when there existed on the one hand, poverty and misery; on the other, selfish and debasing self-indulgence of wealth and its corresponding oppression of the poor. The Church itself was a power for conquest and greed. Its kingdom was of this world. St. Bernard and others had nobly aimed to effect a reform and had illustrated by their own lives the beautiful example of simplicity and unselfishness, but their work failed in effectiveness and permanent impress.

Not only in beauty, but in power does it stand. St. Francis brought to the sad and problematic conditions of his time that resistless energy of infinite patience, of a self-control based on insight into the divine relationships of life, and of unfailing fidelity to his high purpose. Through good report or through evil report he kept the faith, and pressed onward to the high calling of God. The twelfth and the thirteenth centuries had been a period of religious unrest and chaos. As Archdeacon Wilberforce has so impressively said in the words quoted from him, a life lived with no sense of the invisible is blind and impoverished. The movement initiated by St. Francis proclaimed anew the divine grace and love.

Something not unlike this trend of thought must drift through the mind of every one who journeys through the lovely Umbrian country to Assisi, one of those picturesquely beautiful hill towns of Italy whose romantic situation impresses the visitor. Seen from a little distance, one could hardly imagine how it could be reached unless he were the fortunate possessor of an airship. The entire region is most picturesque in character. Journeying from Rome to Assisi there is a constant ascent from the Campagna to the Apennines, and the road passes through wild defile and valley with amethyst peaks shining fair against the sky, with precipitous rocks, and the dense growth of oak and pine trees. In some places the valley is so narrow that the hills, on either side, rise almost within touch of the hand from the car window. The hill towns are frequent, and the apex of these towns is invariably crowned with a castle, a cathedral, or a ruin, and around it, circling in terraces, is built the town. The charm largely vanishes when fairly in these circling roads, for on either side are high walls, so that one’s view is completely bounded by them; but from the summit and from the upper floors of the houses the most beautiful views are obtained. The Umbrian region, in which are located Perugia, Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Spoleto, Terni, Narni, and others, is simply the gem region of all Italy. The Umbrians are the most ancient of the Italian people, and Assisi claims to have been founded eight hundred and sixty-five years before the founding of Rome. It was the scene of constant warfare, and the streets are all underlaid by subterranean passages, in which the inhabitants could disappear from their enemies.

To this ancient Umbrian city, from which went out the life and light that carried wonderful currents of vitality and illumination to all Italy and into almost all parts of the world, one comes as to a special and a sacred pilgrimage. For this mediæval town, perched on the top of a rocky hill, is the birthplace of St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order; in it were the scenes of his early life, and here, in 1226, at the age of forty-four years, he died. The convent-church of San Francesco, built to his memory in 1230; the lower church, completed at that date, while the upper was finished in 1253; the magnificent Cathedral of Santa Maria Degli Angeli, completed in 1640; the Church of Santa Chiara and the Duomo, are the points of interest.

The purple Apennines, on one spur of which Assisi is built, are a picturesque feature of lovely Umbria. The old houses of Assisi rise white in the sunshine. The ancient walls still surround the city, and its towers stand as they stood before the eyes of St. Francis, almost seven centuries ago. The peak of Mt. Subasio, a neighboring peak of the Apennines, looms above the colossal rock that crowns the hill around whose top Assisi clusters in winding terraces. The massive pile of the Francescan church and monastery—the two churches, one above the other—forms an architectural group whose imposing aspect arrests the eye of every traveller for miles around. The pointed arches of the cloisters and the square campanile contrast rather than blend in an effective and harmonious manner and resemble military fortifications rather than an edifice of the church. The old walls still surround Assisi, and the houses all rise white under the blue Italian sky. The narrow streets, hardly wide enough for one carriage to pass another, are so intricate in their curves as they climb the steep hill, that it requires a faith hardly less than the traditional degree said to move mountains to lead the visitor to suppose that he will ever emerge from one that he has entered. Many of the houses along these curious thoroughfares have no windows, the only light and air coming through the open door. The bells from the campanile of the Francescan convent-church, from the Duomo and from the Church of Santa Chiara ring every quarter of an hour; and this constant clash of bells is almost the only sound that breaks the silence of the mediæval town, which lends itself to visions and to dreams. On the very air is stamped the impress of St. Francis. His personality, his teachings, his faith pervaded the atmosphere in a way that no one could believe until he had himself entered into the experience. In narration it cannot but seem like a pleasing and half-poetic fancy; but the lingerer in this shrine of religion and art will realize that the actual personality of the man who trod these streets nearly seven hundred years ago is strangely before him. Canon Knox Little, in a series of lectures on St. Francis of Assisi delivered in the Ladye Chapel of Worcester Cathedral a few years since, says of the panorama of the town:—

