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And so he returned. He became a very different Francis. He was quiet and serious. He knew the conversion of the [[Saint Paul|apostle Saul]] on the road to Damascus. He had stepped into the very living presence of the aura of [[Jesus Christ]], and that was enough to strip from him the outer layer, merely a patine over his soul of light, of the world consciousness. | And so he returned. He became a very different Francis. He was quiet and serious. He knew the conversion of the [[Saint Paul|apostle Saul]] on the road to Damascus. He had stepped into the very living presence of the aura of [[Jesus Christ]], and that was enough to strip from him the outer layer, merely a patine over his soul of light, of the world consciousness. | ||
[[File:Crocifisso San Damiano Assisi.jpg|thumb|The crucifix before which Francis knelt in the ruined church of San Damiano]] | |||
== His calling == | == His calling == | ||
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Francis later recalled this as his “day of decision”—the day in which “the Most High personally revealed to me that I ought to live according to the Holy Gospel.” He donned a coarser garment, went barefoot, and began to preach to the townspeople, attracting followers to his way of life. His early followers came from the well-to-do families of Assisi; some that had been on the path of pleasure with him. | Francis later recalled this as his “day of decision”—the day in which “the Most High personally revealed to me that I ought to live according to the Holy Gospel.” He donned a coarser garment, went barefoot, and began to preach to the townspeople, attracting followers to his way of life. His early followers came from the well-to-do families of Assisi; some that had been on the path of pleasure with him. | ||
[[File:Legend of St. Francis by Giotto.jpg|thumb|The Pope approving the statutes of the order of the Franciscans, Giotti (1295-1300)]] | |||
== The founding of the Franciscan Order == | == The founding of the Franciscan Order == | ||
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Francis wrote: “The Rule and life of the Friars Minor is this, namely, to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity.” | Francis wrote: “The Rule and life of the Friars Minor is this, namely, to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity.” | ||
Around 1221, he established the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, a lay fraternity for those who did not wish to withdraw from the world or take religious vows but desired to live by Franciscan precepts. | |||
Francis and his companions made their home near a river, and it was a hovel in which these despisers of large and beautiful habitations sought refuge. Here they found shelter from the storms, for as Francis said, “One goes more quickly to heaven from a hovel than from a palace.” Then they were driven from their place by a peasant, and so they left the refuge peacefully and took the road to Portiuncula, which became their base for the next ten years. Francis continued preaching in Assisi, and in those ten years the order grew from an initial twelve friars to three thousand in number. | |||
== Francis and Clare == | == Francis and Clare == | ||
It was at the Portiuncula that Francis and Clare had their first encounter. Francis had known of her and she was anxious to make his acquaintance. She was one of three daughters of a count. The family were known for wealth and arrogance. Her countenance bore the signs of this aristocratic lineage, but the pride of the aristocracy in her gave way to that utter humility which was the transfer of light from Saint Francis. | |||
She came seeking to know how to live according to the Gospel. And so Francis became the guru of Clare to guide her in the way of living the Christian mysteries. She served in a novitiate under Francis for a year, and finally she was free from doubt and made her calling and election sure. She ran away from home on a moonlit night, and with a friend headed toward Portiuncula. The friars were waiting in front of the church with torches and singing, and they led her to the altar where Francis was waiting. | |||
She fell to her knees and consecrated herself to the Lord, vowing to follow him in poverty according to the rule of her teacher. She removed her velvet gown and satin slippers, stripped herself of all adornments and took on the gray religious habit tightened around her waist by a string, and a pair of wooden clogs. Her blonde hair was cut by Francis and covered the floor. She took a black veil for her head and went to the monastery of the Benedictine nuns into whose care Francis had entrusted her. | |||
The next morning there was a violent knocking heard at the door of the monastery as members of her family had come to take her back. She ran to the church and hid clinging to the altar. When she heard her own family, she went to face them. She showed them her head, and they were taken aback. And so they retreated and understood that she had made her vows. | |||
Francis proceeded to take Clare to another monastery at Mount Subassio. Then Agnes, Clare’s sister, joined them, and she received her vows. And then they asked the bishop if the women of the holy order might be allowed to stay at Saint Damiano, the church that had been rebuilt by Francis and the brothers. The approval was given. | |||
Clare’s other sister, Beatrice, came, and her mother also responded to the call. In 1219, the cardinal approved the very strict rule in which Clare, faithful to the teaching of Francis, insisted. She insisted that the privilege of poverty be confirmed. Their order became known as the Poor Clares (or the Order of Saint Clare). | |||
