A Consideration of the Spirituality of
Saint Francis of Assisi
COURSE: Religion 341 “Mysticism”
Dr. Robert Minor
Eleanor M. Cooley
December 11, 1978
Saint Francis was the first figure since the Apostle Paul to see the imitation of Christ and meditation on his suffering, weakness and poverty as the path which led to perfection. Many treatises had been written by 1200 A.D. on the mystical path, but part of Francis' originality was refusing to read them for he believed to do so was to divert his eyes from true perfection. To him the Gospels defined the total imitation of Christ as the only possible path and love the only motive.
None of his biographers, either in the 13th century or today, have ever tried to formally trace the saint's mystical journey or to put it into the traditional levels of conversion, purgation, illumination and perfection or union which Dionysius the Areopagite established. This, of course, makes it difficult to trace his mystical path. Thomas of Celano, his first (ca. 1229) biographer, excuses himself from dealing with the subject because of his own lack of experience. In the various accounts of Francis' life the mystical phenomena, ascetic exercises, and devotional practices are mixed together and described in general terms with everything being related to his concept of vocation."[i]
After the death of Francis in 1226 there was a great deal of tension within the Order of Friars Minor over its direction. Many wanted to keep the strictest rule of Francis, but the majority wanted a relaxation of the rule in regard to possessions, scholarship and related activities. Disagreements over the interpretation of his rule and life necessitated compiling more information. In the general chapter of 1244 those who had lived with Francis were asked to write about him. Brothers Leo, Rufino, and Angelo fulfilled this request, and their material became the source for much of Celano's 2nd life (1247). These writings of the three brothers came to light in the early 1920s and became fully available in 1970. Next to Thomas of Celano's 1st life (1229), these brother's reminiscences are the earliest information on his career, but there is very little pertaining to Francis spirituality in this source."[ii]
In 1260 St. Bonaventure, the seventh minister general of the order, was requested to write a biography of Francis, which he completed in 1263. When this was done, orders went out to destroy all previous writings, which was accomplished with the exception of the one manuscript of Leo, Rufino and Angelo and only one complete copy of Celand's lives. Bonaventure represented the victory of scholarship (he was a professor at the Univ. of Paris) and the moderation of the rule.[iii]
Francis was born, late in 1181 or early 1182, the son of Pietro Di Bernardone (who died before 1215). His father was one of the new wealthy merchant class that was making itself felt and asserting its power against the feudal nobility. His mother was "Donna Pica," a woman from northern France, which explains why French became his "language of the heart" used in most of his mystical outpourings.[iv] He was given a basic elementary education at the cathedral school of St. Giorgio but only the most rudimentary religious training typical of that day. He was not taught theology particularly. Rather he was trained to be a merchant, and in 1196 we know he began to help in his father's business, succeeding very well at it.[v] However, Francis had dreams of becoming a knight, so in 1202, when Assisi went to war with neighboring Perugia, he went to war hoping to prove himself worthy of being a knight. Instead of glory they met defeat with Francis and many others being imprisoned. After a year Francis was ransomed by his father because he was ill (1203). This was a long illness, but when he recovered he was ready to try again, so in 1205 he went south to join Pope Innocent the 3rd's armies under Gauthier de Brienne hoping he would be knighted on the field of battle.[vi]
On his last night in Assisi he had a dream in which he was led into a palace with a beautiful lady and many knightly weapons and was told this had been reserved for him if he would steadfastly take up the standard of the cross.[vii] On his first night out at Spoleto he had a vision in which the Lord asked him which was better, to serve the master or the servant. Francis, of course, answered "the Master," to which the Lord said, "then why are you seeking the servant.” Francis asked the Lord what he should do, and he was told to go back to Assisi and remain until he received a different interpretation of his dream.[viii] This has been called the beginning of his conversion.
