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I would love to have walked with the patron saint of Sanctuary House over the Italian hillsides, not knowing where we'd sleep or if we'd eat that day or the next. Some call him the greatest of Christian saints. Maybe, but Francis would have had nothing of that. Except for a brown cassock and hair shirt, and maybe a pair of sandals, he had nothing at all, including pride. Yet he could not resist giving whatever he had away.
After his initial spiritual awakening during a fever, the result of fighting in a local war, he started visiting caves. Then it was he threw the fine fabrics of his father's textile business out the window to the poor of Assisi. Dragged before the bishop and a crowd gathered around the church steps, the young man returned even the clothes that had come from his irate merchant father. Then he walked naked out of Assisi, this true child of God, having never been so free, so protected, so wrapped in the innocence of love.
Francis was a poet, who by no means escaped from life to get to God, but rather came fully to G-D because he lived fully. His uncomplicated theology centered on God's love for humanity, and the central
Having given up everything, he walked naked out of town and into eternity.
Gospel text governing his Order of Friars Minor is about how The Lord feeds the birds of the air and dresses the lilies of the field in a finery that outdoes Solomon, so that they needed to take no thought about tomorrow, what to eat or wear. This attitude of poverty was theology enough for the poor man of Assisi, who loved the sun and the moon and the stones and the birds.
After deep internal callings, at the run-down chapel of San Damiano outside of town he heard Christ on the Cross tell him to "Rebuild My Church," He started where he was, rebuilding that very chapel. And when he found Christ in the thing he feared most--a leper he wanted to flee from but then turned and embraced wholeheartedly--suddenly all that had been to him hateful was transformed into love. Both wealthy and poor became his companions.
Loving men and women equally--quite something for the 12th century, he had a great love for the feminine. Regards his friars in hermitages, Francis suggested that four be the limit of their number and that two be mothers and take care of the other two contemplatives, rather like Martha and Mary. He was devoted to the Virgin Mary and also to Ladies Poverty, Chastity and Charity, as well as helped St. Claire, his spiritual consort, found the Poor Claires. Once the local folk came running to put out a great fire, but found only Francis and Claire sharing a meal in Divine radiance.
Tempted by a prostitute, Francis said he would lay with her if she would lay with him. She accepted and went to prepare the bed. But he lay down in the fire in the fireplace as if he were resting on a down comforter, his faith as real as fire, which made the woman real enough to acknowledge her sin and take as her lover only The Lord Most High.
When asked how with such meager clothing he protected himself from winter, the icy cold that must have been overwhelming as he was lifting stones to build San Damiano, he would reply that if longing for our heavenly home burned in our hearts, the penetrating wiles of winter would not trouble us.
He is our first environmentalist and our first ecumenist.
He took all people's sufferings on himself, knowing himself to be Christ's love for humanity. When a person on the road needed help, the poor friar never asked if he or she were Christian--he saw not classes of rich and poor, but individual persons. I take Francis to be our first ecumenist. People loved him, because he saw who they were. And, by grace, he loved them out of inner confinement.
Francis said his companions should desire above all else the grace of prayer, that anyone upset should resort immediately to prayer, that no one could make progress in holy service without prayer. In helping develop the gifts given by God to each of his friars, rather than a teacher to a class he was a brother to his brothers. By divine revelation, he knew the character, talents and virtues, of each brother called to the Order. He also knew their faults and corruptions. So it was that Francis could praise the faults of one and lift that brother out of shame, whereas in another he would scold the faults and so blunt the force of pride.
Once three famous robbers visited the place of St. Francis' friars and asked for food. Brother Angelo, though a delicate and noble monk, told them how shameful they were and ordered them away. But Francis said Angelo should take fruit and wine and find the men, bowing before them and asking forgiveness. After he'd done so, one of the robbers had a vision of hell, and saw how this holy friar had confessed he was sorry for what he had said, whereas they had committed great crimes without compunction. The three went to Francis and asked if they could attain mercy for their many sins. Francis showed them every courtesy, explained that God's Infinite Mercy surpasses all sins, no matter how great, and invited them into the Order of Friars Minor, wherein they remained faithful and were given the grace of performing great penance.