Assisi was an important town in the twelfth century when Francis, the son of Pietro Bernardone di Mercanti, wandered over its hills, and after severe fasting and prayer communed with God. Born in the midst of the constant warfare between Assisi and Perugia, he was first a soldier. He was captured and thrown into prison, and it was a remarkable dream, or vision, that came to him before he was set free, that determined his life of consecration. Tradition invested his birth with legends, one of which is, that in his infancy an aged man came to the door and begged to be permitted to take the child in his arms, prophesying that he was destined to accomplish a great work. Pietro Bernardone was a wealthy merchant of Assisi. Pica, the mother of Francis, is said to have been of noble origin and of a deeply religious nature. The early youth of Francis was given to games, festivals, and pleasures that degenerated into dissipation, but the mother continually affirmed her assurance that, if it pleased God, her son would become a Christian. In this atmosphere was nurtured “the sweet-souled saint of mediæval Italy,” who is described as a figure of magical power, whose ardent temperament and mystic loveliness attracted to him all men.

There is also a legend that Pica went to pray at the Portiuncula and that, for seven years, she prayed for a son. Her prayer was answered in the coming of the infant who was to be the great saint of all the ages. Francis, in his childhood, also knelt and prayed at this shrine. In the year 1211, when Francis was twenty-nine years of age and had entered on his ministry, this chapel was given to him, “and no sooner had they come to live here,” it is said, “than the Lord multiplied their number from day to day.” At one time he had gone to his devotions in great depression of spirits, “when, suddenly, an unspeakable ecstasy filled his breast. ‘Be comforted, my dearest,’ he said, ‘and rejoice in the Lord, and let us not be sad that we are few; for it has been shown to me by God that you shall increase to a great multitude and shall go on increasing to the end of the world. I see a multitude of men coming to me from every quarter—French, Spaniards, Germans, English—each in their different tongues encouraging the others.’”

At a distance of perhaps a mile and a half from Assisi, down in the valley near the railroad station, four holy pilgrims founded a shrine in the fourth century. Later, on this site, St. Benedict erected a tiny chapel, called “St. Maria della Portiuncula” (St. Mary of the Little Patron), and once, when praying in the chapel, Benedict had a vision of a vast crowd of people kneeling in ecstasy, chanting hymns of praise, while outside greater multitudes waited to kneel before the shrine, and he took this to mean that a great saint would one day be honored there.

So the legends, still conversationally told in Assisi, run on and are locally current. Undoubtedly the dwellers in this curious old town, whose streets have hardly one level spot but climb up and down the steep hillside, realize that their saint is their title to fame and their revenue as well; yet through all the tales there breathes a certain sincerity and simplicity of worship. The little dark primitive shops teem with relics, which make, it is true, a great draft on imagination, and by what miracle modern photography has contrived to present the saint of Assisi in various impressive attitudes and groups it would be as well not to inquire too closely. It is a part of the philosophy of travel to take the goods the gods provide, and the blending of amused tolerance and unsuspected depths of reverential devotion by which the visitor will find himself moved, while in Assisi, can hardly be described. For, surely, here

and Catholic or Protestant, one equally enters into the beauty of his memory. The double and triple arches of the convent church enclose cloistered walls continually filled with visitors. No shrine in Italy holds such mysterious power. Simplicity and joy were the two keynotes of the life taught by St. Francis. “Poverty,” he asserted, “is the happy state of life in which men are set free from the trammels of conventionalism, and can breathe the pure air of God’s love. The richest inward life is enjoyed when life is poorest outwardly. Be poor,” he continued, “try a new principle; be careless of having and getting; try being, for a change. Our life in the world ought to be such that any one on meeting us should be constrained to praise the heavenly Father. Be not an occasion of wrath to any one,” he often said, “but by your gentleness may all be led to press onward to good works.”

The supreme aim of Francis was that of service to humanity. He gave himself with impassioned fervor to this one work. For him there were no ideals of cloistered seclusion or of devotion to learning and art, but the ideal alone to uplift humanity. It was literally and simply, indeed, the Christ ideal. Of the “Rule” made, one of his biographers says:—

These are the “voices” that still echo in the air of Assisi. In the suburbs is still shown the spot where the chapel of St. Damian stood up a rocky path on the hillside in an olive grove. It was here that the scene of the miracle of the crucifix is laid. Before the altar Francis knelt, praying: “Great and Glorious Father, and thou, Lord Jesus, I pray ye, shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. May I in all things act in accordance with thy holy will.”

