St. Francis’s Twenty-Fifth Admonition is on the topic of True Love.  Blessed is that brother who would love his brother as much when he is ill and not able to assist him as he loves him when he is well and able to assist him. Blessed is the brother who would love and fear his brother as much when he is far from him as he would when with him, and who would not say anything about him behind his back that he could not with charity say in his presence.  

In this admonition, St. Francis gives advice on true love for his religious brothers. This advice is certainly applicable to all of us.  First of all, St. Francis advises us that we should love those around us even when they cannot return our love, for example, when they are ill.  St. Francis is echoing what the Lord teaches in the Gospel:  He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.  You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”  (Luke 14:12-14) 

In this teaching, the Lord tells us what we should do, but He also tells us why we should do it.  We should be kind to those who are needy because they cannot repay us. God will repay us much more than any human being could repay us.  But there is also another reason why we should love and help those who cannot repay us.  Can we ever repay God for what He has done for us?   He has created us out of nothing and continues to sustain us.  We can have the gift of everlasting life if we accept that gift. How can we repay Him for all that He has given us?  We cannot do it.  When we love and help those who cannot help us in return, we are mirroring our relationship to God except that we are the needy ones. Yet God still loves us even though we cannot repay Him and He certainly does not need us.  Should we not do the same? 

St. Francis also teaches us in this admonition that we should treat those who are absent from us in the same way that we should treat them when they are in our presence.   They should receive from us the same love and respect when they are away as when they are near.  We generally assume that to be true, but we often do not practice it.  St. Francis gives us an example. He speaks about only saying things about a person in their absence that we would say about them in their presence.  This is something which is very hard to put into practice.  So very often there are things which we think about a person which we really believe to be true, but we would not say it out loud in their presence.  St. Francis tells us that in these situations we should be silent.  This is very hard to do.  It is very easy to speak about a person behind their back things we believe or even know to be true.  Yet what is the point of doing that? If we have an admonition to give them, then we should give it to them to their face.  It does them no good to be corrected if they do not hear the correction.  

St. Francis here is pointing out one of the requirements of sanctity.  We have to keep a guard on our lips.  If we do not, we will certainly sin and we may not even know it.  We will often say things which we think are true and which may even be true but which also do great harm to the person or persons affected.  Let us listen to St. Francis to help us learn how to be saints.

Jim Nugent, Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents

How to Be Humble: The Twenty-Fourth Admonition of Saint Francis 

St. Francis’s Twenty-Fourth Admonition is concerned with true humility and faithfulness. Blessed is he who shall be found as humble among his subjects as if he were among his masters. Blessed is the servant who always continues under the rod of correction. He is "a faithful and wise servant" who does not delay to punish himself for all his offences, interiorly by contrition and exteriorly by confession and by works of satisfaction.

In this admonition, St. Francis gives us advice on how to be truly humble. Since Francis wanted to truly “live the Gospel”, humility was surely a core aspect of the Gospel. St. Francis certainly heard and read what the Lord said about this. Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, heard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Mt 23:1-12) St. Francis clearly applied this scripture to his own time and to ours by warning that a servant must be “as humble among his subjects as if he were among his masters”.

St. Francis then tells us how to be the “faithful and wise servant” whom the Lord speaks about in the Gospel: Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. (Mt 24:45-51).

Since it is very easy to “backslide” into worldliness, Francis advises that we should remain under the “rod of correction”. How do we do this? Francis advises that we should punish ourselves for our offenses rather than waiting to be punished by the Lord. Specifically we should be truly contrite for our sins. But interior sorrow is not enough. Exterior confession and “works of satisfaction” are also needed. This is probably why St. Francis emphasized and practiced penance so much. This is also one of the reasons why a “penitential lifestyle” is so important for all of us. The Lord has a great reward in store for us if we are faithful. But as the Lord himself recognized in the above scripture from the Gospel of Matthew, it is so very easy to develop worldly habits and practices which are unfaithful to the will of the Father.

The remedy is contrition and penance. This does not mean being glum and stern all the time. St. Francis certainly was not like that. Yet we certainly do need to control our natural tendency to slide into worldly and sinful practices. Confession and penitential practices certainly help to do this. For St. Francis penance was not just a nice thing we do for God, but it is necessary if we are to remain faithful. The penitential seasons of Lent and Advent orient us to the need to remain faithful. May we have the same attitude as St. Francis on this very important issue.

--Jim Nugent, Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents 

The Twenty-Second Admonition: Do Our Words Give Glory to God or to Us? 

