Tales of St. Francis

Tales of St. Francis

 

Ancient stories for contemporary living

-Murray Bodo, O.F.M.-

 

Content’s

 

Story-spirituality: an introduction

A childhood friend

The Knight who inspired St. Francis

St. Francis meets a leper

Father and Son

The Poor priest of San Damiano

Of Bernard of Quintaballe, St. Francis’ first companion

The priest who became brother Sylvester

The poor woman who lived in the desert

The angel of Poggio Bustone

The hungry brother and Rivo Torto

The Benedictines offer Francis a church

Lady Clare of Assisi

The wolf of Gubbio

St. Dominic and the chapter of mats

The Miserable leper’s tale

Brother Masseo’s tale

Of the Portiuncula indulgence

St. Francis and the Sultan

The Damietta prostitute

St. Francis and brother Leo try to pray

On discerning God’s will

Brother Junifer and brother John the simple

Brother Junifer and the farmer’s pig

How brother Rufino preached

How brother Stephen was cured

How satan deceived brother Rufino

Brother Bernard and the angel

Brother Elias and the Angel

Brother Bonizzo, witness to the rule of life

The verse king

The brother who wanted to be a solitary pilgrim

Another tale of brother Pacifico

Of Greccio and the first Christmas crib

Of perfect joy

Wings

A letter to brother Leo

St. Francis sings his swan song’

A song for the poor ladies

The physician’s tale

St. Francis and the celestial zither

St. Francis, the solar hero

A Franciscan mantle

Another tale of brother Elias

Transitus

St. Francis dictates his testament

A nun’s tale

The golden sayings of brother Giles

The Robber’s tale

Afterword

A chronology of the life of St. Francis

Acknowledgments

 

 

 

 

Story-Spirituality:

An Introduction

 

The tale is not beautiful if nothing is added to it

 

The following pages are the result of my own fascination with stories. My very first memories are intertwined with stories I heard over and over again as a boy. Stories of hunting trips in the Rockes, stories of labor meetings in the coal fields of southern Colorade, stories of Depression days and mine closings and scabs being shot and how the tram broke periodically, scattering bodies all over the ragged side of the mountain that fronted our little cabin-house in Silverton, Colorade. And it was through story that I first came to know St. Francis, in books like Felix Tim-mermans’ The perfect Joy of St. Francis, G. K. Chesterton’s St. Francis of Assisi, and Paul Sabatier’s Life of St. Francis.

As I grew older and began to study more seriously the thirteenth – and fourteenth-century stories of St. Francis and his early companions I fell under their spell, their charm and folklike quality, their multiplicity of styles and viewpoints; and I began to wonder what would be revealed in retelling the stories that have shaped and formed by own life as a twentieth-century Franciscan.

And so I began this book, a work of joy, to be sure, yet something more. I noticed very early on that something beyond delight was happening inside me. Each story was a further exploration of my own spiritual roots, a stronger bonding with my Franciscan brothers and sisters, past and present. And my own voice began to change as I realized that in retelling these stories, I was somehow realigning myself with what I dearly love. The storytelling became an act of humility before my spiritual ancestors, and the resultant connectedness, the communion with them that I began to experience, became the underlying justification for this book.

This principle of integration in turn became the principle of selection: I began to choose only those stories that have that mysterious, archetypal quality that speaks to something profound within us, some deep desire of the human heart.

That strong pull upon the heart is what kept me working on these stories; and as I continued to let them tell themselves, a whole spirituality began to emerge as people and places and happenings started coming together into a vibrant picture of Gospel living. Rather than becoming a method of arriving at Christian maturity, these stories became for me the journey itself. Like prayer, they took me along with them and somehow effected in me inner transformations not unlike those experienced by Francis and his companions. And that, no doubt, is what story-spirituality is all about.

Whoever told first stories was not only remembering, but reliving, as well. And what he or she remembered was conditioned by what had happened within, those unforgettable changes in attitude and behavior that reveal the Spirit’s presence in our lives. The stories, then, are the incarnations of the efficacy of God’s Word. They flesh out the idea that God’s Word does not return to God empty, and their very retelling itself becomes an effective word, moving the reader to action within and without.

Sometimes the early Franciscan stories become overly didactic and preachy and try too hard to make a point. I noticed that those stories seldom did anything to me or for me. But when the story was simply story - spontaneous, unselfish-conscious of any apologetic or proselytizing purpose – then the genuineness of the story would authenticate the experience it was narrating.

