Effects of Saint Francis

At first, Francis remained for a long while alone, despised, pursued by his father, declared mad. Later, however, brothers began to arrive, and then sisters. After ten or fif­t­een years, incalculable numbers had been carried away with enthusiasm for the Franciscan alternative way of living. Two texts illustrate Francis’s effectiveness:

“Men ran, and women too ran, clerics hurried and religious hastened, that they might see and hear the holy man of God who seemed to all to be a man of another world...Many of the people both noble and common, cleric and lay, impelled by divine inspir­ation, began to come to St. Francis, wanting to carry on the battle constantly under his discipline and under his leadership. All of these the holy man of God, like a plenteous river of heavenly grace, watered with streams of gifts; ...he was an excellent craftsman, and according to his plan, rule, and teaching, proclaimed before all, the Church is being renewed in both sexes, and the threefold army of those to be served is triumphing. To all he gave a norm of life, and he showed in truth the way of salvation in every walk of life.” (1Cel 36ff ).

Even more important than the above text, written in 1225 by the Franciscan Thomas of Celano, is the eyewitness account of Jacques de Vitry. It is all the more valuable for being written from the point of view of an outsider and dates from as early as 1216.

“A great number of men and women...renounced all their possessions and left the world for the love of Christ: “Friars Minor” and “Sisters Minor” as they were called. They are held in great esteem by the Lord Pope and the cardinals. They are totally detached from temporal things and have but one passion to which they devote all their efforts: to snatch from the vanities of the world souls that are in danger and to prevail upon them to imitate their example. Thanks be to God, they have already achieved important suc­cesses and made numerous conquests. Those who have heard them say to their friends: “Come along!” and so one group brings another. As for the brothers themselves, they live the life of the primitive church of which it is written: “The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul.” During the day they go into the cities and villages, giving themselves over to the active life of the apostolate; at night, they return to their hermitage or withdraw into solitude to live the contemplative life. The women live near the cities in various hospices and refuges; they live a community life from the work of their hands, but accept no income. The veneration that the clergy and laity show toward them is a bur­den to them, and it chagrins and annoys them.

Once a year, in a place on which they agree, the men of this order assemble to rejoice in the Lord and eat together and they profit greatly from these gather­ings. They seek the counsel of upright and vir­tuous men; they draw up and promulgate holy laws and submit them for approval to the Holy Father, then they disband again for a year and go about through Lom­bardy, Tuscany, Apulia and Sicily.” (Jacques de Vitry, Letter of 1216).

CCFMC, Lesson Unit 2, C 1.3