Christian saints -- Biography; Francis, of Assisi, Saint, 1182-1226
We have already seen that the habit of the Franciscans of this time was
to make their abode within easy reach of great cities; Pacifico and his
companions established themselves at St. Denis.[27] We have no
particulars of their work; it was singularly fruitful, since it
permitted them a few years later to attack England with full success.
Francis passed the following year (1218) in evangelizing tours in Italy.
It is naturally impossible to follow him in these travels, the itinerary
of which was fixed by his daily inspirations, or by indications as
fanciful as the one which had formerly determined his going to Sienna.
Bologna,[28] the Verna, the valley of Rieti, the Sacro-Speco of St.
Benedict at Subiaco,[29] Gaeta;[30] San Michele on Mount Gargano[31]
perhaps received him at this time, but the notes of his presence in
these places are too sparse and vague to permit their being included in
any scheme of history.
It is very possible that he also paid a visit to Rome during this time;
his communications with Ugolini were much more frequent than is
generally supposed. We must not permit the stories of biographers to
deceive us in this matter; it is a natural tendency to refer all that we
know of a man to three or four especially striking dates. We forget
entire years of the life of those whom we have known the best and loved
the most and group our memories of them around a few salient events
which shine all the more brilliantly the deeper we make the surrounding
obscurity. The words of Jesus spoken on a hundred different occasions
came at last to be formed into a single discourse, the Sermon on the
Mount. It is in such cases that criticism needs to be delicate, to
mingle a little divination with the heavy artillery of scientific
argument.
The texts are sacred, but we must not make fetiches of them;
notwithstanding St. Matthew, no one to-day dreams of representing Jesus
as uttering the Sermon on the Mount all at one time. In the same way, in
the narratives concerning the relations between St. Francis and Ugolini,
we find ourselves every moment shut up in no-thoroughfares, coming up
against contradictory indications, just so long as we try to refer
everything to two or three meetings, as we are at first led to do.
With a simple act of analysis these difficulties disappear and we find
each of the different narratives bringing us fragments which, being
pieced together, furnish an organic story, living, psychologically true.
From the moment at which we have now arrived, we must make a much larger
place for Ugolini than in the past; the struggle has definitively opened
between the Franciscan ideal--chimerical, perhaps, but sublime--and the
ecclesiastical policy, to go on until the day when, half in humility,
half in discouragement, Francis, heartsick, abdicates the direction of
his spiritual family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account