When the story witnessed to the actual experiences of St. Francis and his companions, it drew me into it and moved me to want to live a more genuine Christian life. But when the story was really a disguised attempt to make me try to live a more perfect life, the story would cease to be story, and I could not enter into it and travel with the characters. I’ve excluded most of those stories here, and some might see in that decision a prejudice and manipulation not unlike that of the storyteller whose story I’ve excluded. But that, too, is part of story-spirituality: we retell what is true to our own experience; we retell those stories that, when we read them, make us feel that someone finally understands us and sees life the way we see it.

Storytelling, like hearing or reading a story, is selective. It is our own experience that continues to accept or reject the genuineness of experiences other than our own. My main rationale, then, for what I have included or excluded of the early stories is whether or not they rang true for me, whether or not I was moved by what happened in their retelling. When I had doubts, I would look to see if the story was repeated by other early writers and how it was told. If the story was consistently retold, I included it in spite of my own skepticism, believing that something in me was refusing the challenge of the story. A good story not only affirms us and confirms our experience; it also challenges and expands us.

 In the end, however, it is the stories we like that we retell. I have been reading and delighting in the stories of St. Francis and his companions for over thirty-five years, and these are the ones I like best and that have played a large part in my understanding of what it means to be a Christian and a Franciscan.

 

The early stories of St. Francis are a special kind of story – not accurate in the sense that a chronicle or objective account is accurate, but accurate in recapturing a Spirit-filled time. They convey what it was like for St. Francis and his companions to live in the Spirit. And they are written down by those who either experienced that life themselves or longed to rekindle that original fervor in their own time. And so these stories are real, true, only when read with spiritual eyes. Without those eyes, they seem mere fantasies, legends fabricated by the imagination. The stories of St. Francis and his companions demand of the reader the faith of those who lived them, the faith of those who recorded them.

These stories, then, are accounts not simply of the lives of the first Franciscans but of those happenings in their lives which moved them to faith, a joy-filled faith that comes from taking what is bitter in life and embracing it for the love of Jesus Christ, who in turn transforms it into sweetness of soul.

In addition, when they tell What happened to the early Franciscans, the stories end up telling us why as well. So that, taken together, the stories end up telling us why as well. So that, taken together, the stories provide and account not only of the joy of Francis and his companions but of the cause of that joy.

And that is the source of the wisdom they impart; that is why we continue to read them. They satisfy our longing for something beyond. They tell us that from time to time we see the eternal in its workings upon people who have entered into that other world of the Spirit. They show us people who have made the passage beyond and how that happens. Sometimes the passage is recounted as wholly the work of God; at other times it is pictured as happening when people live their lives in such a way that God makes the kingdom of heaven appear for them again, as in the days of the Apostles.

For example, St. Francis and his companions start living the First Beatitude of Jesus in earnest, and their life together starts looking like the kingdom of God on earth, thus fulfilling Jesus’ words, “How blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven is theirs”(Mt 5:3). Jesus does not say, “The kingdom of heaven will be theirs,” but “The kingdom of heaven is theirs,” here and now. And that is what Francis and his companions experienced and what the stories recount: if you live in poverty of spirit, wonders begin to happen among you, and true joy as well, for the kingdom of God is indeed here.

But the stories do not restrict themselves to the First Beatitude. There are other sayings the early Franciscans live by, such as “Set your heart on his kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well” (Mt 6:33). And “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). And on and on, until we begin to see that living in and for the kingdom involves embracing all the words of God and, ultimately, the Incarnate Word of God, Jesus himself. Living in the Word made flesh and then en-fleshing God’s words in one’s own life seems mere fantasy and illusion to those without the eyes of faith. And seeing with the eyes of faith begins with poverty of spirit.

As I retold these stories I began to remember other stories – stories from my own life, stories I’d heard and stories I’d experienced – that authenticated some of these original stories. The modern stories gave me the eyes of faith with which to read the early stories.

For example, we all long for the experience of God in our lives. Then we read how St. Francis embraced a leper and realized he had held God in his arms; and we begin to remember repulsive, difficult times in our own lives that turned out somehow divine. We begin to remember experiences of God’s presence that we didn’t know were experiences of God’s presence until we heard the story of St. Francis and the leper.

That is the way stories work. They remind us of our won stories, and our own stories convince us the original stories are true. And we are then drawn to give thanks to God and to reflect upon our own experience in a more prayerful way. That is why I have included brief reflections and/or prayers at the end of each of the stories, in order to help the reader to begin praying, through the story, about his or her own stories. For the end of all our stories is union with God, and it is prayer which begins to lead us into that union even here on earth, where God’s kingdom begins.

 

 

 

A Childhood Friend

 

 

Francis and I grew up together in the small town of Assisi in the Valley of Spoleto. Francis was born in 1182, and I, the following year; and I was with him through all the years of his youth.

