Francis of Assisi: Pattern for Lay Holiness

Crisis Magazine ^ | 10/4/12 | Donald S. Prudlo

[marshmallow]

For over 100 years, there has been a veritable “Francis industry,” going well beyond the plastic kitsch in Assisi gift shop windows (after all, no one can capitalize on poverty like a Minorite!). For that whole period of time, people have been making and remaking Giovanni Francesco di Pietro Bernardone to fit their own images of what they think he was really about. From the neutered figure made appealing to agnostic Victorians and gardening aficionados, to Francis the PETA activist, the poor man of Assisi has been made poorer in the process. We have had Francis the Socialist Hippie, with the twentieth-century made-for-acoustic-guitar “Peace Prayer” put in his mouth. (It originated in 1912.) Some have even argued for “Francis the Capitalist” and “Francis the Feminist.” On a more scholarly plane, we have Paul Sabatier’s classic portrait: “man thumbing his nose at the institutional Church”—a perennially popular riff, especially among intellectuals. Everyone has their own Francis, but few pay attention to the man himself.

In all this the historical Francis suffers: the conflicted, erratic Umbrian, the product of the Italian commune of Assisi, the man of penance, the faithful, if often perplexed, son of the Church. In truth this remaking of Francis is not merely recent. After his death, his order nearly tore itself to pieces in internal conflicts in the late 1200s over issues which had never been problematic to Francis. Each side, “Spiritual” and “Conventual” attempted to make Francis fit their conceptions of the religious life. The “struggle for Francis” is not new.

This is where the new biography of Francis by Augustine Thompson, O.P. (recently reviewed by our own Christopher Blum) comes in so handy. Thompson is a specialist in Italian medieval history, and he is right to attempt to situate Francis in his own space and.....

[Bigg Red]

St. Francis was always my favorite saint as a child because of the legend of his love of animals.

I did not know that the “instrument of peace” prayer was not really his.

[Oratam]

“Smear the walls with meat” is one quote I won’t soon forget.

[zeugma]

 While it looks like the "Prayer of St. Francis" is a recent invention, it helped me a lot when my youngest child passed. Sarah McLachlan has a beautiful version of this poem put to music. Strangely, I first heard it on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

[Skooz]

Bump for later

[Salvation]

More on St. Francis of Assisi:

Francis of Assisi: Pattern for Lay Holiness
The Real St. Francis of Assisi Was Not a Garden Gnome...
Chesterton and Saint Francis
Saint Francis of Assisi, 'giant of holiness,' honored Oct. 4

Franciscan Brothers Follow in St. Francis' Bare Footsteps
St. Francis of Assisi (and) St. Clare of Assisi [Catholic Caucus]
On Francis of Assisi
Franciscans ready to celebrate 800th anniversary of order's founding
'Stone-for-stone' Porziuncola reproduction erected in San Francisco
Portiuncula Indulgence can be obtained this Sunday
Away in a Manger [St. Francis of Assisi and the first Nativity scene]
The Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi -- The Wounds of Christ
St. Clare's Advice Defended Assisi Against An Attack By the Mohammedans (My Title)

The Way of the Cross, with Prayerful Meditations authored by Saint Francis of Assisi
Friar Assails "Lies" Against Franciscans of Assisi In Wake of Pope's Program
color=#e00040>Cimabue's Assisi Fresco Reconstructed
Friars Minor Support Pope's Measures for Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi and Eucharistic Adoration
Saint Francis of Assisi’s Letter to the Clergy
World Needs the Spirit of St. Francis, Says John Paul II
Saint Francis of Assisi, Founder of the Friars Minor, Confessor 1181-1226>
Assisi frescoes rise from the rubble
Christ's words to St. Francis, "repair my Church," appropriate for today says Archbishop Chaput

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assissi

Lord, make me am instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
and where there is saddness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Saint Francis was born in Assisi, Italy in 1182. He lived and preached a life of poverty and love of God to all men. He founded the religious Order of the Franciscans; with St. Clare, he founded the Order of the Poor Clares; and the Third Order for lay people. He died in 1226.