St Francis Of Assisi Accepted The Curved World

As we reminisce St. Francis of Assisi, it takes no much time to realise that he is a saint of universal relevance. From the hippies to the austere cloistered monks and nuns have him as their patron. The poor village school takes the name, St. Francis School. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian Cardinal, when elected as pope declared, I want to be called Pope Francis.

Like many other saints, we find Francis’ statue in the gardens and in religious places. But, strangely, we find the statue of St. Francis in the church along with a garden of plants. I always wonder why people prefer to place Francis in the midst of plants and birds. Yes. The revolution has happened. St. Francis has brought the garden into the church. He has brought birds and plants to the church. He has brought the fierce wolf into to the church. Look again, who else is there with him in the church? Francis, through simple acceptance, has brought the lepers into the church; through sheer charity, brought the poor to the church; through plain forgiveness, brought sinners to the church. And figuratively, he has taken all of us into God’s Church with him. Did we just hear the choir sing the hymn, “Their voices are loud as they come and they go, their voices resound, they resound in my ears…” (The Tumult of Friars by Christopher Coelho ofm).

He is someone in peace with all: the hippies, austere monks and nuns, innocent doves, ferocious wolves, benevolent god and malevolent men, social assemblies, the supreme head of God’s Church on earth - the Pope. It is not surprising that he could with amazing ease could greet everyone, with a smile, Pax et Bonum.

I sincerely believe that Francis did not use these two words –peace and good- together accidentally. He used them deliberately. Francis knew, if we see goodness in others we can be in peace with others; if we see goodness in ourselves we can be in peace with ourselves; if we see God’s goodness we can live in peace with God.

Let me further illustrate with an incident from the life of St. Francis. Like many other medieval European cities Assisi also had its share of lepers. They lived outside the city walls; and they wandered around the city begging for their sustenance. When they passed by, People only saw filth, pus, foul-smell, and nothing more. It was same with young Francis too. One day, as Francis went his way, there came a leper asking for alms. Francis, as automatically as ever, looked the other side. He wanted to evade him. But for some divine reason Francis looked at him again and saw his human face. What happened next was completely unexpected; Francis walked up to him, embraced him and kissed him, and gave him the richest alms possible - acceptance. As Francis was still trying to fully grasp the meaning of what he just did, the leper passed by him. Francis turned back to have another sight of the leper; to his amazement, he could no more see the leper, but Christ gently gazing back at him. Can we see Christ in others? Can we see goodness in others? Can we see goodness in plants, in wolves, in people and more? The first Franciscan step towards peace is to see goodness in others.

G. K. Chesterton, one of the biographers of St. Francis indicates that at some point of his life Francis realised the generosity and goodness of God in his life; and thereon he lived responding to the generosity of God, responding to the goodness of God. He became a man of gratitude, a man of giving, a man of peace.

That we must see goodness in others goes without dispute and disagreement. The real question is what is ‘good’? Are we goodness-blind? Are we goodness biased? Is our idea of ‘good’ detrimental to world peace?

What is good?

I teach Visual Designing to the graduates. At the start of the course I begin a conversation with the students that the universe is a flawless design by the Master Designer, in the introductory part of the course, I discuss the elements that constitute a design. The basic elements of design are dots and lines. Every design is either made up of dot/dots; or made up of line/lines. There are various kinds of lines, mainly, straight lines (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) and there are curved lines. I stop at that and ask the students to go out and identify something created by the Master Designer that is absolutely straight. Students run out to pick one up thinking that it’s so easy. Five minutes pass, eight minutes pass, ten minutes pass, they don’t return. Then as I go out and meet them, smilingly they accept that they could find nothing categorically straight that is a creation oof God. And their eyes brighten up in holy realisation. Look at your face in a mirror, look at others, and look at everybody and everything –all are curves. “O Lord, how great are thy works…” (Ps 92:5).

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Man invented the straight line

It was one of my greatest realisations too; that the all-powerful, supreme God has created almost nothing absolutely straight. It has influenced my spirituality immensely. Perhaps, one of the greatest inventions of humanity is a straight line. It is important to note that in life as in design curves are so beautiful and gorgeous but quite challenging and perplexing too. If we do not perceive a curve from right perspective, we tend to name it (him/her) crooked. Be ware of our perspectives.

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God created curves

Often for us, ‘good’ is that which is absolutely straight, perfectly square, faultlessly triangle, totally logical, clearly calculable and the like. I slowly tend to believe that God’s goodness is exceedingly different from what we uphold as good and perfect. Rightly so, Jesus cries out in Matthew 5:58, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”. His perfection, His goodness is higher. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is 55:9).

According to Kajetan Esser, ofm, a Franciscan author and expert on writings of St. Francis is of the opinion that the Peace Prayer is most certainly not one of the writings of St. Francis. But he notes that this prayer was widely used by the soldiers of First World War, looking forward for peace. It gave them strength. They, being at ground zero, were able to realise that world peace is not possible just by strategies, planning, conquering, straight lines and calculable boxes, squares and triangles. The world needs love, acceptance, mercy, forgiveness, charity, gratitude – curves – yes, the world needs people like St. Francis of Assisi.

Pax et Bonum – Peace and Good. Yes. Peace and goodness be with you.

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