Saint Francis (18 page)

In the modest home of the widow Giovanna, meanwhile, a solidly built, sunburned, jovial colossus was sitting by the fire warming himself. He watched his old aunt as she made the sign of the cross and blessed the name of the new saint-- that was what people had recently begun to call Francis. As he himself confessed to us a few days later, he laughed at her and teased her, saying: "Bah, a playboy doesn't become a saint as easily as all that! I'll go and find this saint of yours, this Francis--yes, I'll find him, or my name isn't Giles. And I'll take a bottle of wine with me, and some tender roast pork to whet his appetite, and you'll see if I don't get him stinking drunk on you. Then I'll slip a noose around his neck and lead him to the square. As soon as I clap my hands he'll start dancing like a trained bear!" Several days went by. Our group, now made up of four friars, left Assisi and found refuge in the deserted chapel, the Portiuncula. In front of the flowering almond tree we erected a hut made of branches coated with plaster--our first monastery.

For hours on end we knelt and raised our eyes to heaven, praying. Francis spoke to us of love, poverty, of peace--both the peace of each man's soul and the peace of the world. And I, who until now had done nothing but ask questions and investigate everything, now with the coming of the new friars, I learned to keep quiet. One day Sior Pietro said something which I shall never forget as long as I live: "The mind does nothing but talk, ask questions, search for meanings; the heart does not talk, does not ask questions, does not search for meanings. Silently, it moves toward God and surrenders itself to Him. The mind is Satan's lawyer; the heart is God's servant It bows and says to the Lord, 'Thy will be done!' "

Francis listened to these words, and smiled.

"Sior Pietro"--he always addressed him in this way, out of respect--"Sior Pietro, you are right. When I was a young student a learned theologian came to Assisi at Christmastime. He mounted the pulpit of San Ruffino's and began an oration that lasted for hours and hours, all about the birth of Christ and the salvation of the world and the terrible mystery of the Incarnation. My mind grew muddy; my head began to reel. Unable to stand it any longer, I shouted, 'Master, be still so that we can hear Christ crying in His cradle!' When we got back home, my father spanked me, but my mother took me aside secretly and gave me her blessing."

Brother Bernard rarely opened his mouth to speak. Every day at the crack of dawn he would be kneeling beneath a tree, rapt in prayer, and it was evident from his lowered eyelids, his sunken cheeks, and the slight tremor of his lips that he was conversing with God. When from time to time he did chance to speak to us, the moment he pronounced Christ's name he would lick his lips as though they had been daubed with honey.

It was our practice to scatter as soon as the sun began to rise. One would go to fetch water, another wood, the third to beg, and Francis to make the rounds of the streets of Assisi and the nearby villages preaching love: the "new madness." Very often he also took along a broom in order to sweep out the village churches. "They are God's houses," he used to say, "and I am the custodian: it is my responsibility."

As we were kneeling and saying our prayers inside the hut one morning--it was the day of the great feast of San Giorgio--my eye caught sight of a huge man approaching very very slowly, obviously spying on us. Under his arm he had an immense bottle of wine and also an object wrapped in lemon leaves. The smell of roast meat hit my nostrils.

He was as tall as a steeple, sunburned, heavily built. Coming up to our hut with light, noiseless steps he pushed his face against the wall and commenced to pry at us through the branches. I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

Francis had begun to speak to us as he did every morning, revealing what he had said to God during the night, and what God had said to him.

The concealed giant pricked up his ears and listened, mouth agape. Suddenly he turned around, walked hurriedly to a clump of trees and in a moment returned with his hands empty. Then he glued his face to the hut once more and continued to listen.

"Lord," Francis was saying at this point, "if I love Thee because I want Thee to place me in Paradise, send Thine angel with his scimitar and have him close the gates against me. If I love Thee because I fear the Inferno, hurl me down into the everlasting flames. But if I love Thee for Thine own sake, for Thy sake alone, then open wide Thine arms and receive me."