It is recorded that while he thus knelt in deep prayer, he was unable to turn his eyes from the cross, conscious that something marvellous was taking place. The image of the Saviour assumed life; the eyes turned attentively on him; a voice spoke accepting his service and he felt at once endowed with the most marvellous tide of vitality, of joy, and of exhilaration. At this moment he entered on that life whose impress is left on the ages. Of the character and the peculiar quality of its influence Mrs. Oliphant well says:—

That mystic union to which all the ages attest, the union that may, at any moment, be formed between the soul and God, that mystery which the church calls conversion and which finds its perfect interpretation in the words of St. Paul, when he said, that if any man be in Christ he is a new creation, had been accomplished in the life of Francis. He realized the fulness of the knowledge of God’s will; he longed only for wisdom and for spiritual understanding. Nor is this experience one to be relegated to the realm of miracle. It is simply entering into the supreme completeness of life. It is not alone St. Paul, but every man, who may truly say, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.” Nor does this experience, when translated aright into daily life and action, require any abnormal form of expression. It does not, in its truest significance, mean a life apart from the ordinary duties, but rather it means that these duties shall be fulfilled in the larger and nobler way. The exceptional man may be called to be the standard bearer; to renounce all domestic ties and give his service to the world; but such a life as this differs only in degree from that which in the ordinary home and social relations finds ample means for its best expression. The persistent aim after perfection should be the keynote of every life. No one should be satisfied to hold as his supreme ideal any lesser standard of ultimate achievement than is involved in the divine command, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is the soul’s ideal, whatever ages and eternities it may require for it to recognize this trackless path.

St. Francis recognized joy as a factor of the nobler life. “It was his constant effort,” writes one biographer, “that there should be bright looks and cheerful tones about him. To one of his brethren, who had the habit of walking about sadly with his head drooping, he said,—it is evident, with a spark of the impatience natural to his own vivacious spirit,—‘You may surely repent of your sins, my brother, without showing your grief so openly. Let your sorrow be between God and you: pray to Him to pardon you by His mercy, and to restore to your soul the joy of His salvation. But before me and the others be always cheerful, for it does not become a servant of God to have an air of melancholy and a face full of trouble.’”

An incident in the early life of St. Francis, which had determining significance, was his meeting with Dominic. The story is told “that Dominic, praying in a church in Rome, saw, in a vision, our Lord rise from the right hand of the Father in wrath, wearied at last with the contradiction of sinners, with a terrible aspect and three lances in his hand, each one of which was to destroy from the face of the earth a distinct class of offenders. But while the dreamer gazed at this awful spectacle, the Virgin Mother arose and pleaded for the world, declaring that she had two faithful servants whom she was about to send into it to bring sinners to the feet of the Saviour; one of these was Dominic himself, the other was a poor man, meanly clad, whom he had never seen before. This vision came to the devout Spaniard, according to the legend, during the night, which he spent, as he was wont, in a church, in prayer. Next morning, while he mused on the dream which had been sent to him, his eye fell all at once upon a stranger in a brown tunic, of aspect as humble and modest as his garb, coming into the same church to pray. Dominic at once ran to him, fell on his neck, and, saluting him with a kiss, cried, ‘Thou art my companion: thy work and mine is the same. If we stand by each other, nothing can prevail against us.’”

No magic mirror, however, revealed to Francis the wonderful panorama of his future. No sibyl turned the leaves of the records yet to unfold. “He was preparing himself for a life of penitence rather than a life of activity,” in the opinion of Paul Sabatier, and he had dreamed no dream of becoming a religious founder. He was so entirely without any personal ambition, save that of being obedient to the Heavenly Vision, that this absolute consecration of purpose enabled the divine power to work through him without obstruction. He became a very perfect instrument, so to speak, in the divine hand. After repairing the little chapel called the Portiuncula, on the level ground at the foot of the hill, some two miles from Assisi, his plan was to there pass his time in meditation and prayer. But the legend runs that on the feast of St. Mathias (February 24), in the winter of 1209, a Benedictine monk was celebrating mass and on his turning to read, “Wherever ye go preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Francis was profoundly and peculiarly impressed, and he exclaimed: “This is what I desire, O Father; from this day forth I set myself to put this command in practice.” He felt that Jesus himself had spoken to him through the priest. Love and sacrifice became to him the supreme ideals, and in this moment, in that poor and bare little chapel, was inaugurated one of the greatest and most far-reaching religious movements of the entire world.