Upon returning to Assisi, Francis had two major obstacles to face; one was many people thinking he had returned because of cowardice, and the other was Assisi's youth expecting him to again take his place as "prince of revels." He had been a leader in giving parties and spending lavish amounts on entertainment, so there were many "hangers on" that expected him to resume this activity. He attended one last party despite his heart not being in it, for it was turned completely to God. He was following his friends, trailing at a distance, when the Holy Spirit touched him so deeply that he became immobilized and transfixed. He was filled with such sweetness that, as he said later, if they had cut him to pieces he could not have moved.[ix] If this Christian mystical experience included an increasingly overpowering action of the Holy Spirit on Francis' soul and a passivity to interior inspiration plus the feeling of God's presence and sweetness then Francis had entered upon the mystical life early in his walk.[x]
After this detaching experience he began to withdraw more and more to a cave near Assisi in company of a friend whose name we don't know, in whom he apparently confided.[xi] He became disinterested in the family business, spending increasingly long periods in prayer. He was overwhelmed by the error of his life and made every effort through fasting, penance and prayer to make up for it. He saw that he was not able to do penance until the Lord gave him the strength to rise above the disgust he felt for lepers. Soon an incident occurred in which he embraced a leper, the Lord turning his repugnance into joy because of the renouncement of himself. This renouncement of self is seen as the first step towards Christian perfection and shows the progress of purging effective in his life. It was at this time, according to Bonaventure, that the ideal of divine love acting and manifesting itself through the practice of poverty and humility began to take shape in Francis' mind.[xii] During this time he was going through purging and the self-knowledge that goes with it. It was an agonizing time as he tried to find out what the Lord desired of him. He even made a trip to Rome in the spring of 1206 and changed clothes with a beggar to see if this would bring fulfillment (which it didn't).
Finally, towards the end of 1206, Francis was led to the church of San Damiano which lay in ruins and abandoned. To quote Celano, "he was smitten by unusual visitations and found himself other than he had been when he entered."[xiii] The icon of Christ crucified moved its lips and spoke to him telling him to "repair my house!" Francis was trembling and almost deranged by these words. He prepared to fulfill them completely, even though at this time he took it literally to mean rebuilding the church. To quote Celano again, "But since he felt that the change he had undergone was beyond expression, it is becoming that we should be silent about what he could not express. From then on compassion for the crucified was rooted in his holy soul, and, as it can be piously supposed, the stigmata of the venerable passion were deeply imprinted in his heart, though not as yet upon his flesh.”[xiv] In the traditional language of Dionysius, I believe this was the beginning of the illuminative way for Francis and also believe he probably began feeling the pain of the invisible stigmata at this time.
In order to get money to repair the church of San Damiano Francis took some of his father's expensive cloth and a horse and went to Foligno and sold everything. He then presented the money to the priest, who refused it out of fear of Francis' father. The priest was right, for Francis' father came after him wanting the proceeds of the sale. Francis, out of fear, hid for a month and then decided to face his father, who locked Francis up in his home for a while. His mother let him go while his father was on a business trip. This precipitated the crises, for Pietro Bernardone had only one recourse, the civil court. When the summons was served to Francis, he appealed to Bishop Guido, maintaining that he was outside the jurisdiction of the civil courts because he was consecrated to God. Bishop Guido heard the case and gave his verdict. In one gesture Francis gave back everything, even his clothes, to his father.[xv] The date of this event is April 16, 1207 by the most recent writers.[xvi]
Francis was fired with the love of God but still did not know which direction he was to take. The spiritual significance of renouncing his possessions and his father was not yet understood. He spent the next two years serving the lepers and repairing churches as the icon had told him. He really experienced S the cross through the deep scorn of his relatives, extreme poverty and having to beg for his food every day.[xvii] Finally, on February 24, 1209, the gospel reading in the mass (which was the mass of the apostles), was the answering message. The reading from Matt. 10:7-13 told the apostles to go without gold or silver or money, nor have two tunics or a staff as they went out to preach the kingdom of Heaven. After hearing this Francis asked its meaning of the priest and believed the Lord had spoken to him directly. Francis cried, "this is what I wish, this is what I seek, this is what I long to do with all my heart!”[xviii] He immediately threw off his hermits cloak, his shoes, staff and purse and put on a ragged tunic and set about preaching everywhere the gospel of poverty, penance and peace.[xix]
