On March 13, when the
Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected as the 266th
pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and took the name “Pope Francis”—after St.
Francis of Assisi—his intent was clear to almost everyone. This would be a
papacy that would seek to model humility, simplicity, care and concern for even
the lowliest creatures of the earth.
That is how indelibly a
deep impression of the life and teachings of St. Francis of Assisi has been
carved into the mind of the West. That is how clear a picture we think we have
of St. Francis, and how he entices us still. He is a saint that even we Unitarian
Universalists can love. St. Francis has a special place in the hearts of many people
who are not otherwise especially religious, or even especially spiritual for
that matter. Even many of the un-churched remember his famous prayer which calls
upon us to be “channels of peace” in the world:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
His famous hymn (which
we’ll sing shortly) sings praises to all aspects of nature (all five
verses full; and that’s been shortened from the original version). I
mean, Francis could have written our seventh UU principle: “respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” That was what so
much of his ministry in this world was about. Francis loved nature; he even
considered the birds and bees and the sun and moon to be his brothers and
sisters. One of my colleagues has written that St. Francis even qualifies as a sort
of “UU superhero” based on his love of the natural world!
But, of course, Francis
was more complicated and complex figure than that. As a man of the 12th century,
we have to resist trying to import his teachings and worldview in total into
our modern age. Nonetheless, there is something about him that calls out to us
across the centuries and across differing religious traditions. There is something
that speaks to our times still, in spite of the passage of these many, many
years.
So I think that it is right and just, as we
approach Earth Day, to take a fresh look at the life of this holy man of
central Italy.
Francis was born either in 1181 or 1182 (they’re not
sure which) to a wealthy family in the town of Assisi, in the region
of Umbria, about a hundred miles north of Rome, smack dab in the
middle of the Italian peninsula. According to legend, he was born in a stable,
because his mother, when about to give birth, listened to a passing beggar who
told her that if she wanted everything to be all right, that her baby should be
born in a stable, just like Jesus. She named her son Giovanni—John—in honor of
Saint John the Baptist (or in honor of John, the beloved disciple; they’re not
sure which; 1182 was a long time ago). Either way, he was named John because
his mother wanted him to lead the life of a religious and become a great man in
the Church. This did not please her husband, Pietro di Bernadone, one
of Assisi’s leading merchants, who was away on business at the time.
Pietro had the baby re-baptized as Francesco, or Francis, in honor
of his commercial success in France—and to show his love for all things
French-- including his wife.
Francis was raised with the full intention
that he would follow his father in business. He led a comfortable childhood,
and something of a dissolute youth. He was popular with his friends—who even
named him their dominus, their “Lord” or “King”—an honor sometimes
conferred upon the “coolest” (and usually the richest) kid in town. He was a
party animal, who drank and caroused and generally fooled around—but even here,
he showed a certain sensitivity; he was considerate of others, and generally
very popular with the people around him.
In 1201, when he was about 19, he joined the military
expedition against Perugia, and spent a year as a prisoner of war at
Collestrada, an experience which seems to have changed his whole way of looking
at the world. On his return to Assisi after the war, he resumed his former
carefree ways. But then came a serious illness that left him broken and
depressed, wondering about the purpose of his life—and triggering the great
spiritual crisis that would change everything.
He stopped hanging out with his friends, gave up the
life of partying and carousing. When his friends asked him if he planned on
getting married, he replied: “Yes, but to a fairer bride than any of you have ever
seen.” Meaning Lady Poverty, perhaps; or the Church; or the Christian faith—he
had decided by this time that his would be a religious life. In embracing the
lepers outside of Assisi, he confronted both his greatest fear—death—and
his greatest temptation—the carnality of the body.
Francis started spending more time in lonely
places like caves and forests and abandoned churches. He made a pilgrimage
to Rome, where he begged at the houses of the rich for the needs of the
poor. Returning home to central Italy, Francis had the first of his mystical
visions—this one of the old abandoned Church of Saint Damiano,
in the hills outside Assisi . As he knelt in prayer, the crucifix
before him began to speak: “Francis,” the voice told him, “Francis, go and
repair my house, which you can see, is falling into ruins.”
Francis took this to mean
the church of Saint Damiano (it may also well have meant
the Catholic Church in general, not in a good state at the time). To get funds
for the project, he sold all his possessions, including his horse. He also sold
off some his father’s possessions, as well; about which, as we might imagine,
Pietro di Bernadone was none too pleased.
Francis sought sanctuary in a local monastery
in order to avoid his father’s wrath. His father had him kidnapped, hauled back
home, imprisoned in the family’s cellar, and severely beaten. But to no avail. So
his father then had him arrested and put on trial, and attempted to disown his
son, once and for all. Because Francis had sought sanctuary in a monastery, the
civil authorities in Assisi passed the buck (or the lire) to the local
bishop. During his trial before the bishop, it was Francis himself who severed
his connection with his family; repudiated his inheritance; even stripped off
all of his clothes. Before the court, he declared:
“Listen to me, all of you, and understand.
