From 2023-2026 we have a series of centenaries of St Francis of Assisi. Though lived only for just 44 years, the size and reach of his life is still growing. He has many names; we call him a brother, and at the same time, a mystic. A mystic is someone who does not operate from a place of faith, instead he has moved on to a place of knowledge, experience, and living; he/she does not need faith anymore. A mystic already lives what people of faith are only believing. This year is the 800th anniversary of the Stigmata of St. Francis—he was a mystic and he was already there.
Francis was born in 1181. He lived an unconscious, unattended, normal life, like any other, for first 24 years. Returning home from the Assisi-Perugia war, as a loser and wounded, Francis went through an awakening moment. One of the existential philosophers has a story of a stonecutter, whose only tool on which he trusted was a hammer. One day, as he was at his work, the hammer breaks, and the stonecutter fell on his knees in helplessness. Francis was like that stonecutter, awakened by what happened, he falls in his knees, begging God for a new hammer.
Did God give Francis a new hammer? Francis spent next 20 years of his life wandering, reading, writing, singing, preaching to the creation, loving, giving, forgiving, losing to God, being wounded, praying, bending down, groaning in loud cries; in 1223 he has the rule ready for himself and for the brothers who came around him, and in the same year makes the first ever crib at Greccio; in 1224 he receives the gift of the Stigmata; in 1225 he composes the Canticle of the Creatures, and in 1226 he has his Transitus –Francis returns back to his creator naked and singing. What a life to behold?
A 24-year old Francis once sat in his cell, crying over his insufficiencies: the war he lost, the health that he did not have, and the reputation and fame he could not make. Now the 44-year old Francis had achieved none of the above, died lying naked on the cold floor, yet singing. Hold on to that thought for a while. He sang in gratitude for what he had. Now he had enough. He had sufficient, and was content and satisfied. We still gaze on, trying hard to see a poor and naked man's reason for his hymns of thanksgiving.
What surprises me the most is the amount of stories written about St. Francis. In the 13th century itself we have the lives of St. Francis written by Thomas of Celano commissioned by the Church, we have The Legend of Three Companions (Leo, Angelo, and Rufino), the biography written by Bonaventure commissioned by the Order, and in the 14th century we have The Little Flowers of St. Francis –the popular legends of Francis. Later on, we have GK Chesterton, Murray Bodo, and plenty more.
People do not write stories about people so passionately just like that; they write stories about people whom they love. What is the reason for their love and devotion to St. Francis? It was not money, size, power, or the privileged group he belonged. In his own time, one of his baffled first companions, Massio, had asked the same question, “Why after you Francis?”
The answer for the above question is the storyline of every story written on St. Francis. They were not stories of how Francis came first, or how he defeated others, or won in battles or crusades. Those were stories of Francis discovering his God. Those are stories of Francis bending down to meet, greet, and kiss the poor. They were stories of how Francis bent down to straighten someone up. They were stories of respect for the environment, respect for others (other religions, other genders, other brothers).
Like a Christian is someone who embodies and makes tangible the parables of Jesus, a Franciscan is someone who embodies and makes tangible the stories of St. Francis. We must take his stories seriously.
One day the young industrious Francis was in his father’s shop busy dealing with customers, a beggar came asking for alms, he in his business shooed him away. But the entire remaining day he was disturbed, he knew that he had not done the right thing. In the evening Francis took a pouch full of money from his father’s shop and went in search of that beggar. Francis searched for the beggar till he found him in the night, and handed over to him the money. Our worth is not in the mistakes and failures that we have, but the efforts that we make to correct our mistakes and wrongdoings.
Like many other medieval European towns 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.
Francis and his brothers were at Rivo Torto. In the middle of the night, one of the brothers cries out, “I’m dying! I’m dying of hunger!” They had kept the fast so strictly, and this brother could not control his hunger and cried out in the night for food. St. Francis woke everyone up, and he ordered them t set the table; Francis started eating first, then he ordered the rest of the brothers to do the same, for the sake of fraternal charity and compassion, so their brother would not feel embarrassed. Compassion is the food that feeds your soul.
We must take the stories of St. Francis seriously; they are life and spirit. Though People perhaps are less excited by the rule and hagiography of St. Francis today; but they are excited and testified by seeing someone living the rule and life of St. Francis today.