That great ministry of St. Francis, whose influence pervades all time,—that lies between the opening years of the thirteenth and the opening years of the twentieth centuries,—was initiated the next morning in Assisi, when Francis preached for the first time. He spoke simply, emphasizing the truths he had learned to realize through his own experience: the absolute duty of following after perfection; the importance of realizing the shortness of life and the need of repentance. The first disciple of Francis was a wealthy resident of Assisi, named Bernardo. He was impressed with the conviction that he should distribute his possessions and unite with Francis in all his aims and work. Without definite organization, others joined them. They passed that spring and summer going up and down the country, sometimes assisting the harvesters and haymakers, and everywhere entering into the common life of the people. The Bishop of Assisi, however, remonstrated with Francis, saying that to him it seemed very harsh and unwise to try to live without owning anything. To which Francis replied that he did not desire temporal possessions, as these required arms for their defence and were an obstacle to the love of God and one’s neighbor. It has remained for later years to discern the still truer significance of the teachings of Jesus, that neither possessions nor the lack of possessions form the real test, but the use which is made of them. As spiritual insight is developed it is more and more clearly realized that the quality of the life lived is the sole matter of importance, and not the conditions that surround it.

The brotherhood increased. The abbot of the Benedictines on Monte Subasio ceded to Francis and his order the little chapel called the Portiuncula, now enclosed within the vast and magnificent church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. M. Paul Sabatier, in his admirable biography of St. Francis, points out clearly that the founder of the Franciscans contemplated a laboring and not a mendicant order. During the decade 1211 to 1221, which Francis and his followers passed at the Portiuncula, a portion of the time was constantly passed in industrial pursuits. “With all his gentleness, Francis knew how to show an inflexible severity toward the idle,” says Sabatier, “and he even went so far as to dismiss a friar who refused to work.” Although Francis espoused poverty, declaring that she was his bride, he was unfalteringly loyal to the ideals of honest industry and integrity.

The mystic legends of the life of their saint that abound in Assisi are touched with poetic romance in that a companion figure is always seen by his side, that of Santa Chiara. Not more inseparable in popular thought are Dante and Beatrice, or Petrarca and Laura, than are Francis and Clara. Their statues stand side by side in the Duomo; they are represented together by both painter and sculptor in the churches of Santa Chiara and Santa Maria degli Angeli in the old hill town. Chiara was the daughter of a noble family, and as a girl of sixteen, coming under the influence of Francis from hearing one of his sermons, she, too, became one of his followers and left her father’s palace in Assisi to take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the altar of the Portiuncula. Followed by two women, she passed swiftly through the town in the dead of the night, and through dark woods, her hurrying figure seeming like some spirit driven by winds towards an unknown future. One thing alone was clear before her—that she was nearing the abode of Francis Bernardone whose preaching at San Giorgio only a month before had thrilled her, inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life he had described in fiery words. Just as she came in sight of the Portiuncula the chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in the wood, suddenly ceased, and they came out with lighted torches in expectation of her coming. Swiftly and without a word she passed in to attend the midnight mass which Francis was to serve, and the scene is thus described:—

Clara founded a convent and lived as its abbess, and the great church of Santa Chiara is built on the site of this convent. She was born in Assisi in 1194, and died in 1253, surviving Francis by twenty-seven years. Her father was the Count Favorini Scifi, and he had destined his daughter—who had great beauty—to a rich and brilliant marriage. He violently opposed her choice of the religious life, but no earthly power, she declared, should sever her from it.

The beauty of the lifelong friendship between Francis and Clara is thus touched upon by Mrs. Oliphant:—

Legends innumerable, attesting supernormal manifestations regarding Francis, sprang up and have been perpetuated through the ages. One is as follows:—

When Francis died a pathetic scene is thus described:—

The personality of Chiara comes down to us through the ages invested with untold charm. It is said that when she was dying there came “a long procession of white-robed virgins, led by the Queen of Heaven, whose head was crowned with a diadem of shining gold, each of the celestial visitors stooped to kiss Chiara as her soul passed to its home.”

During all the life of Francis, whenever any new movement or work was to be undertaken, he invariably sent to ask the counsel and the prayers of Chiara.

The miraculous preservation of the body of Santa Chiara is one of the articles of faith in Assisi. In 1850—six hundred years after her death—a tomb believed to be hers was found and opened in the presence of a distinguished group of ecclesiastics, among whom was Cardinal Pecci, later Pope Leo XIII. In this tomb a form is said to have been found, and it has been placed in a reliquary of alabaster and Carrara marble especially constructed for it. This sanctuary is placed in the church of Santa Chiara, in the crypt, behind a glass screen, where candles are kept perpetually burning. Lina Gordon Duff, writing the history of Assisi, says of this curious spectacle:—