And so with all creatures. Francis traveled to preach to the wolf of Gubbio, reminding "Brother Wolf" of the duties of a servant of Christ, and thus quelled the appetites of this creature who had devoured a number of citizens. His body exuded not an impulse of fear as he preached to a creature of the Kingdom. He is our first environmentalist, for few in our Christian tradition other than Francis, who preached to the birds when no one else would listen to his overflowings of love for Christ, have led us to see that watching a bee invade a flower or wind bending pine boughs has much to do with Christianity and the Sonship of God. Francis saw all creation as scripture. Once he gave a penance to Brother Rufino to preach naked except for his breeches in a local church. Rufino, while lacking the gift and courage to preach, went instantly. Francis, reflecting how this brother was one of Assisi's noblest citizens, followed to relieve him of this obligation. But Rufino was already devoutly preaching the giving up of the love of the world when Francis, also in only breeches, entered and was laughed at. Rufino's voice stilled as the poor saint began speaking with such authenticity and fervor of his full humanity about the nakedness of our Lord's Passion that the crowds wept and cried for God's mercy, so that nearly all were transformed to a new state of innocence.
He was so loved because he was so human.
St Francis, to whom pain suffered on behalf of Christ was bliss, told Brother Leo, who on Mt. Alverna had been tempted by the devil, that he loved him more the more that temptation had attacked him. The poor saint, who saw life separate from God as the real pain and death, knew that God never tries His devotees more than they can endure. As he himself drew close to Sister Death, he stayed alone, weeping before his Beloved for his sins. But having devoted his life to dying, Francis already lived eternally and was often seen by Brother Leo, who brought his holy companion a bit of bread and water, to be rising three feet off the ground, or at times as high as the very tall beech trees, so rapt was Francis in union with God.
St. Francis went on one of the Crusades to the Holy Land. Soon after arriving, loving holy silence, he and his band of twelve brothers wandered away from town, and by a miracle were not killed when captured by "the enemy." They were taken to the Sarazen camp, beaten, and brought before the Sultan. There Francis began to preach with such ecstasy of The Holy Spirit that he offered to enter the fire for Christ. So taken was the Sultan with the unshakable faith and spiritual beauty of this poor little man of God that he wanted to convert, though could not lest his subjects kill him. He did give Francis a beautiful dagger which allowed him to go anywhere in the Sarazen kingdom and preach the Gospel--for the saint had truly pierced the heart of "the enemy." When Francis took his leave, he promised that, after he had given even his body to Christ, he would send two friars to baptize the Sultan. Until then the Sultan was to prepare himself in faith. When Francis died, the Sultan grew ill, but kept up hope. It was then the lamb of Assisi in a vision appeared to two friars who traveled to the Sarazen camp. The holy Sultan, receiving the instruction and baptism they brought, by his sickness soon died, but by the merits of Francis already had been reborn.
Francis, gentlest of souls yet tamer of wolves, mirrored Christ by mastering our Lord's paradoxical nature, for suffering every humiliation, insult and hardship for Christ was for Francis the highest bliss. Indeed, my favorite story is about perfect joy. He tells Brother Leo to write down that all the great theologians joining his Order is not perfect joy, nor is his friars converting all unbelievers, nor is his performance of many miracles that heal the sick. Rather if on a winter nigh he comes--starved after walking for miles with nothing to eat, body frozen and shaking with fatigue and blood flowing from wounds made by icicles hanging from his habit--to the gate of Saint Mary of the Angels and is refused entrance and yet maintains his patience without yielding to the temptation of rage, then he says to Brother Leo to write that this is perfect joy.
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After
the passing of Lex Hixon, Sheikh Nur al-Jerrahi, in 1995, the leadership
of the American tariqa of the Helveti-Jerrahi Order passed to Sheikha
Fariha. She was made a sheikha at the same time as Lex Hixon, by Skeikh
Muzzafer Ashki Ozak al-Jerrahi, in 1985 in Istanbul.