Once the Lord had show Francis his vocation it wasn't long before others began joining him who wanting to live in this way. In the spring of 1210, when he had eleven followers, he presented a brief rule to Innocent III in Rome and received verbal approval. Francis' ideal was simple yet extraordinary; he wanted to imitate Christ as completely as possible. To him this meant making Christ's ideas his own, to feel, think and act like Christ. This doctrine was to be pursued even in the fellowship of his sufferings and becoming like him even in death. His ambition was to be as completely united and as perfectly identified with Christ as possible. He adhered to the very letter of the gospel, even in cooking he didn't allow beans to be put in water till midnight because of the saying "take no thought for the morrow" (Matt 6:34).[xx] His whole motivation was love, which induced him to imitate Christ, who was the center of his life, his chief intention and his principal desire. Francis desired most to reproduce the humiliations of the Incarnation and the love expressed in Christ's passion. He was so occupied by these in his thoughts that he had no desire to think of anything else.[xxi] The cross which followed the savior from the crib to calvary summarized for Francis the whole mystery of Christ and was the perpetual object of his contemplation.[xxii] The vehemence and devotion of his love for the crucified led him to such a degree of renunciation that, as Bonaventure says, "He had such a fervent love for Christ, and his master returned so familiar a love that Francis admitted to his companions that he felt the presence of the Savior as if He were really before his eyes. Francis desired through his love to be completely transformed into Him.”[xxiii] His attitude towards God was put in his rule of 1221, but it didn't get into the final copy. He said the proper way of responding to God was "with all our hearts and all our souls, all our minds and all our strength, all our power and all our understanding, with every faculty and every effort, with every affection and all our emotions, with every wish and desire, we should love our Lord and God who has given and gives us everything, body and soul and all our life. It was he who created and redeemed us, and of his mercy alone he will save us.”[xxiv]
Francis, because of this burning love, had special devotion to the Eucharist. He saw it as a unique meeting place with Christ, in part because he took literally the words of Jesus in John 6 that this was, in fact, his body and blood. This is why all through his life Francis wanted people to show respect for priests because of their power to consecrate the Eucharist. As Thomas of Celano says:
Francis burned with a love that came from his whole being for the sacrament of the Lord's body, and he was carried away with wonder at the loving condescension and the most condescending love shown there. Not to hear at least one mass each day, if he could be there, he considered no small contempt. He frequently received holy communion, and he did so with such devotion that he made others also devout.[xxv]
Inspired by the fire of his love, prayer was the most important activity to Francis. He was tempted even at times to give up preaching so he could devote himself completely to prayer. Of all gifts or blessings he believed that the grace of prayer was most desirable and that without it he would find it impossible to make progress in the service of God. Everything in the world, even the greatest occupations, must give way to it.[xxvi] Prayer constituted all his happiness because it brought him close to God, from whom he was separated only by the veil of flesh. Thus it is not surprising that he would spend many hours, sometimes the whole night, in prayer. He didn't undertake anything without prayer and mature thought. He consecrated his whole body and heart to prayer always seeking out solitude and silence where he could give vent to all the outpourings of his love.[xxvii] When in public and he felt the Spirit's touch, he would try to put something between himself and others, either his hood, a sleeve, or other object. If this was impossible, he would, as Celano says, "make a temple of his breast." When he was alone, Celano reports, he would fill the woods with his sighs and water the ground with his tears and strike his breast with his hand taking the attitude of the publican saying; "Lord be merciful to me a sinner.”[xxviii] At other times he would be so wrapped in contemplation that his only words would be short phrases of love and adoration or nothing at all. He would never let a visitation of the Spirit go without responding to it with his whole being, no matter in what activity he was engaged. If he was walking or riding, he would stop and go aside for prayer, if in public he would hide it. Francis's prayer was spontaneous, not reasoned. He would pray as he felt led. As Celano says: "In order to make his whole heart a multiple holocaust, he pictured God to himself as sovereignly simple, and his soul spoke to God now as judge, now as a father, at another time as friend and spouse.”[xxix] Prayer thus occupied all his time no matter what he was doing, and there was no dichotomy between contemplation and action as there was for those preceding him.