The man who had been secretly listening took a long stride and halted at the doorway. His face had turned pale; two large tears were running down his cheeks. Falling at Francis' feet, he cried, "Forgive me, Brother Francis. I am Giles, from Assisi, and I ridiculed you and made a wager that I could come and make you drunk, then slip a noose around your neck and bring you to the Piazza San Giorgio, where I would clap my hands and you would dance."

"And why not, Brother Giles," said Francis laughingly, "why not go and stand in the Piazza San Giorgio, where I'm sure everyone must be gathered today? You'll clap your hands and I'll dance. I don't want you to lose your wager."

He placed his hands under the other's arms and raised him up.

"Let's go," he said. "The people are waiting."

They left. Toward evening the three of us, Bernard, Pietro, and myself, were sitting outside the hut, waiting.

"Brother Francis is late," I said. "I wonder if he's still dancing."

"Yes, he's dancing," said Sior Pietro; and then, after a moment of silence: "Alas, I wouldn't have the courage to do such a thing. I'm still ashamed before men, and that means I still haven't learned to be ashamed before God."

As we were talking, Francis suddenly appeared; and behind him--huge, gay, stepping lightly as though he had wings--was Giles.

Francis took his companion by the hand and came up to us.

"He made me dance," he said with a laugh, "but I made him dance too! In the beginning I pranced all by myself before God, and he clapped his hands. But in a little while Brother Giles became jealous. He stopped clapping his hands, he grasped my shoulders, and the two of us began to dance together. It seemed that the whole of creation had taken hold of our shoulders and was dancing with us before God.

"And what a dance that was, my brothers! It is one thing for a person to dance by himself, and quite another when there are many--at first two, then three, then thirty-three, then a hundred thousand three, then all of mankind, and after that the animals and birds too, and then the trees and oceans and mountains: the whole of creation dancing before the Creator. Isn't it so, Brother Giles?"

"Don't give me any other job," he answered with a laugh. "Dancing is just fine! I shall place my hand on your shoulder, Brother Francis, and dance for all eternity."

"Let's welcome our new brother," said Francis, spreading his arms.

"Welcome! Welcome!" we all shouted, and we ran to embrace Giles.

The new friar blushed. There was something he wanted to say, but he hesitated to do so. Finally he worked up courage:

"Brother Francis, I've brought some food, and also a bottle of wine."

"We are celebrating your birthday today," said Francis, stroking Giles' broad shoulders. "Let's drink to your health. A little wine doesn't matter: God forgives us if we are unfaithful now and then to holy hunger and holy thirst. So, bring on the tools of sin!"

With a bound Giles went to the bushes and drew out the roast pig and bottle of wine.

"To Brother Giles!" said Francis, lifting the bottle. "Today he was born: may he thrive! Today he married. Today he sired a daughter--let us wish him all happiness. Her name is Poverty!"

Not many days had gone by before Father Silvester appeared at the doorway of the Portiuncula, just as we were leaving for our daily tasks. He came with lowered head, mortally ashamed, his eyes red from continued weeping, his hands trembling. Under his arm he carried a bundle.

Francis greeted him with open arms. "How splendid to see you, Father Silvester," he said. "What wind brings you to our shanty?"

"The wind of God," answered the priest. "The other day you upbraided me, Brother Francis, and your words were flames: they burned and cleansed my heart."

"They were not my words, Father Silvester, they were Christ's."

"Yes, they were Christ's words, but the way you said them, Brother Francis, made me feel as though I were hearing them for the first time, as though I had never read the Gospels. I've always read them every day, but the words of Christ have been just so many letters, so much noise--never fire. For the first time--thanks to you, Brother Francis--I understood the meaning of poverty, of love, and what God's will is. . . . And so, I came."

"What have you got in the bundle?"

"A change of clothes, my good sandals, and other things I'm particularly attached to."

Francis laughed.