One of the many legends surrounding the lives of Francis and Clare describes their meal at Santa Maria degli Angeli, where Francis spoke so lovingly of God that all were enraptured in Him. Suddenly the people of the village saw the convent and the woods ablaze. Running hastily to quench the flames, they beheld the little company enfolded in brilliant light with arms uplifted to heaven. | One of the many legends surrounding the lives of Francis and Clare describes their meal at Santa Maria degli Angeli, where Francis spoke so lovingly of God that all were enraptured in Him. Suddenly the people of the village saw the convent and the woods ablaze. Running hastily to quench the flames, they beheld the little company enfolded in brilliant light with arms uplifted to heaven. | ||
== Growth of the order == | |||
The friars were now a multitude, and Francis began to send them to other parts of the world in small groups. They went for France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Morocco. Francis went to the Orient. And in every other mystery school, when the message is set, when the Holy Spirit has been given, when souls are truly the electrodes because they have the inner alchemical marriage, they are sent forth even as King Arthur sent forth the knights to right social wrongs, to redress injustices, to let the kingdom of God come. | |||
And so they went. They were the leaven. They were sown in the body of the earth. Their very living presence in those cities and nations was the lighting of a spiritual fire. They preached the Word. They were impassioned. They preached it in the public squares. They begged for their food. They withstood persecutions. | |||
== Revising the rule == | |||
Upon Francis’ return from his own travels, he was bitterly surprised to find that a group of friars whom he had appointed as deputies in his absence had tried to introduce innovations into the rules to temper the strictness of the vow of poverty. Some had even gone so far as to draw up a new rule. | |||
Francis went straight to the Pope. The Pope had approved the rule and now Francis wanted the Pope to confirm it anew. He was certain that Honorius the Third, the successor to Innocent the Third, would also defend his ideal and the rule of life which now served as an inspiration to thousands of religious. | |||
The new Pope appointed Cardinal Ugolino as protector of the order, and it was his job to settle any disputes that had arisen in the order. On the one hand there were those who in time would be called “the Spirituals,” who championed absolute poverty, opposed to those called “the Lassity,” who demanded a modification of the strictness of the rules. | |||
Cardinal Ugolino, the future Gregory the Ninth, showed Francis the proper balance between the two forces. He led him to understand that the heroic period that had been proper at the start now had to be followed by reflection and organization; hence the rule had to be modified. The strictness of Saint Francis was such that he desired not to own property, not to have libraries, not to own books. The sheer message of Francis was on that tenth station of the cross, Jesus is stripped of his garments: that trial of the boy Francis before his father showed where he was. He was willing to be stripped of his garments, of all attachment, and he wanted to be that living example of purity to the end, and so he was. | |||
We understand within the thrust of this dispensation again the Alpha and the Omega. We understand that in order for the order to be perpetuated at all it would have to have properties assigned to it and members within the order to care for those properties so that those seeking the austerities of Francis could have a haven and a home of light and so that over the centuries they could walk in his footsteps. | |||
Francis, however, was passionately affirming that the rule must continue in its purified form. He could not accept the watering down of his teachings. He said, “Brethren, God has called me to follow the voice humility and he has pointed out to me the path of simplicity. I do not wish to hear any talk of any kind of rule either that of Saint Augustine or Saint Bernard or Saint Benedict. The Lord has willed that I be a madman in the world, and God is not willed to lead us along any other path save this one.” | |||
[[File:Giotto - Legend of St Francis - -19- - Stigmatization of St Francis.jpg|thumb|Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, fresco by Giotto in the Upper Basilica at Assisi]] | |||
== The stigmata == | |||
Francis withdrew from the day-to-day concerns of his order. He was forty-two years old. He was tired and emaciated by his penitential practices, practices of penance. More than this, he was burdened because he bore the weight of world karma. He had illnesses and even his activity had come to a standstill. It had covered a brief span of fourteen years from the time of the approval of his order to the time of his retirement, from 1210 to 1224. | |||
He felt the approach of what he called “sister death,” and he sought the silence of solitary places for which he had constantly yearned in the first years of his renunciation. He retraced his steps along the old paths between the mountains and forest, stopping once more in the cave which he had favored for prayer and fasting. These places are today famous as Franciscan sanctuaries. | |||
It was on Mount Verna that what biographers have described as the most important episode of the life of the Poverello occurred—the stigmata. There was a hut made of branches built under a beech tree, and Francis besought Brother Leo to keep everyone away from that place. Here he spent the feast of the the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, August 15. He continued to penetrate further and further into the forest toward the cleft in the mountain. It was Brother Leo’s task to bring him a little bread and water once a day. In that solitude, Francis relived the moments of the passion of Jesus with such an intensity of love that he brought them to a vivid reality in his soul and upon his body. | |||
