How Saint Francis Viewed Courtesy

One evening in winter, Francis and one of his companions was received very joyfully at the castle of a very rich and powerful nobleman.  This nobleman embraced Francis, washed and wiped his muddy feet and kissed them.  He also lit a great fire, prepared a feast, and served the food with own hands.   On top of that, he told Francis that he would pay for anything that Francis needed.  This man said “The Good Lord has given me an abundance of worldly property, and so for love of Him I willingly give to those who are poor and in need.”

Francis saw that this man had the virtue which was common to the old rule of chivalry and the new order of the merchant class: courtesy.   Francis said “Courtesy is one of the qualities of God, who courteously gives His sun and His  rain and everything to the just and to the unjust.  And courtesy is sister to charity.  It extinguishes hatred and keeps love alive.”  Francis believed that this man would make a very good friar, and he prayed that God would infuse this desire into his heart and give him the grace to carry it out.

A few days later Francis again approached the house of the courteous man.  Near the house, this man saw Francis praying very devoutly, and he saw Christ standing before Francis in a very bright light and looking very beautiful.  In that bright light he saw Saint Francis raised a great distance above the ground in a physical and spiritual uplifting.  This nobleman then ran out of the house and asked if he could stay with Francis and live a life of penance.  Francis received him with great joy and thanked God for adding a friar to the order.  The man then gave all he had to the poor, entered the order, and lived the rest of his life in great penance, sanctity, and purity. 

Interestingly, we do not even know the name of this rich and important nobleman.  This courteous man is one of the many unknown saints who are celebrated on All Saints Day.

This nobleman is an excellent example of the now often neglected virtue of courtesy.   Although he was rich, he did not look with disdain on the shabby and ragged Francis.  Instead, he was able to put himself in the place of Francis and have compassion for Francis.   Courtesy is not the theological virtue of love, but it is, as Francis said, the “sister of charity”.  Francis saw that this rich nobleman was close to the love that he wanted in his friars.  Saint Paul said in first Corinthians Chapter thirteen that the greatest of the theological virtues is love.  But how do you love?   In our society love has been totally distorted and confused with physical sex.   Our society is fully oriented to individual gratification and self-fulfillment.  Love is oriented away from the self and toward the other.  Courtesy is also geared toward the good of the other.  Perhaps, if we want to move love into first place in our lives we should start with courtesy.

Jesus Wants It All

On the eve of the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, September 14, 1224, St. Francis received the wounds of Jesus Christ, known as the stigmata.  He was on mount La Verna at that time observing his Lent of St. Michael which lasted from the Assumption, August 15, to the feast of St. Michael, September 29.

On that evening, Francis saw a huge angel descend from the sky.  The angel was so bright that people in the area thought that day had dawned even though it was still night.  The angel was nailed to a living cross with six wings.  Two were over his head, two covered his body, and two were stretched out in flight.  Then the angel went right over Francis and rays came out from the wounds in his hands, feet, and heart to pierce the hands, feet, and heart of Francis.   Francis experienced an infinite joy and infinite pain.  Then the angel left.        

Right before this happened, Brother Leo, who accompanied Francis during his Lent, saw Francis praying over and over “Who are you, my dearest God?  And what am I, your vilest little worm and useless little servant?”  Francis was overcome by his own “littleness” before God, and yet God chose him to share in His Sorrowful Passion.   Then, Francis had a vision of Christ with His wounds in his feet, heart, and outstretched hand.  The Lord said to him “This is my blood.  Drink all of it.”

After this, Francis kneeled and prayed:  “My Lord Jesus Christ, I pray you grant me two graces before I die.  The first is that during my life I may feel in my soul and in my body, as much as possible, that pain that you, dear Jesus, sustained in the hour of your most bitter passion.  The second is that I may feel in my heart, as much as possible, that great love with which you, O Son of God, were inflamed in willingly enduring such suffering for us sinners.”

At this point, Francis could be said to be “another Christ”.   Just as Jesus Christ was not the Father and yet He was one with the Father, Francis was not Christ but he was one with Christ.  Christ came not to do His own will but the will of the Father.   Jesus came from the Father and acted only for the Father.  There was no part of the Lord which was “partitioned off” from the Father.  So it was with Francis.  His prayer to experience the sufferings and feel the love of the Savior was proof that Francis truly was at one with Christ.   There was nothing in Francis which he kept for himself and would not give to the Lord.