Francis' doctrinal belief about God was very traditional. To him God the Father was creator and originator of all things, the fount of love and the object of all praise. God the Son was the teacher and pattern, who gave us the example of perfect obedience to the Father. The Holy Spirit was the personification of the love which passes between the Father and the Son and through whose power man is able to enter into the fulness of God's love.[xxx] Francis gave no new theological formulations to the world.
Throughout his life Francis had to combat temptations and even literal assaults by demons, as is recorded in II Celano 119. There was a period of at least two years where he had scarcely any peace because of a severe temptation that the Lord allowed.[xxxi] Francis believed in Satan, in demons, and that the fall was the cause of evil in this world, however, he affirmed everything was under God's control, including evil, and that God allowed things to happen in order to strengthen us. He said that the man who is tempted is the one living close to God, rather than the one who never experiences temptations. His solution to the problem of evil was not to deny it with naive optimism or by contending against it not as St. George fought the dragon but to confront it with love. This approach enabled him to lay hold of the evil in his inmost heart and bring it to God in this way.[xxxii] He practiced extreme fasting and bodily mortifications to make his spirit the indisputable master of his body, for he feared the flesh, more than demons and considered it man's greatest enemy.[xxxiii]
If the goal of Francis was to imitate Christ perfectly, the path to that goal was to look at Christ and do what he did. He sought to resemble Christ alone, hence he was not concerned with what saints and spiritual guides of preceding centuries did or said. He didn't disdain them but felt none were equal to Christ as teacher and therefore excluded every master, guide or model other than Christ.[xxxiv]
For Francis, the cardinal virtue was poverty. On this virtue all others depended, as he said in his salute to the virtues, "Holy poverty shames all grasping and hoarding, and the worries of this world."[xxxv] He felt that he could be conformed to the crucified Christ only through poverty. He believed it had been Christ's constant companion, so he resolved to espouse it with an everlasting love, even personifying it as his bride "Lady Poverty.”[xxxvi] In fact, he made it the cornerstone of his order.[xxxvii] There is an analogy between the cross in the life of Christ and poverty in the life of Francis. Just as love alone nailed Christ to the cross so love alone made Francis poor.[xxxviii] He did not embrace poverty to free himself from the world, for asceticism, or religious reform, but only because, as he wrote in his 2nd rule, "The Lord made himself poor for us in this world.”[xxxix] For him poverty was the road to perfection, by it he became, through interior simplicity, in total communion with God as he surrendered to God his whole soul, naked and free, devoid of attachment to anything apart from God. This included not just physical poverty but the interior poverty which required ridding himself of cares and anxieties which showed regard to himself. God must have full surrender of the care of his destiny.[xl] Thus for Francis, poverty was a profession, a way of life which had to be constantly guarded. It was also a source of joy that brought one into union with God in a special way. For Francis, it was the highest form of life one could attain. I tend to think that Francis' attitude toward poverty was part of the necessary discipline he had to apply to himself because of his background as a rich, carefree, young man. He feared it would be to easy to slide back into a soft life if he gave in at all to this ideal.
In Francis' mind, humility, obedience, and chastity (or virginity as he preferred to call it because of a more positive connotation), were inseparable sisters of poverty, or better, diverse expressions of poverty. Humility was twofold, inner and outer. It must first control one’s inmost thoughts before it could have lived. Integrity demanded that there be harmony between thought and action. He suffered when he could not put into practice what he felt in his heart.[xli] Humility was born of self-knowledge (which is part of the illuminative way). He was always intensely aware of his own failings, both inner and outer, and his inability to reach the standard of perfection he had set for himself. He realized more than anyone that all efforts amount to nothing unless help comes by God's grace, for the only thing really possessed by a person is weakness, sin and vice. The graces he received did not lesson his humility; rather they kept him peaceful lest he might become unfaithful or ungrateful, which he always feared. As far as his order was concerned, there were three ways in which the friars were to exercise their humility: in working, in begging, and in serving the lepers.