"There was once an ascetic," he said, "who had been struggling for years and years to see God, but without success. Something always loomed up before him and prevented him. The unfortunate man wept, shouted, implored --in vain! He just could not understand what it was that kept him from seeing God. One morning, however, he leapt out of bed, overjoyed. He had found it! It was a small, richly decorated pitcher which was the sole object he had retained from among all his possessions, so dearly did he love it. Now he seized it and with one blow smashed it into a thousand pieces. Then, lifting his eyes, he saw God for the first time. . . .

"Father Silvester, if you wish to see God, throw away your bundle."

Observing the priest hesitate, he took him tenderly by the hand and said, "Come with me. We shall walk along the road and you, out of love for Christ, will give your bundle to the first poor man we meet. People do not get into heaven with bundles, Father Silvester!"

"Can't I keep my sandals, just my sandals?" asked the priest, still balking.

"You have to be barefooted to enter Paradise," said Francis. "Stop trying to bargain, my brother, and come!"

Thus, as the wolf snatches up the lamb in its teeth, Francis snatched up Father Silvester in order to toss him into heaven.

Thy grace, Lord, is great, exceedingly great, and rich and many-eyed like the tail of a peacock. It overlays the world from end to end; spreads out, covers even the most humble souls, filling them with splendor. Witness the fact that before many days had passed, two good-for-nothings, the butt of all Assisi, came and kissed Francis' hand, asking to be accepted as brothers. One was Sabbatino, the other a man called Capella because he constantly, even when asleep, wore a tall hat of green velvet garnished with a red ribbon. I remembered Sabbatino immediately as the one who had sneered at Francis the night I arrived in Assisi looking for a decent Christian to give me alms. He was skinny and jaundiced, with a mousy expression and a hairy wart on his nose, whereas Capella was lanky, ungainly, and had long drooping mustaches, a monstrous pointed nose, and rabbit- like lips. He stuttered when he spoke, becoming all tangled up in his words.

"I can't sleep any more, Brother Francis," Sabbatino began. "I said bad things about you. I envied you because you were rich and I poor, you were handsome and I ugly, you were well dressed and I had nothing but rags. Lately, every night I've lain down to go to sleep I knew it would be in vain. And if I did happen to fall asleep for a few moments you would come in my dreams and say to me, 'It doesn't matter, Brother Sabbatino, I hold no grudge against you, so go to sleep.' Your kindness tore my heart in two. I couldn't stand it any longer, and so I came. Do with me what you will. I shall follow your footsteps to the death!"

"I too," said Capella, "I too--with you to the death, Brother Francis. I'm sick of the world; the world is sick of me. What refuge is left me now except God? But I'll come with you only on one condition, Brother Francis: that you let me wear my hat. I don't want a hood. You'll say this is an eccentricity, but I'm used to this hat; in fact I feel it's just the same as my head. If you make me take it off I'll think you are decapitating me."

Francis laughed, but then his expression immediately grew severe.

"Take care, my brother," he said to him. "Could not the devil have become a hat and seated himself on your head? Take care he does not push you along the downhill road. From the hat the next step down may be the robe: you'll say, 'I don't want it!' And from the robe you may descend to the friars, saying, 'I don't want them!' And from the friars to love, saying, 'I don't want it!' And from love, to God, saying, 'I don't want Him!' "

Francis remained silent for a moment, plunged in thought.

"The uphill road," he continued, "has a summit: God; the downhill road has a bottom: the Inferno. This hat, my child, may hurl you down into hell."

He gazed deeply into Capella's eyes, and the new convert, unable to restrain himself, burst into sobs.

"If you don't give me the permission I ask of you," he said, "I'll leave you, and then I'm doomed."

Francis felt sorry for him. He placed his hand on the other's shoulder.

"Stay," he said. "I have hopes that God will win!"

How many souls in this world yearn for salvation and are ready to run headlong into the waiting arms of the Lord the moment they hear a voice inviting them! Whether they are respectable homeowners or disreputable tramps, one night they hear someone calling them in the silence. They jump to their feet with thumping hearts and all at once everything they have done up to that point seems vain, useless. They feel themselves ensnared in the Sly One's lime twig, and thus they fall at the feet of the person who called them and cry, "Take me, save me; you are the one I have been waiting for."