I want to conclude this offering of good books that have enriched my life with a biography that has influenced me in several ways—but actually to sneak in another book as well.(Perhaps together they could be classed as a Tome. Maths is not a great strength here!)
I’ve always felt a special interest in Francis of Assisi. I guess in part its because we share a Christian name, but there are many other things that have brought us together spiritually. At the time of the eight hundredth anniversary of his birth, in 1982, I was given a superb book written by Carlo Carretto, in which the author writes as if he is Francis. It’s called I, Francis and addresses the Church of today with what he believes Francis would say to challenge us in our life together and the way we live our faith. This book has been a rich resource for me in times of pastoral leadership and I shall return to comment on that.
In 1995 I was privileged to visit Assisi with its narrow streets and beautiful old houses. It is permeated by a deep sense of peace. My best memory, though, is of the opportunity to pray before a cross which is the very cross where Francis also was praying when he sensed Jesus calling him to a special mission for the renewal of the Church.
G. Chesterton’s biography of Francis, simply called Francis of Assisi, was first published in 1923 and was later re-released by Hodder and Stoughton in their Twentieth Century Christian Classics series. The Foreword by Roger Forster is nearly as good as the book itself, as it tells how as a boy leaving school he was given this book by his headmaster, to help him find a direction for his life. Forster went on from that book to a life of wonderful ministry of the Gospel.
A chain of influence and inspiration is traced here, from Jesus through Francis and Chesterton, to other teachers and pastors. With the re-publication of this book, I believe it will continue. It has for me.
The heart of the story is the sense of call which developed through Francis’ prayer before the cross. What he did about his sense of call was a bit of a surprise to me. The first thing he did was to take the words literally: he set about rebuilding a tumbled down old church building in the street nearby. Two others joined him, and it was through their spiritual searching together that the wider and deeper dimensions of the mission emerged. A most unlikely community was formed.
Francis realized that what really needed to be renewed was not the buildings of the Church, but the living stones, the people. His famous habit of talking to animals, treating fire, sun, birds and animals as his brothers and sisters, was really just the working out of a deeper spirituality, a way of living with the whole creation as permeated with God’s immediate presence and invitation.
So Francis was calling people back to a simple but deep life with God. His original order, the Little Brothers of Jesus, was simply a group of people committed to living this way. Later his friend Clare set up a similar order for women. Their next great effort was a vision for ordinary people who could not become monks or nuns to live this way in their daily professions. The priesthood of all Christians!
Chesterton tells this story with a remarkable style. People don’t write this way today. At times I found it all a bit too much like hagiography—the feeling that it’s a bit too good to be true. But the challenge that rings through it, and the superb prose from a writer who uses the language with dexterity and a light, surprising touch, make it just flow.
So I come to what I think this means for me, and here I return to the wonderful Carlo Carretto. What an exceptional gift to the Church is this book, imagining what Francis would say to us today. At the beginning Carretto describes his own situation as a dreamer: ‘I am a dreamer. I am Francis’. He goes on to reflect on aspects of the life he shares in the Franciscan community: the mystery of poverty, the ‘merry company’, sisterhood with Clare, happiness and then the anguish he feels with the state of the Church. The chapter ‘My Church, My Church’ is an immensely powerful essay that is both biting and deeply inviting. I want to quote almost a whole page of it, as it means so much to me.
You are living in strange, contradictory and ambiguous times.
You have more wealth than before, and you talk more about poverty. You are middle-class and you play ‘poor Church’. You talk more about community, and you live more isolated, more divorced lives.
‘Many a slip ‘twixt the cup and lip’, they say—and there is a whole ocean of slips between what you say and what you do.
It is the ocean of your chatter, and you are drowning in it all all levels.
This is why I do not feel like giving you a ‘tough talking-to’. Because you are the tough ones, not I.
All one has to do is to listen to you at your meetings.
It is terrible, how hard, unyielding and radical you are.
What a pity that this hardness, this radicalism, is always directed at others and never at yourselves.
You seem to be obsessed by the thought of converting other people!
And I, Francis, tell you: aim at converting yourselves and you will then find you understand things better.
Above all, understand this: it is useless to think you can change the Franciscans, the Capuchins, the Conventuals, and … for good measure, the Jesuits, the Salesians, the Little Brothers …
It is simply not possible!
What is possible is the conversion of the individual, especially if that individual happens to be you listening to me at this moment.
History has its own laws, and no institution escapes the tooth of time, however holy and great its founder.
Only the naked individual, as naked as may be, can escape the tooth of time, if he [or she] can confront the nakedness of the Gospel and make it his [or hers].
My children—for so I call you, if you call me Father Francis—do not believe in reforming your Order. Believe in reforming yourselves.
My brothers and sisters—for so I call you, if you call me Brother Francis—be holy, and the world will seem holy to you.
(Carlo Carretto, I, Francis: The spirit of Francis of Assisi, Collins, 1982; pages 95 & 96).
Later in the book there is also discussion of ‘the dark night’, for anyone willing indeed to accept the challenge to ‘reform’ themselves must confront both the dark truth of what lies within the human heart and the awful reality that we have gained so little, especially the reality that we deny our own best intentions, and at times our well-meaning actions and words can do more harm than good.
And yet. What inspiration there is here, in the recognition that the world and the Church are not ours to ‘reform’, even less that it is ours to try to ‘convert’ others to our way. No, it is for us to be quiet and to discern what the Spirit of God is up to, the ubiquitous Spirit of all creation, the Spirit of life, love and healing: in each person and all creatures. Then we shall experience life as an invitation to community and learn to receive it, rejoice in it, contribute to it, and do much less harm.
May it be so, in the spirit of Francis.
As Roger Forster was given Chesterton’s book, and it became a creative resource in his own life, and as these Tomes have been such influences on my own life, may something in all this also be a creative and inviting resource for you.
What an electrifying, enriching fulsome quote, Frank. Thanks so much.