Obedience was, for Francis, the key which would save his order from drifting into mediocrity or giving up the ideals he had adopted. In his "Praises of the Virtues" he wrote, "Holy obedience shames all self-will of flesh and body, and keeps a body mortified to obey the spirit, and obey one's fellow man.”[xlii] His first obedience was to God no matter what the cost. This is why it hurt him so to see his ideals compromised towards the end of his life.
The discipline Francis applied to himself was heroic. He denied himself with drastic measures. When healthy, he would not eat cooked food and would destroy the taste with ashes or water. He fasted often and allowed himself very little sleep, never using a pillow but propping himself up against a wall or on the hard ground. Later in his life he apologized to "brother ass" as he called his body, for ill treatment and did not allow the brothers to overdo their austerities.[xliii]
Francis had a very simple approach to the words of Christ, and he might be called a "revolutionary fundamentalist." He was not guileless by nature,[xliv] but through grace he attained simplicity and an attitude of complete trust in God. He knew God would take care of him as long as his trust did not falter. The tension within the order of Friars Minor arose over a desire by those who wanted to study.[xlv] He was not opposed to scholarship, but he felt it was not an essential ingredient to his way of life. As he said in his "Praises of all the Virtues," "Holy pure simplicity shames all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.”[xlvi]
Concerning chastity in his rule, he did not allow his friars to associate with women further than giving them advice or counsel because of temptation. If one of the brothers did commit fornication he could no longer be in the order.[xlvii] For Francis virginity was the preferable word, commanding purity for Christ rather than a negative prohibition. He believed that marriage was holy also and that one could walk this path within marriage as well. As early as 1210 he started the 3rd order which was made up of married people, both men and women, though their rule wasn't formalized until 1223.[xlviii]
The first fruit of walking in this way (other than love, assumed as a prerequisite for the path) is joy. This joy was the fruit of a pure heart and constant prayer. Francis said that none of the brothers ought to let sadness overtake them. If they were troubled they should immediately go and pray until they again had joy, for sadness gave an opening to the devil.[xlix] Joy meant perfect freedom in the face of everything, signifying a whole-hearted consent to obedience and love, which reflected the unity of his interior life. Therefore, there was no distinction between action and contemplation, as he would be spontaneous and be seeking nothing but what the Lord wanted to give.[l] Joy leads to fortitude since it contained patience and compensated for suffering by transfiguring and transcending it. Joy is also identical to peace when there is total detachment. It made Francis the most independent, and at the same time, submissive of people. He was disciplined, having calm and deep spiritual feeling, an active will with total abandonment, naive simplicity coupled with daring.