Until now, I have called Pietro di Bernadone my father. But, because I have
proposed to serve God, I return to him the money on account of which he was so
upset, and also all the clothing which is his, wanting to say from now on, ‘Our
Father who is in heaven,’ and not ‘My father, Pietro di Bernadone.’”
Francis then retreated to the outskirts of
town, where he set to work restoring several abandoned old churches, one after
another. He dressed in a rough garment fashioned from coarse brown cloth, with
a rope tied around the waist. He walked around barefoot; talked to the animals,
continually sang hymns of praise to God. Many of the townsfolk
of Assisi thought he was crazy; others, however, were impressed by
his simplicity, his piety, and his dedication to the literal ways of the
Gospel. In the movie version of the events from the 1970s, at least, a young
woman named Clare (who would later become a saint in her own right, and founder
of her own order, the Poor Clares) comes to Francis and says to him, “People
said you were fine when you went off to war and killed and plundered, but now
they say you’re mad because you sing like the birds, chase butterflies, and
look at the flowers. I think they have it backwards.”
Soon, Francis had gained his first follower—a
prosperous lawyer from town named Bernardo; within a year, he had eleven
followers, who declared themselves to be, not priests, but fraters
minores, or “lesser brothers”.
Some of those in power feared these Lesser
Brothers, lest they drain off support from the established (and Establishment)
Church, and spread ideas which might be “heretical”. Others, however, believed
that Francis and his followers were simply living radically the very message of
the Gospels. One of these was Bishop Guido of Assisi, who had draped his
cloak over the naked Francis as he stood before him on trial in his court. Now,
Guido again offered protection to the radical young son of Assisi, and
argued his case before Innocent III , the pope in Rome .
Innocent was also a complex figure: a wily
politician, who had greatly expanded the power and wealth of the Church. He was
also one of the intellectual heavyweights of his day, known as a learned theologian,
and generally considered, even by contemporary historians, as somewhat “more
spiritual” than your average pope.
Initially, Innocent seems not to have been
impressed by this young ragamuffin from Assisi. The first meeting between
the two didn’t seem to go very well; he would not endorse the new order, the
Pope said; instead, he told Francis to “go home and pray”.
But then, the night after that first meeting,
Innocent, apparently, had a dream:
He saw the basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope’s “official”
church in Rome. The towers creaked, and the walls cracked, and the whole
edifice seemed about to fall down—while the Pope himself stood by helplessly.
He then saw a small, young man, dressed as a peasant, barefoot, with a rope
around his waste, approach the church. The young man then stood against one of
the walls of the basilica, until it steadied, and stood upright again.
You didn’t have to be a learned theologian to
interpret the sign: Francis was the one sent by God to uplift and uphold his
sagging Church. The Pope called Francis back into his presence, embraced him,
and granted ecclesiastical approval to the Rule of his new order—the Fraters
Minores, who would henceforth become known as the “Franciscans”.
Back in Assisi, now
with the approval of the Pope himself, Francis began to preach even more boldly
his Gospel message of repentance, simplicity, and most of all, compassion for
all the earth and its creatures.
Francis himself would
live only seven more years. But even within his lifetime, miraculous stories
became attached to him. It is said that one day, as Francis was traveling with
some companions, they happened to a place along the road where birds filled the
trees all about them. Francis told the others to wait, “while I go preach to my
sister the birds.” Not one of them flew away, as Francis preached to them.
They say that
Francis calmed the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, by reminding him of his birthright
as a creature of God. He removed worms from the middle of the road, so they wouldn’t
be crushed by the feet of travelers. It is even said that, on his
deathbed, Francis thanked his donkey for carrying him all those days of his
ministry. And the donkey, they say, wept when Francis died.
His was a circle of
compassion that knew no bounds. His was a reminder to us that we human ones did
not weave the web of life, but are only one part of it, and that we are
inseparably bound with all other species of creation in that great web of life.
His was a call of
service to all of us, whatever our stations in life, to take up our crosses and
follow in the ways of Love.
His was a call to heed
the voice of the Greater Self within our souls—for by heeding that voice we
hear the echo of the divine voice, the voice of God, reminding us of our holy
purpose.
His was also a reminder
that, so very often, this world does get it backward. Our true power is not found in the
accumulation of power and riches and fame, but in serving these, the least of
our brothers and sisters.
If we
would dare to live it, the revolutionary spirituality of Francis of Assisi would
turn the pecking order of human society upside down. His was a ministry to all
of God’s creation, with the poorest of the poor and the simplest creatures at
its very heart. His was also a ministry to the poor and broken and sick within
each of us. His was a call to us to find our full humanity—and glimpse the
divine that is within us—through humility and simplicity and compassion.
“Compassion is a kind of
fire,” writes Matthew Fox, “…it disturbs, it surprises, it ignites, it burns,
it sears and it warms. Compassion incinerates denial; it especially warms and
melts cold hearts, cold structures, frozen minds, and self-satisfied
lifestyles. Those who are touched by compassion have their lives turned upside
down. That is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Through our compassion
for all creation, Francis reminds us, we kindle the very Kingdom of God,
which is in our midst, but which we so seldom see. Through our compassion, we
reclaim our holy birthright as children of God, divine sparks of that great
Spirit of Life.
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