The twenty-second admonition is about the frivolous and talkative religious. Blessed is that servant who does not speak through hope of reward and who does not manifest everything and is not "hasty to speak," but who wisely foresees what he ought to say and answer. Woe to that religious who, not concealing in his heart the good things which the Lord has disclosed to him and who not manifesting them to others by his work, seeks rather through hope of reward to make them known to men by words: for now he receives his recompense and his hearers bear away little fruit.

This admonition deals with the very human tendency to “toot your own horn”. St. Francis is telling us that we have to look very closely at the motives behind our speech. Do we wish to glorify ourselves or do we wish to glorify God? Are we looking for reward for ourselves or to serve the Master? St. Francis recommends that we guard and examine our words very carefully for they reveal what is in the heart. If our heart is with the Lord we will know what to say. This takes great care on our part.

What is the balance between letting “our light shine before men” and keeping a guard on our lips? St. Francis gives us an answer. Our light should shine in our actions rather than our words. If the Lord has taught us something of value, we should manifest it by our actions rather than our words. A wonderful example of this was St. Francis who certainly wanted to live the Gospel. He preached the Gospel, not by eloquent words, but by his life. He wanted his friars to do the same. This is probably why the number of Friars Minor grew so fast even during his lifetime. Great preachers such as St. Anthony of Padua and St. Dominic also taught very eloquently by their very holy lives. They would have been much less effective or even ineffective if this were not the case. At the end of his admonition, St. Francis warns against those who have been given the light of the Gospel, but do not live it. Then, as now, these preachers do not “bear fruit” in their hearers.

We can see what St. Francis was speaking of here when we look at Scripture. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:13-16) Here the Lord is telling us that our light should shine forth by our deeds. That is the way to give glory to God.

We can see the other side of the coin from what the Lord says about prayer. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into our room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6:5-6) The Lord is telling us here that we will be rewarded by our Heavenly Father when we do not seek the rewards and praise of men.

There is another example on the negative side from the book of Acts concerning King Herod who had martyred the apostle James. On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and made an oration to the people. And the people shouted, “The voice of a god, and not of man!” Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give God the glory; and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:21-23) King Herod received a rather swift punishment for seeking the praise of men rather than the glory of God.

Certainly St. Francis was continually examining himself and evaluating his words and actions to see if they were really for his own glory or God’s. Should we not do the same?

Jim Nugent, Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents

The Twenty-First Admonition: Our Faith Should Make Us Different

The twenty-first admonition is concerned with the Happy and Vain Religious. “Blessed is that religious who feels no pleasure or joy save in most holy conversation and the works of the Lord, and who by these means leads men to the love of God in joy and gladness. And woe to that religious who takes delight in idle and vain words and by this means provokes men to laughter.”

While this admonition specifically applies to “religious”, it really applies to all who are thought by the world to be serious Catholics. How do we speak and act in our conversations with others? Are we indistinguishable from nominal Catholics, nominal Christians, and secularists? If we are no different from the others, do we not, as St. Francis says, provoke men to laughter? Do we not “prove” by our actions that the Gospel cannot be lived except perhaps by unbalanced or extraordinary people? It is true that society was very different in St. Francis’s time than it is now. It was at least nominally Christian although there were certainly a lot of hypocritical Catholics.

Our society is not even nominally Christian although there are still a lot of people who cling to the “Catholic” label without embracing the substance of the faith. This is why it is so important for serious Catholics to be different from the rest without, however, falling into pride or a “holier than thou” attitude. Since as laity we have not taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, we cannot act like we have done so. Yet we still have to be different from the rest.

Here again we see how the teachings of St. Francis are based on Scripture. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness by restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:13-20) Here the Lord is telling us that, if we are no different from the rest, if our salt has lost its taste, we are good for nothing. Of course, our good works should give glory to God and not to ourselves.

St. Francis was aware that we have to be concerned about how we appear before God as well as how we appear before humans. “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Mt 12:33-37) St. Francis saw that the Lord was telling us here that our words reveal both to God and to others what kind of people we are. If our words are “careless” they reveal a heart which does not love God and is not united with Him.

St. Francis certainly read, heard, and pondered these Scriptures. Since his calling ultimately was to “live the Gospel”, he certainly took the words of the Gospel to heart. This truth was shown by his writings and above all by his life. Should we also not take the words of the Lord to heart?