Once freed of egotistical pleasure of the world there was nothing he did not love in creation. All creation had a divine stamp. He caught the celestial hymn from the entire universe, "He who made us is goodness itself."[li] He saw all creatures as coming from God. Their common origin set up a relationship of brotherhood of all life. His joy was that of someone who had mastered his interior faculties and was wholly at peace, detached so that he could always go to God. Nothing could disturb his optimism or his confidence in God.[lii] Не also had the innocence born of simplicity, showing itself in spontaneity, like preaching to the birds[liii] or having compassion for lambs being led to the slaughter.[liv]
Reality, for him, was in the invisible world, coloring everything he saw and did. He believed the world was a symbol and witness to the world beyond, the meaning revealed to the pure in heart. Everything pointed to God and taught him to conform to His will and be re-united with it. He saw the need to pass beyond creation to the creator who is the only fit object of contemplation.[lv]
In spite of all the nature stories connected with Francis I do not believe he was a nature mystic, as many have styled him to be. Most of these stories are told for the purpose of hagiography, to exemplify his virtues or to show that, in Francis, the Lord had restored the original innocence of paradise before the fall. More than any other mystic in history, I believe, he is the "mystic of Calvary." It has been said that all the operations of purification, illumination, and Union with God, which Christian spiritual directors consider part of the work of Christian perfection were accomplished in a lengthy, though simultaneous process in Francis' life. This was accomplished joyously and quickly by his seeking to resemble Christ, by having no motive for action. other than love, and by completely renouncing all material goods through poverty. This contrasts with the doctrines of other saints in it being a very simple spirituality attributing to divine grace and prayer the principal role in the work of perfection and reducing all other operations of interior life to one act: the most perfect resemblance to Christ.[lvi]
The event of La Verna was the highlight of Francis' mystical walk, the culmination of living as closely as possible in the imitation of Christ. As I mentioned earlier in the paper, I believe that Francis was feeling, to a greater or lesser extent, the pain of the wounds of Christ since 1206. The traditional story of this event has Francis keeping a fast from August 15 (the feast of the Assumption) to September 29 (St. Michael’s feast day) in the year 1224 on the mountain given to them years before as a retreat place. He stayed alone but was looked after by Brother Leo once or twice a day. On the 14th of September (this is the traditional date) he prayed that, in so far as possible, he might experience the pain that Christ suffered and the love that took him to the cross. Later that morning he had a vision of a seraphim, which is one of the angels that surround God's throne, with a crucified figure in its midst. When the vision had gone he felt and saw the five wounds of Calvary.[lvii] There is no
allowance made here for preparation. In this regard I want to quote St. John
of the Cross from his work The Living Flame of Love:
"Let us return to the work of the seraphim, for he truly inflicts a sore and wounds inwardly in the spirit. Thus, if God sometimes permits an effect to extend to the bodily senses in the fashion in which it existed interiorly, the wound and sore appears outwardly, as happened when the seraphim wounded St. Francis. When the soul is wounded with love by the five wounds, the effect extends to the body and these wounds are impressed on the body and it is wounded, just as the soul is wounded with love. God usually does not bestow a favor upon the body without bestowing it first and principally upon the soul. Thus the greater the delight and strength of love the wound produces in the soul, so much the greater is that produced by the wound outside on the body, and when there is an increase in one there is an increase in the other. This so happens because these souls are purified and established in God, and that which is a cause of pain and torment to their corruptible flesh is sweet and delectable to their strong and healthy spirit. It is, then, a wonderful experience to feel the pain augment with the delight.[lviii]
Thus for Francis, as for any Christian, this is the height of mystical experience possible on Earth. It was as perfect a likeness and communion with Christ as is possible. The paradox of having perfect joy through suffering, which is one of the distinguishing marks of Christianity, found completeness in him.