The stigmata of Francis was an external manifestation of the interior union between Christ and Francis.   Just as Christ suffered for all which came from His love for all, Francis desired to experience the love of Christ as well as the pains of Christ.   This was granted to him by the Lord.  

While all Christians are surely not called to experience the stigmata, one of the great “scandals” of Christ is that He demands everything of us.   The details of our lives and the way we live in union with Him will vary, but the same thing is demanded of all of us.   No part of us or our lives “belong” to us and are walled off from the Lord.  Francis, in an extraordinary way, fulfilled his vocation as a Christian.  Let us do the same.

For Whom or What Do We Thirst?

In mid –August of 1224, Saint Francis was on his way, with some of his friars, up to Mount La Verna, in Tuscany.  He had decided to keep his Lent of St. Michael there.  This would be a time of prayer and fasting in honor of the Archangel Michael, from the Assumption on August 15 to the Feast of St. Michael on September 29.  This was the same year that Francis received the stigmata on September 14, the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.  Since Francis was already quite weak at that time, the friars had borrowed a donkey from a local peasant for Francis to ride on the trip up the mountain.  The peasant went with Francis and the friars so that he could take the donkey back down when they reached the top of the mountain.

            On the way up, the peasant asked St. Francis, “Tell me, are you Brother Francis of Assisi?” After Francis replied that he was, the peasant said, “Well, then try to be as good as everyone thinks you are; many people have great faith in you.  So I urge you, never let there be anything in you different from that they expect from you.”

            Francis immediately got off the donkey and kissed the feet of the peasant, thanking him for admonishing him in such a charitable manner.   This episode is surely an example of the humility of Francis.  Someone who probably was not nearly as holy as St. Francis was admonishing St. Francis.  He saw the warning from the peasant as a grace and benefit rather than as a negative attack.  Do we see put downs and criticisms, especially from people we do not like and who may not like us, as a benefit and grace in our path to holiness?

            As they climbed the mountain, a terrible thirst gripped the peasant as the summer sun beat down on the bare rocks.   There seemed to be no relief in sight.  He complained to Francis, “I am dying of thirst.  If I don’t have something to drink, I’ll suffocate in a minute!”

            Francis felt sorry for the man and got off his donkey to pray.   After a while, Francis got up and told the peasant that the merciful God has answered his prayer.   Francis showed him a place where there was a bubbling spring of clear water.   The peasant avidly drank and refreshed himself.  He took this event as proof of Francis’s holiness.  He would surely tell all of what had happened.   Just as Francis had knelt before the peasant, now the peasant knelt before Francis.  On his way back home down the mountain, the man searched diligently for the spring of water, but all he could find was bare rock and dry ground.

            Just as Moses prayed for the Israelites in the desert when they were thirsty and complained (Ex 17:1-7, Nb 20:1-13), and God brought forth water from a rock, St. Francis prayed for water for the peasant, and God answered his prayer by means of a miraculous spring..  The thirst of the man was real and legitimate, and Francis knew that the only one who could satisfy it was God.  In the same way, Moses knew that only God could satisfy the thirst of the people.  Where do we look to satisfy our real needs?  To God or to the world?

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The Love between Saint Francis and Lady Giacoma

While it is well known that St. Francis was in love with “Lady Poverty”, there was another woman, a flesh and blood human being, whom he also loved.   This was a beautiful and pious Roman gentlewoman, Giacoma dei Settesoli.  She was a widow and lived in the palace in Rome of the warlike Frangipani family.  A couple of years after the death of Francis, the Frangipani family drove out of Rome Pope Gregory IX.  Earlier, one of the Frangipani had been an antipope. 

Giacoma, however, was noted for her nobility and sanctity.  She and Francis were friends for over ten years.   Francis’s companions compared her to Mary Magdalene because, like Mary Magdalene, she was capable of great love.  Francis and Giacoma both had a great and intense love for Christ and this was the basis for their friendship.  Francis called her “Brother Iacopa” since he thought of her as one of the brothers.  She could not be one of the brothers, but Francis could still love her and she could love Francis. 

On his last visit to Rome in 1223, St. Francis brought to the palace where Giacoma lived a lamb as a gift.   This lamb can be thought of as a successor to the leopard who at one time roamed freely in this same palace, which the Frangipani kept to boast of their ferocity.  This leopard actually killed a domestic servant.  The lamb was a symbol for the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.  The Lamb had said “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you”.  In a society which honored war, bloodshed and revenge, St. Francis longed for and could foresee a time when the Lamb would triumph over the leopard. 