The culmination of his meditation upon the Redeemer came to Francis in the agony and the ecstasy of a dread illness when he sought solitude at the retreat on Mount La Verna. As the pale poverello lay outstretched upon a bare rock in the chill of the September dawn, “the fervor of his devotion increased so much that he totally transformed himself into Him who let himself be crucified through abundance of love.” | |||
Brother Leo reports that “suddenly appeared to him a [[seraph]] with six wings, bearing enfolded in them a very beautiful image of a crucified man, his hands and feet outflung as on a cross, with features clearly resembling those of Lord Jesus. Two wings covered the seraph’s head; two, descending to his feet, veiled the rest of his body; the other two were unfolded for flight.”<ref>Morris Bishop, ''St. Francis of Assisi'' (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1974), p. 168.</ref> | |||
Before the vision faded, Francis felt the five wounds of the Crucified pierce his body with such force that he fell unconscious. | |||
For two years, Francis bore the intense suffering of Christ though at times, in transcendent joy, he would burst into song—lighting upon his “Canticle of the Creatures,” praising not only brother sun but brother wind, brother fire, sister earth, and sister death. | |||
== Final years == | |||
In 1209 Francis suffered from a general debility and weakening of flesh. Seven years later, in 1216, when he was sheltered by the Bishop of Assisi, he had recurrent fevers from the malaria he had contracted malaria in his sojourn of the East—taking on the karma of the East he was bearing it out and working it out in his body. | |||
This was the path of sainthood of these two thousand years of the age of Pisces before the coming of the seventh angel delivered to us the dispensation of the [[Holy Spirit]], the [[violet flame]]. And so we see the saints who went before suffered these afflictions in body—the very literal working out of world karma. Today we may perform the same sacrifices with that violet flame. These afflictions of illness were added to the stigmata. There came pus forth from the opened wounds of the stigmata. He was pained dreadfully and continuously. | |||
He went to Siena to spend the winter. His stomach, legs, feet swelled. The pain was aggravated to the point where he could scarcely take any food. In that state he besought Friar Elias to take him back to Assisi, in May 1226. Everywhere crowds gathered at his passage, and for this reason a secret route was decided upon. The procession at last reached Assisi and filed through the big gate of the bishop’s palace. Francis was to remain here for a time as the guest of the Prelate Guido, the same man who had covered him with his mantle in that now distant day when Francis had stripped himself before his father in order to wear the rags of poverty. | |||
Where he felt that he was at the point of death, Francis asked to be transported to Portiuncula so the life of the body should end where the life of the soul had begun. During his last illness he felt a great need to sing and continually asked his attendant friars to intone the laudes and psalms. He composed the Canticle of Creatures as he laid on his pallet suffering. In the cell that he was to take his last breath, he asked all the friars to assemble around him and placing his right hand on each one of them, he blessed all those present and those absent and those who had joined the order in the future until the end of time. | |||
He was awaiting the arrival of a lady, Jacqueline of Settesoli, a Roman noble woman who was considered the mother of the Franciscan Third Order. He had already sent his farewell to Clare and the other sisters. The one final greeting which remained to be delivered was to his beloved bride, the person of Mother Mary whom he espoused as Lady Poverty. He celebrated it with a rite. He had himself stretched out naked on the ground and ordered the attendant friars to gird him with a hair shirt and to spread ashes over him. And while they tried to restrain their tears, he said to them, “I have accomplished my work. May Christ teach you yours.” | |||
Francis died on the evening of October 3, 1226, intoning with a thin voice a verse from a psalm: “Free my soul from prison so that I may praise thy name.” At that very instant a flock of skylarks soared above the roof as though to accompany the soul of the saint on his last journey. He was canonized by Pope Gregory the Ninth, but had he not done so he would be ever more canonized by the souls of Light, by the swallows, by the elementals and by Jesus himself. | |||
[[File:700091.jpg|thumb|''St. Francis'', Nicholas Roerich (1932)]] | [[File:700091.jpg|thumb|''St. Francis'', Nicholas Roerich (1932)]] | ||
== Legends of Saint Francis == | == Legends of Saint Francis == | ||
There are many sweet stories of Saint Francis. Some are considered to be legend, but they are well worth reading. They particularly include notations of how the brothers met face to face the temptations of demons and their blasphemies and their cursings and all of the types of consciousness of sin and of jealousy and of sensuality and of doubt and fear and all of these conditions of consciousness that come with seemingly a cyclical regularity. | |||
=== Saint Francis and the leper === | === Saint Francis and the leper === | ||
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The leper asked him what he could do that the others could not. Francis promised that he would do all he wished. The leper said, “I want you to wash me all over because the odor is such that I cannot stand it.” Francis then prepared water with many sweet-scented herbs, undressed him and began to wash him with his hands. Miraculously, wherever Francis touched, the leprosy disappeared and the flesh was healed. | The leper asked him what he could do that the others could not. Francis promised that he would do all he wished. The leper said, “I want you to wash me all over because the odor is such that I cannot stand it.” Francis then prepared water with many sweet-scented herbs, undressed him and began to wash him with his hands. Miraculously, wherever Francis touched, the leprosy disappeared and the flesh was healed. | ||