Jim Nugent, Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents

The Nineteenth Admonition of Saint Francis: Poverty of Possessions

The nineteenth admonition concerns the happy and unhappy servant: Blessed is the servant who gives up all his goods to the Lord God, for he who retains anything for himself hides "his Lord's money," and that "which he thinketh he hath shall be taken away from him." 

In this admonition, Francis deals with the perennial problem of greed or avarice. St. Francis is certainly in tune with Christian tradition on the topic of avarice. For example, the Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae said that avarice “darkens the soul” by “putting love of money above love for God” and therefore is similar to idolatry. While St. Thomas came slightly after St. Francis, he was certainly maintaining a tradition which went back to pre-Christian times.

It seems as though St. Francis goes beyond the tradition, for that tradition taught that money and goods are permissible as a means to an end with the end being a good life. Anything beyond that is avarice and therefore is sinful. But St. Francis says that the blessed servant gives up “all” his goods and anyone who retains anything hides “his Lord’s money”. It true that St. Francis here is speaking of religious who take a vow of poverty and are not supposed to own goods. Yet it is true that then and now there are religious who may not “own” but still do possess many goods.

It is clear that St. Francis in this admonition was addressing a problem of the religious life and property which continues to this day. But does St. Francis have anything to say to laypersons beyond what is stated in Christian tradition concerning putting the love of money above love of God? Yes.

We need to recall that Francis just wanted to live the Gospel, and thus he had to absorb the Gospel in order to live the life he was called to live. St. Francis certainly read the following in the Gospel: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Mt 6:19-21).

St. Francis saw that our “treasure” should be our good deeds and our obedience and not what we have here on earth even if it is meager. Even meager possessions can be taken by thieves, natural causes and even inflation. Of course laypersons do need possessions to function in modern society. Yet we also have to look beyond “the good life” to everlasting life. It is very easy to not look beyond this life when it comes to material possessions.

In his Letter to All the Faithful, St. Francis has very strong words concerning those who do not look beyond this life in dealing with material possessions: But let all know that wheresoever or howsoever a man may die in criminal sin, without satisfaction—when he could satisfy and did not satisfy—the devil snatches his soul from his body with such violence and anguish as no one can know except him who suffers it. And all talent and power, learning and wisdom that he thought to possess are taken from him. And his relatives and friends take to themselves his substance and divide it and say afterwards: "Cursed be his soul because he could have acquired and given us more than he did, and did not acquire it." But the worms eat his body. And thus he loses soul and body in this short life and goes into hell, where he shall be tormented without end.

In this section St. Francis is speaking of a person who is on his deathbed and who does not use his possessions to make satisfaction for the wrong he has done because he has given his possessions to his relatives and friends. With a touch of humor Francis notes that this person is cursed even by those to whom he gives his possessions because he did not acquire even more for them to get.

We can see why St. Francis demanded poverty of his friars. Even those of us who are not in religious life can learn from Francis about how we should look upon and use our possessions. 

Jim Nugent, Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents

Jim Nugent

The Fifteenth Admonition of St. Francis: Blessed Are the Peacemakers

The Admonitions of St. Francis numbers 6 and 7 concern the issue of putting the Word of God into practice as opposed to merely studying and interpreting it. They are as follows:

6. Of the Imitation of the Lord. “Let us all, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who to save His sheep bore the suffering of the Cross. The sheep of the Lord followed Him in tribulation and persecution and shame, in hunger and thirst, in infirmity and temptations and in all other ways; and for these things they have received everlasting life from the Lord. Wherefore it is a great shame for us, the servants of God, that, whereas the Saints have practiced works, we should expect to receive honor and glory for reading and preaching the same.”

7. That Good Works should accompany Knowledge. “St. Paul says, "the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." (2 Co 3:6) They are killed by the letter who seek only to know the words that they may be esteemed more learned among others and that they may acquire great riches to leave to their relations and friends. And those religious are killed by the letter who will not follow the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, but who seek rather to know the words only and to interpret them to others. And they are given life by the spirit of the Holy Scriptures who do not interpret materially every text they know or wish to know, but who by word and example give them back to God from whom is all good.”

In Admonition 6, Francis considers the “sheep” of the Good Shepherd those who follow the Lord totally and utterly, in other words, live the Gospel. This meant putting up with all kinds of evils for the sake of the Lord. Francis considers the Saints of the past who suffered tremendously to be His “sheep” who totally imitate the Lord. Francis then compares these sheep of the Lord with his contemporaries who only study and interpret the Word without putting it into practice. They seemed to think that by their learning and preaching they are doing something wonderful. Perhaps this is why St. Francis esteemed St. Anthony and even allowed him to have books because Francis could see how Anthony lived the Gospel even though he was also very learned.

