Blackfriars in this December number devotes its pages to St. Francis, whose memory the world has been cherishing in a special way during the present year, exactly seven centuries since his death. The Church by solemn proclamation and festive reminder has declared Francis to be the ‘Alter Christus,’ the perfectly Christ-like man. Italy has made him a national hero and non-Catholics have sounded his praises. Among all the centenaries, whether religious or secular, that the last few years have produced, none has been more universally popular than this. It is strange that a man should win applause by running away from it and achieve popularity by seeking the next world rather than this. It makes one inclined to think better of our world and age when we find so many unexpected people on their knees before St. Francis : we know not what to do with those convenient labels, ‘materialism,’ ‘commercialism,’ and ‘unchecked greed,’ when we see the world running after Holy Poverty. Some of the worshippers are perhaps in love with the right thing for the wrong reason. The preacher to the birds is remembered more readily than the Francis who strove to overcome with his eloquence the stubborn hearts of men : the wolf of Gubbio is more romantic than the wolf nearer home—the man who is wolf to his fellow man; and Franciscan simplicity is a sterner thing than ‘the simple life. Yet whatever brings men to the feet of St. Francis cannot but have some element of good in it; and can we not leave Francis to deal with those who seek him?

I approach this subject much in the spirit in which Tertullian wrote against the heretics of his day. We might adapt the words of the powerful, if acrimonious, apologist. ‘We must first see to whom the Saints belong lest they be claimed by those who have no right to them.’ As the gnostics of Tertullian’s day claimed a right to the Scriptures, so the agnostics and other misguided folks of our day claim St. Francis. As the self-constituted teachers of those days interpreted Scripture according to their own fancy, and suppressed such parts of it as did not please them, so modern non-Catholics admire their own views in St. Francis and shut their eyes to those aspects of his personality—often fundamental aspects—which do not fit in with their views. I wish to summarise in a rough way the recent non-Catholic appreciations of the Poverello. Furthermore, I would like to make Catholics grasp that St. Francis is theirs: that he is a product of the supernatural vitality of Christ’s Church : and that if non-Catholics admire him, they must do so from afar, preferably in sackcloth and ashes. You can only really imitate St. Francis in loving the birds and flowers, if you have fasted with him on Mount Alverna, and approached Confession and Communion at his side. Let Mr. Sidney Dark close this paragraph for me:

The contrast between the two saints is as obvious as the likeness; indeed, such likeness as there was sprang more from their background, environment, and common century than from personal resemblance in story or work or ideals. Besides the common century there was, of course, the common faith; but apart from these things that are the settings and not the gems, the gems themselves, though equally precious, were singularly unlike. The two succeeded to the long winter of the Dark Ages and the illumination of the twelfth century, and they were caught up in the creative movement of the thirteenth; there was, therefore, a certain community of spirit which their age naturally begot in them. They both started orders of Friars.

But remove the age and look at the men. What a perfect contrast! Dominic is of noble Spanish origin, born in bleak and desolate lands, growing up in a feudal tower; his early years are years of study, in the house of a priest, at the University, and as one of a community of Canons. Quietness throws its veil over him, and his companion is learning, and wisdom is his star.

Francis comes of the trading stock of Assisi, a city of commerce, but also of rich colouring and crowded wealth, and ripens to manhood in the service of his father’s trade. In the little city, amongst his young companions, he is the leader, gay, joyous, light of heart, a singer of songs with his fingers nimble on the viol and his feet beating time in the dance.

The part played by Englishmen in the first days of the Franciscan Order seems small, and is perhaps obscured by the fact that its earliest historians were Italians to whom the nationality of their brethren had no importance. One is glad to think that one of the earliest of the followers of St. Francis, ‘secundus in or dine,’ whatever that may imply, and ‘socius beati Francisci,’ was William the Englishman, and that we have before us his beautiful drawing of Our Lord among the candlesticks which was brought to England to be preserved by Matthew Paris. Chroniclers of the Order say almost nothing about him, and the one legend that has attached itself to his name speaks of his sanctity and humility. One wonders how a travelling Englishman, even in that international age when a dialect of French carried one from England to Rome, had settled down in a little Italian hill town, so completely as to leave no memory of his nationality, especially if he was that ‘quidam de Assisio’ ‘secundus in or dine’ between Bernard of Quintevalle and Brother Giles. Or was his anonymity due to a touch of almost jealous affection in Brother Leo and the Companions? When he died in 1232, five years after St. Francis, he was buried in the great church of San Francesco at Assisi, and at once miracles began to be wrought at his tomb with such frequency that the Minister General came to his grave and ordered him in virtue of holy obedience to work no more.

