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Spotlight: St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis at Prayer by Cigoli, oil on copper, 17th c.
St. Francis of Assisi was one of the most influential Christian figures of the Middle Ages. Born in 1181 A.D.., Francis’s original name was Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone. From a wealthy merchant family in Assisi, Italy, he initially lived as a prosperous and ambitious young man. However, after experiences of war, captivity, illness, and ultimately, a religious conversion, Francis gradually rejected his privileged life and embraced radical poverty, humility, and service to others. He famously repaired neglected churches and eventually gathered followers who shared his vision of living according to the Gospel. (One of Francis’s other famous initiatives was to stage a ‘nativity’ for the uneducated poor to tell the story of Christ’s birth.)
Despite not being a priest (he would later be made a deacon) in 1209 A.D., Francis received approval from Pope Innocent III for his small community, which became the Order of Friars Minor, commonly known as the Franciscans. Francis insisted that his friars should own little, preach among ordinary people, care for the poor, and imitate Christ through simplicity and charity. His movement rapidly expanded across Europe, and a related order for women, the Poor Clares, was founded by St. Clare of Assisi, one of Francis's closest followers.
The Franciscan movement had an enormous impact on Western civilisation. Medieval monasticism had traditionally been associated with monasteries in which monks lived apart from society, but the Franciscans helped popularise a new form of religious life: the mendicant friar who lived in poverty while working directly among the population. Franciscans established communities in growing European towns and cities, preaching, teaching, caring for the sick and poor, and hearing confessions.
The order also became a major intellectual force. Franciscan scholars helped shape medieval philosophy and theology, particularly at universities such as Paris and Oxford. Figures including St. Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham made important contributions to metaphysics, ethics, theology, and theories of knowledge. Franciscan missions also carried Christianity far beyond Western Europe, including into the Middle East and, later, the Americas.
Francis himself left an enduring cultural legacy. His celebration of creation, poverty, peace, and kinship with all creatures gave Christianity a distinctive language of ecological and social concern. His Canticle of the Creatures is among the earliest major works of Italian literature.
Francis died in 1226 and was canonised just two years later. His legacy is therefore much larger than that of a medieval saint: he helped transform Western Christianity from within, bringing religious ideals into direct contact with urban society, scholarship, poverty, missionary activity, art, literature, and everyday life. The Franciscan ideal of simplicity and service continues to influence Christian thought and Western culture today.
Verse: ‘London, 1802’ by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
In ‘London, 1802’, Wordsworth hankers for days-gone-by, and chastises his fellow Englishmen for being self-absorbed and immoral. He invokes England’s greatest epic poet, John Milton, as an example of virtue and selflessness which men of the modern age should look to for inspiration.
Pensées
‘A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.’
According to Lewis, without an objective morality, we will be more easily coerced or persuaded. Or as a well-known adage puts it: Believe in nothing, fall for anything.
Q ~ Should each man decide for himself what is ‘good’? Or do we need a standard definition?
Diversions
DYK? Fern Blodgett, a Canadian, was the first woman to be a naval wireless operator in WW2.
Read: The good, the bad, and the ugly of 24 Sussex.
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