In Admonition 7, Francis expands on this idea by speaking of those who study the Word of God only for the sake of esteem and money but do not live the Gospel. Francis goes on to say these people are even “killed” by the letter of Holy Scriptures who do not live the Gospel but only study it or even preach it. Francis praises those who do not pick apart and analyze Scripture but rather live it totally.

In these Admonitions, we can see why Francis mistrusted books and learning so much. He must have seen many people who could give learned expositions of the Gospels but did not put them into practice. Francis was certainly not opposed to meditating on Scripture. But we are to meditate on Holy Scripture for the purpose of absorbing it and making it our life. This is what Francis did. To this day the Church recommends this practice.

Unfortunately, many people look upon Scripture as narratives of events which are long past. Some even doubt the veracity of Scripture because it cannot be “scientifically” studied and analyzed. These people seem to be the descendents of those in Francis’s time who studied Scripture but did not live it. They do not understand Holy Scripture as Francis understood it, as the living Word of God. We do not determine the “meaning” of Scripture, it determines us. Of course, this does not mean going to a “fundamentalism” which makes ones own interpretation of the letter of Scripture as the total meaning of Scripture. Francis did not do that. He looked upon Scripture as flowing from the Body of Christ, the Church. Being totally united with the Church allowed Francis himself to be determined by the Gospel, to live the Gospel.

Down through the centuries the Church has urged us to follow Christ. But how do we do this?

St. Francis gives us a wonderful concrete example of how to do this. Francis took the Gospel as God’s Word and allowed it to determine his life. Let us do the same. 

Jim Nugent 

Jim Nugent 

St. Francis’s Fifth Admonition warns against the great danger of pride. Francis’s concern about falling into pride probably helped him in his life of holiness. It can also help us.  

Francis wrote, “Try to realize the dignity God has conferred on you. He created and formed your body in the image of His beloved Son, and your soul in his own likeness. And yet every creature under heaven serves and acknowledges and obeys its Creator in its own way better than you do. Even the devils are not solely responsible for crucifying him; it was you who crucified him with them and you continue to crucify him by taking pleasure in your vices and sins.”  

Francis here is revealing to us his great and intense love of the Lord. He is repulsed by any thought of offending Him. But Francis is also repulsed by any pride which could arise in us. We should look only on our own responsibility for the suffering and death of the Lord and not at all at the responsibility of others. We should not even think of ourselves as being better than the devils. For, in fact, what control do we have over the actions of other? Probably very little. Yet we do have a much greater control over our own actions and therefore a greater responsibility. Did the Lord suffer and die for the devils? No. He did it for us. We have made the Lord suffer through our sin and ingratitude.

Francis then goes on to say “What have you to be proud of? If you were so clever and learned that you knew everything and could speak every language, so that the things of heaven were an open book to you, still you could not boast of that. Any of the devils knew more about the things of heaven, and knows more about the things of earth, than any human being, even one who might have received from God a special revelation of the highest wisdom.” Here one is reminded of scientists, judges, and politicians who think they know how life came to be on earth or how they can eradicate poverty and hunger or how they can prevent the climate from changing. Many seem to think that we human beings are the highest intelligence and we can do what we want. They seem to ignore the possibility of beings and powers that are higher than us, considering all of that to be superstitious fantasy. Eventually we will all learn our true place in creation. 

Francis then warns us “If you were the most handsome and the richest man in the world, and could work wonders and drive out devils, all that would be something extrinsic to you; it would not belong to you and you could not boast of it. But there is one thing of which we can all boast; we can boast of our humiliations and in taking up daily the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  

St. Francis has absorbed an important idea from St. Paul: “So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” (2 Co 12:9-10.)  

This is from where our true boasts, our pride, and our self-worth should come. It is only from the fact that we are loved by the Lord and belong to Him. Saint Paul was trying to communicate this to the Corinthians. We don’t know how successful Paul was with the Corinthians, but he obviously did communicate it to St. Francis. St. Francis saw that all the good that he did really belonged to Christ, but his failures belonged to himself. This made him see his failures very keenly and to consider himself less than all other creatures. St. Francis demonstrated the truth of St. Paul’s statement: “For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” From St. Francis we can learn how to be weak and thereby be strong. 

Jim Nugent