Celano remarks that Francis was still trying to ‘avoid the divine grasp’,8 a sensation surely familiar to anyone who has struggled with the nature of vocation. Francis’ initial response was to try the life of chivalry again, intending to join a campaign to Apulia, in the south of the country. One night he dreamed of a house full of soldiers’ equipment, and assumed that this meant he would succeed in his quest for military honours. Instead, however, it became clear to him that this was not what the dream really meant. He was not to go to Apulia after all, but God would arm him instead for the struggle which would concern him most deeply for the rest of his life – his own battle to do the will of God, whatever the cost.
Francis then withdrew into a time of intense prayer and meditation. It is during this period that the tension between activity and contemplation in the Franciscan tradition first becomes apparent. On the one hand, Francis was burning to do something to indicate his eagerness to serve God in whatever capacity he was called to; on the other, he seems always to have known that only long periods of prayer and solitude would produce the answers on which he was to act.
At this time, Francis was gripped by a growing conviction that in order to serve God fully, he would have to become poor. If there was a Damascus road for Francis, it was one of the roads outside Assisi where, out riding one day, he encountered a leper. Lepers, of course, were outcasts from society; they could not live inside the town walls but had to scratch an existence as best they could from begging. Francis the rich man’s son found them physically repulsive to the point of nausea. The mountain road did not offer any possibility of escape from this direct encounter. He passed the leper, but then felt impelled to dismount from his horse, approach the man, embrace and kiss him. Some versions of the story underline the moral by claiming that when Francis looked back down the road after this meeting, there was no sign of the leper, despite the lack of side-roads. In any case, it struck Francis powerfully that in touching the leper, he was in fact embracing Christ. From that day onwards he had a special concern for lepers, whom he referred to as ‘Christian brothers’.9 Further, he saw in this man who had no possessions, status or security a mirror for his own way of service to God. Becoming a friend and brother of lepers, whether literally affected by leprosy or unwelcome to mainstream society for other reasons, put Francis himself firmly on the margins – but Franciscan living recognizes that society’s margins may well be God’s centre.
Such a seismic shift in values did not go down well with Francis’ family. His former friends and associates found it embarrassing to see the well-born, stylish Francis in the company of ‘non-people’. There was widespread mockery, and accusations of insanity. The final, decisive break with the past came when Francis went to pray in the dilapidated old church of San Damiano. An old crucifix hung there, and Francis had spent some hours in contemplation before it when he thought he heard Jesus speaking to him from the cross: ‘Francis, go and rebuild my church, which as you see is falling down.’ Typically impetuous, he began to gather stones to rebuild San Damiano, which later became the home of the first Franciscan women, St Clare and her Poor Ladies. Francis then travelled to Foligno, a few kilometres from Assisi, to sell some of his father’s cloth. Instead of returning home with the money, he gave it to the priest at San Damiano, although this ‘gift’ was not accepted. Refusing to return home, Francis hid in the priest’s house, but his father found him and took him before the Bishop of Assisi to demand the return of his money. It was here that Francis made his dramatic gesture of renunciation of everything his father had represented to him. Standing naked before the Bishop, Francis mirrored the poor Christ on trial. No power on earth could deflect him from the course he saw that God wanted him to take. There is no record that he was ever reconciled with his earthly father. Instead, claiming God as his only father,10 Francis found the root of his being in God alone, finding his identity as brother to all the other creatures of God’s world.
Come, Follow Me
With a characteristic flair for extremes, Francis thus came to embrace the life of the gospel with the same wholeheartedness he had previously dedicated to enjoying himself. Perhaps his preoccupation with literal poverty came partly from recognizing that his father’s values and his own former lifestyle had not led anywhere real or satisfying. His freedom from possessions was also a freedom from distractions. Nothing, however good or desirable in its own right, could be allowed to divert him from God. Scholars may speculate on how the rich young man of the Gospel actually responded to Jesus’ call to ‘Go, sell all you have and give the money to the poor; then come, follow me.’11 Francis’ own response was never in doubt.
Francis was an all-or-nothing character in everything he did. He displayed the same singleness of mind and heart in his youthful pursuit of extravagance as in the frugality of his life after his conversion. In fact, an appetite for life in all its variety remains one of the central identifying marks of Franciscan living. Francis’ insistence on a life of poverty and dependence may seem stark and uncompromising. His choice profoundly challenges the values of a materialistic world. Yet the way of Francis should never be allowed to become a sterile renunciation of that world or its people. Still less should it be a withdrawal from the life of the world out of hatred or fear of its reality. Even Franciscan hermits are deeply enmeshed in the concerns of the world through their prayer. Their lives, no less than lives of active service to the poor, are love in action. Franciscan spirituality is rooted in love for all things, and all people, as they are. The search for God in our lives begins with what already is, because everything in existence is already marked by the hand of God the Creator. There are plenty of signposts to the divine presence in our world, if only we have the perception to recognize them.
So how may Francis aid us in our search for a credible way forward in these times of global insecurity? There should be enough evidence already to show that Francis’ relevance is not merely bound up with his own time or context. His attitude to the life of faith can teach us much about our own journeys and questions. Francis’ love for God and all creation calls us outward from preoccupation with self, into connection and relationship with the world and its people. His devotion to the crucified Christ also calls us inward, to intimate communion with God our Creator, and to respond in passionate self-giving. His call to right relationship challenges us to think creatively about today’s ‘lepers’: those we find it hardest to accept become, through this lens, our beloved brothers and sisters. We have already acknowledged something of the importance of learning to listen – to discern the presence of God at work in our world and in each other, to learn what he has in mind for us. Like Francis, we are called not just to follow Christ in outward observance, but to become Christlike. Further, we are to reflect back the image of Christ already alive in each person, by loving them and encouraging them into becoming the person they were uniquely called to be. The Good News is for all people, without exception. If we are prepared to listen, Francis can speak it with prophetic urgency for our time, as he did in his own.
Suggested Exercises
1 What is at the heart of your life? Is there anything about your priorities which you want, or need, to change? How might you go about this?
2 Are there any elements of Francis’ own story which have particular resonance for you? What have been the memorable turning points or ‘conversion moments’ in your life?
3 Where are you completely committed (relationships, faith, work)? What holds you back from total commitment?
Notes
4 St Clare of Assisi, Testament, in Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, eds, Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, Mahwah, NJ, Paulist Press, 1982, p. 226.
5 Geoffrey
