Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 22, 2019 10:45:15 GMT -8
Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life
by Adrian House
Info: Kindle edition, Review by J.A. Wayne Hellman, Presentation on C-SPAN2 BookTV.
Genre: biography
Publication Date: June 27, 2000
Length: 351 pages
Summary: Adrian House saunters through the life of Francis of Assisi much as Francis himself traveled the Italian countryside. He is in no hurry and takes time to digest the curiosities of his journey. On occasion he stops altogether to sing and celebrate what he has discovered.
This is the second of four extensive biographies that I’ve read on the life of Francis of Assisi. And this one is a gem. Adrian House weaves in interesting aspects of medieval history, and its customs and practices, into this biography of this extraordinary man.
Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life immerses you in the medieval poverty, decadence, and violence of feudal Italy, although in Francis’ time, parts of Italy were slowly giving way to free-market capitalism. Money was starting to be coined and it was opening up opportunities for those other than the church and princely land owners to profit from their hard work, including Francis' father who become a prosperous fabric merchant.
This was somewhat the start of the middle class and is a glimpse of the beginning of modern times. You realize how far we have come and how relatively precarious our own position of prosperity is today when you see how easily people can be constrained by aristocratic power structures which tend to develop. Today in our own world we see the middle class being squeezed as Big Government, and the political class (of both parties), are morphing themselves into our supposed aristocratic betters. They wish to “care” for us (read: control us), as is the stated purpose of any aristocracy. And as they do so, the life of the people below them is made worse.
The relevance of such a book to today
One may wonder if biographies such as this hold any relevance to our day, whether one is religious or not. It’s easy to forget that “Progressivism” has, to some extent, become our state religion. And many ideas come along with that, including the idea that real meaning is found through environmental causes or marching in the victim-of-the-week parades while wearing the correct color of ribbon. The life of Francis is no less than a poke in the eye to the idea that life is meaningless, religion is inherently stultifying, and that all the really smart people watch Jon Stewart. It’s the idea that there are deeper things in life than just whatever cultural trend or human affectation is making the rounds. Francis was (as the book title suggests) about being a true revolutionary rather than just a fashionable poser.
Francis was a deep believer in Christianity, and yet he set the Christian establishment of the time on its ear by showing that human decency, charity, compassion, and even good humor were real and substantial tonics for what ails mankind. While others were anointing themselves in their own supposed superiority via their position in the hierarchy, Francis was out amongst the lepers rolling up his sleeves and dealing directly in the world. And by doing so he reinforced the idea of finding sanctity via creative and passionate engagement in the world rather than staying at a distance or lording oneself over it. To Francis, the world was a great Creation and one to be cherished and personally attended to.
Francis has since been made a saint, but he was a man that the everyday person could relate to. He is not someone to put on the shelf to collect dust and admire from afar as you would a wax doll painted up nice. Yes, he was kind and compassionate, but he was also funny, energetic, driven, and full of human foibles that made him relatable. Francis was not some far-away god, angel, or devil. He was a real, tangible, living human being with all the failings of youth who (eventually) became an example of what man can be in the here and now, whatever may or may not come in the hereafter. A study of Francis is a study of the best — and the worst — of human life.
The appeal of Francis
Although the author’s style of writing is a wee rough at times, what emerges from House’s biography is Francis’ appeal. When you or I think "religious order" we probably roll our eyes and are bored to tears by the thought of going door-to-door trying to convert people or to sell them monogrammed bibles for $49.99. But Francis wasn't Pat Robertson. Francis was more like Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, or Donald Trump, all rolled into one, with a firm belief in God and a buoyant joy for life. He was funny, charismatic, and although extremely disciplined (and expected no less from others...this was not some goofy “kumbaya” pushover), was evocative of the joy of life. The author states "...Francis’s insistence that joy, harmony, and gratitude for the ubiquitous beauty of creation, were essential to the proper life...”
Living in such squalid times in which the corrupt Church was often a source of cynicism, rather than inspiration, people were drawn to Francis. Francis wasn't a dour bible-thumper, per se. He was, in his own mind as well, a Troubadour. He was a knight for God. Francis, and many of the people in his age, idealized the Arthurian idea of the chivalrous knight. That is one thing that drew Francis to the Crusades. He later renounced violence, but certainly took his part in it early in his life to some extent. There were many exciting and noble ideas in his day about what a knight or Troubadour were all about. Francis eventually took the romantic ideal of the Troubadour (apart from the lusty part), combined it with a non-violent image of the knight's quest, and started his Friars Minor.
Francis was a magnet to people even before he started his order. In his youth, and before his spiritual conversion, he was at the center of his drunken and debauching circle of rich Assisi friends. He might have sold snow to Eskimos had that been his calling, such was the draw of his effervescent personality. But Francis eventually chose a different route than the eternal playboy. He took the gifts of his charming personality and abundant energy to a cause other than self-indulgence. And when he did, he (and his message) attracted people to his way of life, for as the author notes ”[there were] poor penitents springing up everywhere, the men preferring a philanthropic to a cutthroat existence and the women to take charge of their own lives.”
Clare, inspired by Francis, started an order for women based upon his rules and was immediately responsible to Francis himself. In that day and age, women didn't have much freedom. As odd as this notion would be secular or anti-religious types, it was in a religious order for women, particularly Clare’s, where women had much more say over their lives. And thousands of women took this route.