The spiritual high point of the visible stigmata should not detract from the long shadow Francis' life cast into the future. "All the threads of civilization in the subsequent centuries seem to hark back to Francis.”[lix] In many areas he was already into the Renaissance. The world of art and letters are indebted to him as he was the first Italian to write verse in his native language instead of Latin, for his famous "Canticle of Brother Sun and all the Creatures" was in his native Umbrian dialect. Francis representation of the Bethlehem scene was the first mystery play in Italy, and he is said to have borne a part in the revival of the drama as well.[lx]
But without doubt, the most important contribution of Francis is the imitation of Christ as a definite rule of the spiritual life. Francis influenced all Christian spirituality from that time on, not that others completely seized his ideal, but all have something in common with him. Francis changed Christian spirituality by first, putting it back on the foundation, of the person of Christ Jesus, secondly, by giving it its real purpose, union with Christ through all the powers of being, and thirdly, giving it the simplest of methods, striving after conformity with Christ. The birth and growth of this spirituality is one of the outstanding events in religious history. The influence of Francis was not only remarkable for its rapidity of growth, its spontaneity, and its efficacy but also for its duration and its depth.[lxi]
Endnotes
- Ephrem Longpre, 0.F.M., A Poor Man's Peace, Trans. by Paul Barrett, 0.F.M. Cap. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1969), p. 97 ↩
- Rosalind B. Brooke (ed. & trans.), Scripta Leonis, Rufini, et Angeli Sociorum S. Francisci; The Writings of Leo, Rufino, and Angelo Companions of St. Francis, (Oxford Medieval Texts, Gen. ed. V. H. Galbraith, et. al., London: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 3 ↩
- St. Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis, trans. by Ewert Cousins ("Classics of Western Spirituality,' N. Y.: Paulist Press, 1978) p. 6-7 ↩
- Longpre, p. 3 ↩
- Longpre, p. 4 ↩
- Longpre, p. 7. ↩
- Thomas of Celano, Saint Francis of Assisi, First and Second Life of St. Francis, trans. by Placid Hermann, O.F.M. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1963) I Celano 5, II Celano 6 ↩
- II Celano 6, 7 ↩
- II Celano 7 ↩
- Longpre, p. 98 ↩
- I Celano 6 ↩
- Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, I, 6 ↩
- II Celano 10 ↩
- II Celano 10 ↩
- I Celano 10-15 ↩
- Longpre, p. 14 ↩
- II Celano 12, 14 ↩
- I Celano 22 ↩
- Longpre, F. 14 ↩
- Brooke, p. 95 ↩
- I Celano 84 ↩
- II Celano 85 ↩
- Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis IX, 2 ↩
- John R. H. Moorman, Richest of Poor Men, (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1977) p. 19 ↩
- II Celano 201 ↩
- Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis IX, 1 ↩
- II Celano 95 ↩
- II Celano 94 ↩
- II Celano 95 ↩
- Moorman, p. 41. ↩
- II Celano 115 ↩
- Louis Lavelle, The Meaning of Holiness, (London: Burns and Oates, 1954) p. 43 ↩
- II Celano 21, 116, 134 ↩
- Gratien de Paris, O.F.M. Cap., I Know Christ: The Personality and Spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, trans. by Paul J. Oligny, O.F.M. (N.Y, The Franciscan Institute, St. Bonaventure Univ., 1957) p. 67 ↩
- St. Francis of Assisi, The Words of St. Francis, an Anthology, comp. and arranged by James Meyer, O.F.M. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1966) P. 74 ↩
- II Celano 55 ↩
- Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis VII, 2 ↩
- de Paris, p. 53 ↩
- St. Francis, p. 289 ↩
- Lavelle, p. 34 ↩
- I Celano 6 ↩
- St. Francis, p. 74 ↩
- Brooke, p. 91 ↩
- I Celano 58 ↩
- Brooke, p. 209, 211 ↩
- St. Francis, p. 74 ↩
- St. Francis, p. 265-266 ↩
- Johannes Jorgensen, St. Francis of Assisi, trans. by T. O'Conor Sloane, (Garden City, N.Y,: Doubleday and Comp., Inc., 1955) p. 202-205 ↩
- II Celano 125 ↩
- Lavelle, p. 39 ↩
- I Celano 165 ↩
- de Paris, p. 70 ↩
- I Celano 58 ↩
- I Celano 79 ↩
- Lavelle, p. 36 ↩
- de Paris, p. 67 ↩
- Ugolino di Monte Santa Maria, O.F.M., The Little Flowers of St. Francis, ed. & trans. by Raphael Brown (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Comp., Inc., 1958) Part II: The Considerations on the Holy Stigmata, 3 ↩
- St. John of the Cross, The Collected Works, trans. by Kieran Kavanaugh, 0.C.D., (Washington, D. C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1973) p. 599 ↩
- Paschal Robinson, "Francis of Assisi," The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. by Charles G. Herbermann, et. al., VI (1909), p. 229 ↩
- Robinson, p. 229 ↩
- de Paris, p. 80 ↩