Giacoma was privileged to be in Assisi during the death of St. Francis in October, 1226.   When St. Francis was near death, the brothers saw that it was necessary to summon Giacoma to his deathbed.  Even though women were not permitted in the cloister, this rule had to fall because of the love in Christ that Francis and Giacoma had for each other.   But when the messenger was about to leave for Rome to fetch Giacoma, she and her company had arrived at the friary.   A mysterious voice had summoned her to go to Assisi immediately, and she obeyed the voice.  When she arrived, she immediately asked if Francis was still alive.  She learned that he was still alive and that he had asked to see her again before he died. 

Like the woman who had anointed Jesus with costly perfume (to the dismay of Judas) before His death, Giacoma also brought several final gifts to Francis.  These included: 

1. A red silk cushion with the imperial eagles and the lions of the house of Frangipane embroidered on it.  Jesus gave us a parable about the poor man Lazarus who was comforted by Abraham in the Kingdom of God..  Giacoma seemed to be giving the poor and sick Francis a taste of the consolation to come. 

2. The cloth for the funeral habit as well as candles and incense for the funeral.  Evidently, a woman was needed to take care of details which the male friars overlooked. 

3. A white silk veil with the same three letters, AMA, embroidered  all  around.   These letters mean “Love” in both Latin and Italian.  Giacoma saw clearly the driving force behind the life of Francis. 

4. A little casket of a sugar and almond candy.  Gicoma knew that Francis enjoyed this candy and again she wanted in some way to convey God’s love for Francis. 

These gifts did revive Francis temporarily, but they could not stave off another woman, Sister Death, who also needed to visit Francis.   The chaste love between Francis and Giacoma flies in the face of our modern mentality which on one hand equates “Love” with sex and on the other hand puts limits on the love.  The love between Francis and Giacoma shows that while we may put limits on love, God does not.

Forgiving, for the Love of God

Once Francis was traveling and came upon a man whom he had known in his youth.  The man looked so ragged and beaten down that Francis asked him what the matter was. The man became very angry and began to curse his master saying “Thanks to him, may God curse him, I can have nothing but misfortune, because he has taken away everything that I have.”   

Francis knew that the man’s hatred for his master would be fatal to his soul. St. Francis said to him, “Brother, pardon your master for the love of God so as to free your own soul, and it is possible that he will give back all the things he has taken from you. Otherwise, your goods are lost and your soul as well.” 

The man, however, swore that he would not pardon his master unless he gave him back all that was due to him. Since this unforgiving man would not make the first move toward reconciliation, St. Francis made the first move.  He gave the man his own mantle saying, “Here, I am giving this to you. But, I beg you, forgive your master for the love of God.”  This the man could no longer resist, and he forgave his master. 

Why did St. Francis go to the extreme of giving the man his own mantle to get him to forgive his master?   Why is forgiveness so important?   It is important to Francis because it is important to the Lord. In the version of the Lord’s Prayer given by St. Matthew, one of the petitions is “And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.” (Mt 6:12) At the end of the prayer the Lord again reiterates the importance of forgiveness. “Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.”   The Lord is emphasizing that we as sinners will not be forgiven if we do not forgive other sinners. (Mt 6:14-15). 

The Lord put forth the same theme in the parable of the unforgiving debtor. (Mt 18:23-35)  In this parable, a man owed a huge amount of money to his master. He begged his master for more time to pay the debt and the master generously forgave the entire debt. The man then encountered a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money.  His fellow servant also begged for more time to pay the debt.  This time, though, the forgiven servant did not forgive the debt of his fellow servant.  The other servants reported this obvious injustice to the master. The master then rescinded the forgiveness of the debt.  

It is clear why St. Francis did go to such an “extreme” to get the man to forgive his master. Francis felt that his mission was to “live the gospel”. He knew that Christians must forgive others if they expect to be forgiven by the Father. Quite possibly Francis had in mind the parable of the unforgiving debtor when he met the man who would not forgive his master. Since Francis had absorbed the Gospels into his very being, he knew immediately that the man’s soul was in grave danger of eternal damnation.  Have we absorbed the Gospels to the extent that, like St. Francis, we know immediately what they demand?

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