As the leper’s body was healed, his soul experienced conversion also. Overcome with remorse for his sins, he began to weep bitterly, accusing himself for all the pain he had caused others. After fifteen days of deep penance, he fell ill and passed on. His soul, brighter than the sun, appeared to Saint Francis while he was praying in a forest. Pouring out gratitude and blessings, he announced to Francis that that day he was going to Paradise. | As the leper’s body was healed, his soul experienced conversion also. Overcome with remorse for his sins, he began to weep bitterly, accusing himself for all the pain he had caused others. After fifteen days of deep penance, he fell ill and passed on. His soul, brighter than the sun, appeared to Saint Francis while he was praying in a forest. Pouring out gratitude and blessings, he announced to Francis that that day he was going to Paradise. | ||
=== Francis and the swallows === | |||
As Francis and his brothers came to a little town of Alviano, hundreds of persons were gathered in the square to hear him speak. Hundreds of swallows that nested in the city walls and the towers circled above the square, which resounded with their song. Francis waited until it was nearly nightfall, thinking that they would go to rest, but when they did not, he said to them, “My brothers and sisters the swallows, it is now time for me to speak. You have spoken enough.” | |||
Right away there was silence and it lasted while Francis gave his sermon. At the end of it, the swallows joined in the song of jubilation sung by the people of Alviano, who cried with one voice, “A miracle! A saint!” Then the bells in the church began to ring all by themselves and the people crowded around Saint Francis, asking to be admitted to his band of disciples, claiming that they were ready to abandon their homes and follow him. | |||
=== The first nativity scene === | === The first nativity scene === | ||
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At midnight on Christmas Eve, the brothers and neighboring people came bearing candles and lighted torches that brilliantly illumined the night. Together they celebrated a solemn Mass over the crèche; and Francis, with a countenance of supreme compassion and unspeakable joy, delivered a moving sermon on the “Bethlehem Babe.” For a moment, his friend John saw a beautiful infant lying in the manger, appearing almost lifeless. Then he saw Francis step forward and lift the Child, who opened his eyes as if waking from a deep sleep and smiled. The vision signified that although Christ had been asleep and forgotten in the hearts of many, he was being brought to life again through the devotion of his servant Francis. | At midnight on Christmas Eve, the brothers and neighboring people came bearing candles and lighted torches that brilliantly illumined the night. Together they celebrated a solemn Mass over the crèche; and Francis, with a countenance of supreme compassion and unspeakable joy, delivered a moving sermon on the “Bethlehem Babe.” For a moment, his friend John saw a beautiful infant lying in the manger, appearing almost lifeless. Then he saw Francis step forward and lift the Child, who opened his eyes as if waking from a deep sleep and smiled. The vision signified that although Christ had been asleep and forgotten in the hearts of many, he was being brought to life again through the devotion of his servant Francis. | ||
== The call to the brothers and sisters of Assisi == | |||
Today Kuthumi calls the brothers and sisters of Assisi together once again, those who hunger for the simple life of the Spirit but with the dynamism, the fervor, and the drama that Francis knew. It is the revolutionary Francis who comes once again in Jesus’ name not to send a placid peace but to thrust the [[sword]] of the living Word into the decadence of an age. | |||
Kuthumi says: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
In those days of old when we called the brothers of Assisi and we went forth preaching in the squares, we sent forth the light of love from our hearts, the light inspired and ignited by Jesus. And as you look back upon the days of Assisi, almost romantically, thinking of those moments we shared, I would remind you that the weight of materialism and sensuality and the rejection of the way of the Christ was virulent. And therefore the Lord allowed me to infuse the Church with a dynamic flow founded on the ray of chastity, obedience, and the love of Mother Poverty. | |||
We came to demonstrate what a band of devotees could realize when all else was set aside.... | |||
How fortunate, then, that we are able to draw together again in this nucleus of chelas of the Masters many of the souls who served in the order of the men and the order of the women! I welcome you! I welcome you, one and all! For this is also an hour similar to that day when the Church, as the body of God upon earth, requires the revitalization of the flame of the heart, when the Church must again become built of lively stones, of those who are ready to take that stand for purity and for obedience to the law of life. | |||
Our cause was unpopular. Do not expect that yours will be popular, at least not overnight. But I expect, as the cycles turn, that the flow of light from the I AM Presence will ultimately be welcomed by the masses of mankind because you chose to take your stand. Our rejoicing over the one and the two and the three who came to join us was very great; for we saw in the life reborn, in the lives reformed, how the victory of Christ in the soul was an alchemy able to reinfuse the entire momentum of Christianity with life, new life, as the real essence of the blood and the body of Jesus.<ref>{{GWB}}, chapter 25.</ref> | |||
</blockquote> | |||
== See also == | == See also == | ||