His family was very rich, but he wasn’t snobbish and full of his own self-importance like so may of the other rich sons of Assisi. Rather, he was full of fun and good humor, or at least he was until we all had to go to fight in battle. Francis was twenty years old then, and he was imprisoned and did not return for a year. Before, he used to work with his father, Pietro Bernardone, turning a good profit selling cloth; by night, he joined us as we ganged through the mazelike streets of Assisi, singing and carousing, keeping people awake, and in general making nuisances of ourselves. But though Francis himself was a leader among us obnoxious youth, we noticed that even in his dissipation and endless partying, there was something different about him. He seemed somehow detached from it all, as if he were seeing everything from some high window in his father’s house.

After he returned from prison, he didn’t party much anymore; and before long, he went off to Spoleto on another one of his pursuits of knighthood. But he returned after a day and a night, and began to seek out lonely places and dark caves to pray in. He was especially drawn to the high woods of Mount Subasio. H would come to my house early in the morning and bag me to go with him to Mout Subasio. And I, because of our friendship, would drag myself out of bed and trudge up the mountain with Francis, only to be left outside, puzzled and a bit resentful, as Francis entered alone into the side of the mountain as into a wound. And he come out in the evening, Francis himself would look like a wound, so bloody was the battle, or whatever it was that he engaged in, deep in that mountain.

And then one day it was over. Francis emerged from the cave, and to my surprise, he was radiant, as if a man newly fashioned, born again from the mountain’s side. And that very night he rejoined us in our rounds of the city.

But Francis began to fall behind the rest of us, and when we noticed him dragging his pace and lingering in the shadows of the moon, we whispered to one another and laughed. Then turning around and putting my hands on my hips, I said in a singsong, mocking tone, “Francis is in lo~ove, Francis  is in Lo~o~o~ve!” And we all laughed and made unseemly gestures.

But Francis, avoiding the obvious challenge to tell all, only looked at me. Then with a quizzical ｅxpression which seemed to indicate that even he did not fully know what his words meant, he said,
It’s true. And I am going to marry her besides. She is more noble, more beautiful, more wise than any lady you have ever seen.”

And from that day on, Francis began to drop farther and farther behind us as we danced and sang through Assisi’s streets. And we thought he was lapsing into some strange and fatal sickness. How could we have known that he had seen the face of God? ♣♣♣

 

Where is God Today? Is he the man who is opening his stall at the farmer’s market at the end of the street, a cup of coffee in his hand and a limp cigarette hanging from his mouth? Is she the black lady who raised the piece of oilcloth that serves as a shade over her window? Is he the policeman who drives his cruiser through the lot looking, heaven knows for what, this early in the morning? Or is the face of God all these and more, beckoning me to drop behind my headlong dash into my concerns, my work, my day? Is not prayer like dropping behind awhile to see and hear and touch the God who is talking to me quietly in the fogged faces that clear, as the sun of my pausing illumines what I thought was only another dark morning of routine?

Lord, I know that it is never too late to begin seeing you again, and so I pray that St. Francis will help me drop back from my won selfish pursuits and find you in the faces where you wait.

 

 

The Knight Who Inspired St. Francis

 

Francis heard that I, a nobleman of Assisi, was fitting myself out in knightly vesture to go to was in Apulia. Now, Francis had always dreamed of becoming a knight and had in fact gone to battle with the forces of Assisi against Perugia and was taken prisoner at the very onset in a brief skirmish at Ponte San Giovanni, a small village near Perugia. And when he was finally released, he fell into the illness from which he was just rising disillusioned and without his old enthusiasm, when he discovered I was going to Apulia to join the Papal forces of Walter of Brienne.

He was again renewed, energetic, ready to start all over, simply because he had heard of my intention of going to was. “Surely,” he said, “yours must be my way in life; for even now, hardly risen from my sickbed, I ma ready once again to go into battle.”

And the night before we left Assisi, Francis had a dream that seemed to confirm his waking dreams of the glory of knighthood. In the dream, his father’s shop was filled with the trappings of knights and soldiers: saddles and armor and lances, instead of the bolts of cloth that usually weighted the shelves. And a voice in the dream answered Francis’ amazement with “All of this is for you and your followers.”

But when Francis awoke, even though he believed the dream to be a confirmation of his own deepest desires, he told me that he had to force himself to rise and set out with me to Apulia. Some vague reluctance gnawed at him; and when we stopped for the night in the city of Spoleto, he dreamed the dream that told him what it was.

When he was deep in sleep, Francis heard someone calling him by name, “Francis, Francis! Who can bring you further, the Lord or his servant, the rich man or the beggar?”

And Francis, still asleep, answered, “Why, the Lord, the rich man, to be sure.”

“Then why are you following the servant instead of the master, the beggar rather than the Lord, your God? The saddles and weapons of last night’s dream are for a spiritual battle, not an earthly one.”