Celebrating the Feast of St. Francis in our post-modern and competitive one-upmanship times I would reflect on two words, perhaps not found in scholastic spirituality books, but definitely very profound for our times.
Clarity: We have often heard, ‘information is power’, Yuval Noah Harari corrects it in his book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. He says, “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” We are overloaded with information, and it is tough to know what is fake and what is true, it is tough to process truth from post truth. It is easy to be drowned and lost in the deluge of information and content. Mere quantity and abundance could hamper with filtering out and pursuing what we truly need.
Francis was lost among many things, the ambition and drive of a young man like him, the lucrative business of his father, the knighthood and war between Assisi and Perugia, and the mighty Church and its crusades. Living in the dark ages of history, sunk deep in this spiritual muddle, bewilderment, and confusion Francis encounters the question, ‘whom do you want to serve, the master, or the slave? He answered, ‘the Master’. That was a moment of clarity, he recognised that the pope, the ruler of Assisi, his father, and him, are all slaves.
Jesus knew that there were many and confusing opinions about who he is, but he asked his disciples, "who do you say that I am?" Peter answered with clarity, "You are the Messiah" (Mark 8: 27-30, Matthew 16:13-20).
A film on St. Francis of Assisi, Francesco, begins with the scene of young Francis standing upside down. He look around for a while, shakes his head in understanding and clarity, and says, ‘I think the sky is holding the earth up.’ Once clarity came into his life, nothing was the same again in Francis’ life. It is thought provoking to note that the name Clare (one of the best friends of Francis) also means clarity.
Enabling: The Franciscans boast of not having a singular apostolate or work to which all its members concentrate all their energies. Not having a singular apostolate is not a limitation, rather it open doors to diversity, and invites us to diversify. The rule offers a gospel way of life, and that is enabling every individual to live the gospel for his/her times and context.
When every establishment with absolute certainty says, ‘Come and be this’, the Franciscans say, ‘come and become’. The Franciscan spirit is an expansive, open, enabling idea. Dance if you can, teach if you can, write if you can, make art if you can—fill the world with the Gospel of Christ.
St. Francis was an enabler; the Franciscan Order, province, every fraternity, and every friar must be enablers, meaning, allowing and promoting people to do diverse and at times strange things, to witness the gospel. In our province, with its hardly 75 years of history and with not more than 200 friars has a great history of enabling; allowing people to do things which would help in their becoming. Friar Jesu Irudayam invested himself in caring for the street children. Bro. Jose became Swamy Dayanad, discovering and preaching Jesus in the intercultural Indian context. Friar Marianus Reddy, a married man joined us and became one of the greatest witnesses of the gospel. Friar Daniel Sigamony just kept receiving and giving, like water in the basin of a roman fountain; he did pay a price too. Friar Christopher Coelho studied and expressed in art, music, writing, and films.
Though we need structured and established ministries like parishes, schools and colleges, all need not be parish priests, schoolteachers, or college professors. Let us be lesser brothers, let us not desire to be somebody else, but become we -Franciscans.
Enabling also diversifies us and thus helps us remain lessor brothers. We don't get a chance to be a big dominating force. Concentration or accumulation of any thing into one kind or into one single hand creates power and dominance. The modern term in the context of media is conglomeration. Imagine we forcefully train our entire brotherhood to be teachers and have more schools than any others, which has the danger of us being in the first and dominant position, and not anymore as lesser brothers. We become the dough and not the silent yeast in it.
Jesus sent them two by two, and gave them multiple things to do in his name. We should have always remained and gone around two by two, and that would have kept us humble and powerless. One universal, Catholic Church is rich and powerful beyond imagination, and that perhaps is problematic. St. Francis, though respected priests in his good faith, never wanted to be a priest. Priests perhaps are doing a lot of good in the world, but I am convinced that their positioning in the society easily gives them privileges and advantages to exploit—and most priests do.
The liberation theologians had spoken about a 'Christian revolution / love revolution'—a revolution without killing and blood, which would usher in a structural change in the Church and the world. That would be a revolution of us going two by two (going powerlessly) through the world. Today we seldom hear of liberation theology or theologians; they were squarely dealt with the Church establishments. No one who has much to defend and protect initiates or supports a revolution.
It is time that we take the stories of Jesus and the stories of Francis of Assisi seriously. They bring in clarity to our Christian Franciscan life, and enable us to be more.
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