What a phenomenon St Francis was! 800 years ago today, on the 3rd of October 1226, aged 44 or 45, lying naked on the ground of the little chapel outside Assisi that he loved so much, the Portiuncula, racked with pain, bearing the stigmata, he hailed Sister Death and made his Passover to the Lord, the Paschal Mystery completing itself in him as he passed to glory. This was his Transitus.
What a soul he was, what a saint, what a disciple of Christ! A wiry little man. The mirror of Christ he has been called, a man who translated the Lord from Palestine, as it were, to Umbria. Our Lord, though king of heaven and earth, is forever linked to Bethlehem and Nazareth, to Galilee and Jerusalem, and not just linked to them; he transfigured them as he was transfigured on Mt Thabor. And so it was with St Francis. He is forever associated with Assisi itself, with Carceri above it, with the chapel of San Damiano on the edge of it and the Portiuncula far below in the plain, with Greccio where he made the first crib, with La Verna further away in Tuscany where he received the stigmata. If you can, do visit these places. They are transfigured places, “thin” places, smelling of the Gospel, shot through with light. And as with Jesus so with Francis the local has become universal. Really, Christ showed himself afresh in Francis and renewed the face of the earth, gave a new sense of being Christian, being the Church. He changed the landscape of the faith.
And just as saints so often connect with places, so they’re surrounded by stories. So many episodes come to mind with him, don’t they?
Let’s remember:
How in 1206, 24 years old, he renounced his former life and his father’s expectations, stripping himself naked in the town square, marrying poverty as it were, and – a bit often left out – being immediately wrapped in a cloak by the bishop.
How around the same time the Lord spoke to him from the Cross in the ruined chapel of San Damiano, “Francis, go and rebuild my church which is falling down” – taking that literally at first and repairing the chapel, realising over the years that the Lord’s words to him meant something deeper and wider.
How at that time too he kissed a repulsive leper and realised the presence of Christ in the suffering
How around 1208 like St Anthony of Egypt before him his life was turned around by the Gospel of the rich young man, the call to leave everything and follow the Lord. Out of Anthony’s conversion came monasticism, out of Francis’ the medicant movement which swept the world, creating a new brotherhood, a new sisterhood, embracing lay people too (the 3rd Order), so that even today the Franciscan family is the largest of all the religious families in the Church. It’s not too wild to say that he gave the world that precious triad: poverty, chastity and obedience – the secret of a joyful life.
How in 1224 he wrote and sung in praise of God’s creation, seeing everything created as siblings to us, how he preached to the birds, tamed the wolf of Gubbio, told the gardeners of his friaries to leave land for herbs and wildflowers. Thus St John Paul II declared him patron saint of the environment and ecology and Pope Francis made him the central inspiration of his great encyclical on care for our common home, Laudato Si.
How in 1223 he staged the first Christmas crib in Greccio, with live people, to bring home to them the closeness and poverty of Christ and the Holy Family – what a gift this has been.
How he 1219 followed a crusading army to Egypt in 1219, crossed the battle lines and spoke with the Sultan in command of the opposing army, staying with him for more than two weeks speaking of faith and prayer.
How in 1224 on La Verna the Seraph came to him out of the sun and marked him with the wounds of Christ, henceforth carrying Christ very literally on his body.
This is the man whose passing 800 years ago, in 1226, we remember today: a great gift to the Church, a great gift of the Church our mother.
A free man, a Gospel man. When Francis was going blind, he had to undergo the terrible treatment of a red-hot iron applied to his eyes. He rose and said, quoting his own verse, “Brother Fire, God made you beautiful and strong and useful; I pray you be courteous with me.” I think of people receiving sudden terminal diagnoses or facing unexpected suffering, and saying to the evil coming on them: be courteous to me. And so he later welcomed Sister Death. “If there be any such thing as the art of life”, wrote Chesterton, “…such a moment was one of its masterpieces”.
A saint of places and stories and sayings too: above all though an icon of Christ.
He lived when a new world, a new society was coming to birth, and he drew out new things and old from the depths of faith and Scripture. He shone, and shines, with the light of Christ.
And that in a phrase is our call too, in our places and our stories.
