1985.
6 Galatians 2:20.
7 Thomas of Celano, Life of Saint Francis, First Book, chapter I. (Referred to hereafter as 1 Cel. Celano’s second Life of Saint Francis, also known as The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, is referred to as 2 Cel.)
8 1 Cel. II.
9 A Mirror of the Perfection, 32, in Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann and William J. Short, eds, Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, New York, New City Press, 1999–2001 (referred to hereafter as FED 1–3), vol. 3, p. 242.
10 Matthew 23:9.
11 Matthew 19:21.
2. God with Us
Chiefest of all forms of service that the brothers and sisters can offer must ever be the effort to show others in his beauty and power the Christ who is the inspiration and joy of their own lives.
(The Principles of the First Order of the Society of Saint Francis, Day 22)
One of the chief hallmarks of the Franciscan way of life is its down-to-earth quality. The very phrase ‘down-to-earth’ sums up an essential element of Franciscan belief and practice. It is no longer possible to see God as remote, somewhere ‘up there’ out of the way. Since the birth of Jesus Christ, we have become aware that God’s willingness to become incarnate connects him intimately with the life of every creature. God has walked this earth as one of us. This is the heart of the Christian mystery: God, limitless Creator of all things, submits to the limitation of human existence in order to demonstrate the truth of his love for us.
A Christ who is both truly God and truly human illumines our humanity by showing us what it is possible for a human to become. Saints are made when a human being accepts the challenge to grow beyond what we normally think of as the limits of human possibility. Each of us is called to take seriously our status as creatures made in the image of the Creator. Each of us is called to reflect that image back to the world in which we live. Christians inherit the truth that in Jesus, God did not become flesh to live and die only once in a finite time and place, but for all time. Our flesh too contains the seeds of that mystery. We too can become more nearly like our Creator. We only have to want to. In striving to reflect God more perfectly, we become more perfectly human. Francis’ life and spirituality are a potent example of this process at work.
Incarnational Presence
Since Francis’ own time, two elements at the heart of the Franciscan life have been held in tension: the call to affirm the world by active, loving presence within it, and aloneness with God in contemplative withdrawal. Both elements are essential to any attempt to approach life as Francis did. When Francis withdrew to pray, he took with him the needs of those who might have no other access to God. And when Francis himself was praying alone for the world, his brothers and sisters, and those who came to be inspired by his message, were still in the midst of it, tackling with their presence the magnitude of human need. Both are important ways of living out the Franciscan vocation to be an incarnational presence in the world. For in both activities, prayer and work, Christians seek to do as Jesus did and to be, as nearly as they can, as he was.
All Christians are signs of God’s presence, whether or not it is recognized and interpreted as such by those among whom they live. Wherever someone of faith is, there is a reminder that people still seek to love and serve their God, and that God has not gone away. As in Francis’ own time, though arguably for different reasons, the institutional Church today has in many places become remote from everyday human concerns. It can be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as having very little to do with the loving message of the gospel. People still need to know that they are loved, as they always have – but they no longer automatically trust the Church to be the bearer of that message. So people who live out their faith in an undramatic, down-to-earth way, communicating genuine love and humility, still have the capacity to reach hungry hearts, minds and souls with a sense of God’s presence.
The leper who challenged Francis has never gone away. There are still people, existing rather than living on the margins of society, who desperately need someone to reach out to them in their isolation. Franciscans across the world continue to engage, together with others, in trying to communicate to them the reality of God’s love. The materially secure ‘post-Christian’ citizens of the affluent West also need to hear that message of love. Modern life in the West has become so complex that there are signs of a renewed yearning for simplicity. There is growing recognition that a sense of purpose does not always accompany success. People want to be assured that their lives have meaning and worth. In the intense questioning that arose out of the events of 11 September, many who had never considered themselves religious came to ask whether there might be more lasting values than possession, accumulation and achievement. The ‘little poor man’ of Assisi, who called all people his brothers and sisters, is ideally placed to speak to our search for a solid base from which to live.
The Word Made Flesh
The birth of Christ is the most powerful reminder we have of God’s reality. Every Christmas we are reminded that God loves us so much that he chooses to become known by us in a new way, by becoming one of us. The presence of God among us is made concrete, given a shape. Yet, despite God’s terrifying power and majesty, the shape in which he chooses to become known as a human being reflects not might, but vulnerability. The defenceless child in the manger foreshadows that terrible human death at the hands of an occupying power. Yet this child, utterly dependent, is nevertheless truly God. H. R. Bramley’s hymn sums it up beautifully:
O wonder of wonders which none can unfold;
The Ancient of Days is an hour or two old.12
Francis brought home this reality to the congregation of the church in Greccio, a village in the Rieti valley some way south of Assisi. One Christmas, he sought to recreate the scene of the stable in Bethlehem. Francis had brought into church all the props we associate with the Nativity: a cow, a donkey, hay, a manger, a real baby. To us, familiar with cribs of all varieties, this action has lost much of its impact. At least once a year these things become part of the paraphernalia of church or home; we are not surprised to see them, and may in fact have become so familiar with the sight that we stop really seeing it at all. To the people of Greccio, seeing it for the first time, it was a revelation. The everyday things of the world were invested with new holy meaning; these ordinary, everyday creatures were part of the story which God wants us all to hear and participate in. To them it was not a remote symbol to be grasped only through the powers of the intellect, but a visible, instantly comprehensible reminder that God is present with us everywhere, willing to be continually reborn for us and in us. Showing and preaching Christ’s continued presence in the world in this very concrete way was central to Francis’ ministry. His mission to rebuild the Church included making the faith real and accessible to its people.
The story of the crib at Greccio, as told by Francis’ early biographers, highlights one more interesting fact about him: that he appears to have been ordained as a deacon and sometimes took the role, appropriate to the deacon, of reading the Gospel in the liturgy as he did at that particular Christmas service. We do not know when or by whom he was ordained; it is clear from the way he spoke and wrote about priests that he never aspired to become one himself. Instead, he again mirrors the calling of all Christians to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. The Greek word diakon can be translated as ‘servant’. The Jesus
