FRANCIS OF ASSISI

FRANCISCANS

Francis kept having trouble sleeping. He was constantly restless, fascinated with knighthood, chivalry, and riches. One night, as he was lying ill in bed, his mind buzzing with the affairs of his father’s business, he heard a sweet, mysterious voice say, "Francis, who can do more for you, a lord or his servant?"

Bewildered, Francis responded hesitantly, "The lord."

The voice continued, "Why then are you seeking the servant in place of the Lord?"

Francis was deeply shaken. He began to withdraw from his friends and stopped going to their banquets and parties which he had so enjoyed. He frequently came home dressed in rags, and sat with the beggars in the back of the church. He even stole and sold some cloth from his father’s warehouse to help repair the small broken-down church of San Damiano.

Francis’s strange behavior continued. He moved two miles outside Assisi and began to live near a tiny chapel called Portiuncula. On the feast of St Matthias in 1209, Francis was attending mass when he was struck to the heart by the Gospel: "Proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand…. Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with a few coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff" (Matthew 10:7-19). As Mass was finishing, even while the priest was still at the altar, Francis began to slowly cast aside the remainder of his belongings.

Francis was now determined to live the absolute simplicity of the Gospel, calling it Lady Poverty. He would renounce the goods of the world and seek only the treasures of heaven. His way of life began to attract certain prominent men of Assisi, who sold their possessions to be his companions in poverty.

Francis decided to go to Rome. He had written a rule of life centered on absolute poverty and gospel simplicity, but he wanted it confirmed by the highest authority of the Church.

Francis and his companions presented themselves first to Bishop Guido of Assisi. He in turn introduced the brothers to a friend of his, the highly influential Cardinal Ugolino, nephew of Innocent III and later himself Pope Gregory IX. Intrigued by Francis and his followers, Cardinal Ugolino began to investigate their intentions and prospects. No one had ever before seen a rule like the one Francis had devised. It lacked the normal prescriptions for community life.

In particular, the radical poverty that Francis and his followers lived seemed suspicious to Cardinal Ugolino. At the time there was a sect called the Albigensians teaching that the devil was a rival god to the Christian God and had imprisoned the good human soul in evil matter. For the Albigensians, salvation for the soul consisted in liberation from material things. Since Francis was from Assisi, a center of the Albigensians, his radical approach to evangelical poverty immediately brought him under suspicion of heresy.

Recent history also caused some concern. In 1179, Peter Valdes had obtained permission from Pope Alexander III to preach and live in apostolic poverty. In 1184, Valdes and his followers were placed under a ban as rebels against the Church. It was an experience no one in Rome wanted to repeat.

Despite his concerns, Cardinal Ugolino arranged for Francis to meet Pope Innocent III in the Lateran Palace. The Pope was not well disposed. Francis walked into the Lateran unceremoniously and went up to the Pope. Seeing the poor, ragged tunic, the tangled locks, and the great black eyebrows, Innocent pretended to take him for a swine herder.

"Leave me alone with your rule!" he exclaimed. "Go find your pigs, and preach to them all you want!"

Francis was not in the least put out. Instead, he went to the nearest pig sty, smeared mud all over himself, and then presented himself to the Pope once more.

Innocent was impressed, and after thinking it over he regretted having given him such a rough reception. Before sending him away to get washed, he promised him another audience. On the second occasion, the cardinals were also present as Francis presented his program.

Innocent listened intently, and when Francis had finished, he said, "My dear son, this life you and your brothers lead seems too severe. Seeing your enthusiasm, I certainly do not doubt that you are all willing to live it. But what of those who will come after you? They may not have the same zeal."

Francis had only this answer: "Holy Father, I trust in my Lord Jesus Christ. He has promised us eternal life and the bliss of heaven; he would not deny us the little we need to sustain our life on earth."

Francis and the brothers left the pope, who discussed the matter before the cardinals in the next consistory. Most of the cardinals opposed Francis’ radical poverty. At this point, a cardinal who had been won over to Francis’s way of thinking said, "These men only want to live the gospel. If we declare it impossible, then we declare that the gospel cannot be followed, and so insult Christ and the gospel." Hearing this, the cardinals decided to postpone judgment, and Francis was again invited to the Lateran.

The night before this next meeting, the pope had a curious dream. He stood looking out over the Lateran Church and watched with fear as the proud building shook, the tower swung, and the walls began to crack. Suddenly, a small common looking man came towards the Lateran. He was dressed in peasant garb, was barefoot, and wore a rope around his waist for a belt. Rushing to the falling Church, he set his shoulder in under the wall and with a mighty push straightened the whole falling church, so that it again stood aright. The pope then recognized the man as Francis of Assisi.

The next day, the pope gave Francis an oral approval of his rule, but the approval was never put into writing.

The Rule

Cardinal Ugolino continued to maintain contact with the group, often attending the twice-yearly gatherings of the Franciscans at Portiuncula. These were informal events involving thousands of the friars. Like everything else Francis did, these meetings had not the slightest shade of formal organization. No provisions were made for food, no formal agenda was arranged. The friars would have gone without food if not for the spontaneous generosity of the people of Assisi, who brought cartloads of fruits, wine, cheese, fish, and bread.

While at such meetings, Cardinal Ugolino saw that the friars had tremendous potential for building up the Church, but he was disheartened to see this potential go unchanneled. Ugolino knew that all of their work could be better organized and directed if their founder would only take up one of the more conventional rules. Many times he tried to convince Francis to adopt the Benedictine rule for his friars, but the cardinal always received the same response: "The rule came to me from Jesus himself."

Friars like Brother Elias of Cortona shared Cardinal Ugolino’s vision for the brethren: they should be a regular order, with papal privileges like the ones the Dominicans enjoyed. That would bring an end to many of the difficulties that so often accompanied their journeys, they argued. To the practical-minded churchmen of the day, Francis’s ideas of absolute poverty seemed like mere dreams. Consequently, dissension began to spread through the ranks.

Francis left in June 1219 for Egypt and Syria, leaving two vicars in charge at Assisi. While convincing rumors circulated that Francis was dead, a victim of disease somewhere in the Orient, the vicars introduced innovations which would bring stability and order to the Franciscan lifestyle. The practice of poverty was relaxed, and the friars began to live along the lines of conventional religious orders.

Francis returned from his journey to find his friars dwelling in comfortable homes and calling objects "mine." Passing through Bologna, he lodged with Dominican friars rather than with his own, and upon reaching Assisi he resigned active control of his order. Six months after his abdication, Brother Elias became minister general and continued to actively promote the changes so alien to the spirit of Francis.

Francis Prevails

In 1221, Francis set about to revise the rule, hoping that a revised rule approved by the pope would maintain his own vision for the community’s spirit. The revision compromised none of the original inspiration he had received from God, but he knew that it would not be well-received.

After spending the winter working, he handed the sole manuscript to Brother Elias for distribution. Elias took the rule, promising to examine it with the brethren. Days passed without a response, and Francis finally visited Elias to obtain an answer. Inexplicably, the rule had been lost. They had looked for it everywhere, but to no avail. "Lord," Francis cried, "didn’t I tell you that they wouldn’t trust you?"

Francis was resolute and rewrote the rule. Bypassing Elias, he presented it to a gathering of the brothers at Pentecost. The friars supported the rule, and Francis submitted it to Rome. The pope formally approved the rule on November 29, 1223.

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