And Francis, now alert and listening in his sleep, cried out, “Then, Lord, tell me what that battle is. What is it you want me to do?”

But all that the voice replied was “Return to Assisi at dawn, and there it will be revealed to you what you are to do.”

And when Francis awoke at dawn, he saddled up his house, and to my great dismay, he told me the dream. Then he turned and rode back, even though he still was not certain what all these strange dreams by night and confused feelings by day could mean. ♣♣♣

 

 

Lord Jesus, How Many and how various are the voices around us and within us. Voices in the press, in our friends. Voices in our dreams. How can we know which ones are from you and which ones are only human voices, some trying to help, some leading us away from you?

The voice St. Francis obeyed was the one that told him to return to his own town, where it would be revealed to him what he should do. Perhaps that is your true voice within me, too, the one beckoning me home to my true self. The way home is the way to my soul, where you are waiting to reveal to me what you want me to do.

Lead me home, Lord. I know you are waiting for me there. I come to you inside, you who are there, you who are my home.

 

 

St. Francis Meets a Leper

Everthing – the soft mists over the valley of Spoleto, the feeding swallows that rush back and forth in the air, the clear blue skies above the fields of poppies that had always thrilled him before when he looked out across the western end of town toward Perugia-everything seemed drab and ordinary, and his heart sank into a deep depression. He knew somehow that he had lost his youth, that the glow had vanished from the world, that something in himself was no longer there.

Then one day, as Francis was riding on the road below the city, I suddenly appeared in his way. He reined quickly to the side to gallop past me, a repulsive creature standing there frightened, ringing my small bell, and moving with a twisted, tortured limp to the edge of the road.

But just a s Francis was about to veer instinctively around by wretched figure, he forced a sideways glance at my pitiful, upturned face; and he saw that I was a woman. Then something must have jarred in his memory, for as he slid from his horse and began walking unsteadily toward me, he said aloud, “I smell the damp walls of the cave on Mount Subasio, I see Jesus offering me the beautiful feminine hand.” Then he came straight to me and started to drop some coins into my hand stretched out in a kind of defensive supplication, an automatic gesture that was the only gesture it knew how to make toward those who were clean.

But Francis took my hand in his own and kissed it and closed into it a gold coin. Then he looked into the face he had always feared seeing and in one swift movement of repulsion and recognition, he kissed my putrefying mouth and knew I was she and felt the rush of love through his whole body. And when he let me go and opened his eyes, he kept saying “Where are you, I can’t see you, where have you gone?”

I was still there, but he could not see me because the Lord of All wanted Francis to know that Lady Poverty’s true face can never be possessed the way one might think to possess a woman of mere flesh and blood. He would only know me in a brief embrace, and then only when his love grew strong enough to embrace what he found difficult to embrace. He would have to return again and again to the poor and despised and rejected. only then would he see my countenance fleetingly ringing with light the broken person in his arms. ♣♣♣

 

 

WE look for God’s face, and it continues to elude us until, like St. Francis, we embrace God in every creature. In that meeting we learn that God’s face is both masculine and feminine. It is not always beautiful at first glance. It is often revealed where I least expect to find it. And sometimes, even when God’s countenance is revealed to me, I fail to recognize whose face it really is.

Only faith, hope, and love enable me to glimpse the face of God here on earth. And faith and hope are possible only where there is true love.

Lord, I pray that you enlighten my eyes with faith, my will with hope, my heart and mind with love, that I may see the reflection of your image everywhere I look.

 

 

Father and Son

 

Though I was preoccupied with my business, I was aware of the changes that began to alter my son after he returned in ignominy from Spoleto. Francis’ heart had never really been in the family business, but the boy had at least been conscientious in helping me in the shop. But after his return home, he seemed more and more distracted and he worked in a perfunctory, distracted manner.

I said nothing, but I began to think that Francis was somehow trying to spite me, and my initial hurt turned into a submerged anger that I knew would eventually explode upon this son of mine, who considered himself better than his father and who looked down upon everything I spent a lifetime building. I had hoped that one day Francis would toke over the family business and proudly build upon the foundation I had carefully laid.

And so it began, a bitter and terrible rift between Pietro Bernardone and his son. Neither of us wanted it to happen; neither could keep it from happening.

It is Christ himself-I tremble to say it-who came between Francis and me, and when it finally came to pass, the dreaded confrontation, this is how it was.

Francis burst into the shop and declared he was bringing home a beautiful bride; then he left and returned a few hours later, telling me that he had been out walking near the Church of San Damiano (which he compared to a leper because it lay outside the city walls) and that as he walked along, deep in thought, something moved him to go into the dilapidated church and pray.

As he knelt before the