Saint Francis studying Holy Scripture : no, it must be confessed, few people ever picture him bent over a book or, with pen in hand, busy over his writing, pausing awhile to pray and ponder, and then taking up his work once more. I should like to see an artist produce a picture of Francis writing, for it would serve to remind us that, though his writings may be all gathered together into the compass of a single slender volume, they contain, nevertheless, passages of unsurpassed beauty. And this was the result not merely of prayer, but of study. Intrinsic evidence makes this plain, even if we had no further proof; but, as a matter of fact, we have the express testimony of Saint Bonaventure, who tells us that, though, prior to the foundation of the Order, he had never devoted much time to study—his early education was slightly above the average, since he knew French, and was well read in romance literature— afterwards he made considerable progress in learning, not merely by prayer, but by study, non solum orando sed etiam legendo.

Now, in these writings of Saint Francis, there is a certain subject to which is given an unmistakable prominence. It is not poverty, not the abstract love of God, not preaching, but devotion to the Person of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and as a consequence great reverence for priests and churches. It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate this point and, as a preliminary, it is well to bear in mind that this attitude of Francis was a conscious protest against a widespread neglect of and irreverence towards the Blessed Sacrament,

The luminous hills of Umbria, the absolute sun, the grey climbing town, the rows of thick green cypresses—who has not heard of these and of the little sanctuary that is Assisi? Some, too, perhaps, have come to guess at a whole world made up of prayer and of a real Presence enshrined in no less a sanctuary than man’s soul; to guess, to wonder, even to realize so far as the wayfaring man may. But are there many who have given thought to the mind of modern Assisi, to consider how the townsfolk of St. Francis speak and think to-day of their greatest citizen? How many of the thronging pilgrims were able to read the Italian placards, the ‘affisioni,’ that were everywhere, half-covering the walls of the little sunny town?

Now, in Italy, the powers that be speak to their subjects through the placard : upon any morning you may find lavish messages on all the walls. Does a Queen go to death or a Minister escape it, a calamity befall, a festa loom in the coming week, instantly proclamations from the Mayor, the committee, the parish Church or what not are set where he who runs may read. The newspaper catches a few thousand eyes and possibly a few hundred intelligences, but the prolific, eloquent walls catch us all. Almost might history be written by means of placards alone. Let, then, the walls of Assisi speak:-

‘The Commune and people of Assisi,’ we read, ‘are custodians of a good, destined to be shared by the whole world, for their town is like a heart sending its life-blood beyond the limits of space and time.

Fratres Minores sicut et nostri caritative et hilariter recipiantur, et secundum facultatem domus pie et honeste procurentur. (Constitutiones Ordinis Praedicatofum).

Let the Friars Minor be lovingly and cheerfully welcomed as our own brethren, and let them be worshipfully and fittingly entertained according to the means of the house.

The love which St. Francis and St. Dominic bore each other has become a lasting tradition and example among their children. The rule of special charity towards the Minors was one of the last legacies of St. Dominic to his Preachers; it is to be found in the Constitutions drawn up by him and approved by the General Chapter held at Bologna in 1221 a short time before the Saint’s death. At the same Chapter was decreed the foundation of the English Dominican Province, and straightway St. Dominic carried it into effect by sending from his side fit friars for the undertaking. Filled with the holy Founder’s own spirit they arrived in England in August, 1221, and were already settled in London and Oxford when in 1224 the Blessed Agnellus came with the first Minors. Mindful of St. Dominic’s rule of love, the London Dominicans eagerly welcomed the newcomers and made them tarry with them fifteen days, feeding and lodging them as though they were of their own family.

From London two Franciscans went to establish a house of their Order in Oxford, and Thomas of Eccleston, an early chronicler, has told the story of their coming.