Following Francis — A difficult path but a way out
It's interesting to note the idea of men wanting to escape the normal "cutthroat experience" of the day. Compared to today in the West, the age that Francis lived in was indeed a much harsher life and there was much that one would want to escape from. And without a doubt, the desire to escape the normal harsh realities of life — the “cutthroat experience” — is much the same motivation that has many people running today to socialism. The difference is, in Francis' day, joining his order (or some other order) was voluntary. If that's what you wanted to do, and if you were willing to abide by the rules of the order, you could do so. You could give up all your worldly possessions and align your life around a different pursuit.
But it was not something that the Friars Minor tried to impose on others through government. Nor were they naive about the reality that life inherently contained hardships and duties. They did not feel the hard weight of existence (which is inherently a competitive struggle) and wish to forcibly stamp it out and demonize anyone as "evil" or "greedy" if they wished to pursue a career in private business or otherwise enjoy the comforts of the world. Francis didn't go around demonizing the oil companies of his day. (Please don't mention this to modern day Franciscans. I don't think most of them could comprehend the difference. Many seem to have taken thoroughly onboard the Marxist-socialist vibe.) In fact, Francis specifically forbade demonizing the rich and understood an aspect of poverty that was holy.
For Francis, this was a religious calling. And yet what he was doing, and the way in which he was doing it, is probably something our modern mind cannot relate to. But back in his time, he was considered as cool as an iPhone. His order was not dowdy and stuffy. His was not a retreat from the world but a full engagement with it. And although the emphasis was on the sanctity of poverty, Clare's earliest companions, just like Francis's, were often drawn from the majores (the “nobles” or the wealthy in Francis' day). Francis combined the true spirit of Christ with the excitement of a quest. I cannot think of any equivalent to this in our time. The idea of “religious” and cutting-edge-cultural-excitement don’t tend to mix. Nor does the idea of worth being measured beyond the material. It’s okay today to believe in Jesus, as long as you don’t have to really believe.
Extremely rich and privileged yutes of Assisi and elsewhere gave it all up to join Francis (or his sister in his crusade, Clare). Rather than escaping the world, they were on a rich and adventurous quest deeply into it. This was cutting-edge stuff, perhaps vaguely similar to the fervor and idealism attached to JFK's Peace Corps, but with a grounding in something far more substantial, and with a leader of true moral merit. And yet this movement was not simply maintained by the fire of zealotry, fleeting passions, or promise of amusement to escape the normal drudgery. The author notes:
Francis worked very hard to remain humble and to avoid producing anything like a Piety Aristocracy. (He would not even give himself the title of "Prior" for fear of setting himself above others.) One day he overheard one of his brothers criticizing a beggar for simply being a beggar and had that brother kneel down before the beggar and beg his forgiveness for his arrogance. Many of the Cardinals in Rome — hard-bitten, sometimes corrupt, and having certainly seen their share of charlatans and nut-jobs come and go — were often quickly won over by Francis' tangible sincerity, clarity, goodness, and good humor. It wasn't an act. Whether or not it was a divine expression of goodness, Francis brought weight to the idea of an all-loving God in a world that was full of sadness, disease, war, injustice, and shit-happens. And he lived his ideals (ideals he found in such a rare place as the actual Gospels) to a remarkable degree.
House gives a splendid summing-up of the gist of Francis and his Order:
Although Francis was very obedient to the established religious order, he was also fundamentally not of that established order. People liked him, in part, because of this. House notes:
This was a man leading a movement whose charisma, grace, and compassion were a huge draw. But he did not draw out a mob. If ever it was true that “You will know them by their fruits,” this was a great and wondrous instance of that.
A Reformation come early
This biography paints a picture of the people (at least in Italy) having a very cynical view of religion. It is said that the success of Francis put off the Reformation by about 300 years. That may be the case. But I do think that the Church had become somewhat like our own Federal government: Big, bloated, corrupt, and often not looking out for the needs of people.
Francis, on the other hand, did connect with people. Converts to his order were free to express their mystical, spiritual, and religiosity in a more vibrant way, and without the omnipresent and oppressive Church breathing down their necks. It was an odd thing, since Francis himself was fully endorsed by the Church. It was not just a cold calculation, for some quite high up in the Church were truly moved by Francis. But they (including the pope) also saw him as a way to re-invigorate the Church. And that is precisely what Francis did.
And whatever one believes about the particulars of a religion, I think Adrian House provides an apt description of the difference between the St. Francis types, fresh with the love of life, and the religious bureaucrat types. Here House is talking about Ugolino, advisor and protector of the order, and who later became Pope Gregory IX:
Francis and his order brought a new sense of energy, joy, and unstuffy freedom to the idea of God. There was no escaping the Church and its requirement for authority and obedience. Francis was by no means a heretic and stressed obedience to the existing authority. And yet his very example was subversive to that pedantic, stuffy, often corrupt authority. Perhaps the only reason he was not killed was because he was absolutely sincere. He was not evangelizing against the Church but for his idea of what the Gospels said a person should do.
It also was a great help that his personal charm and communication abilities won over many of the people high in the hierarchy who otherwise would have stamped him out like a flea. But Francis is said to have radiated goodness. One could say that if there is a God, if there is some kind of goodness-from-on-high that courses in and through reality, Francis makes a good case of himself being a conduit of that. Here’s another quote by Adrian House regarding this difference:
There is much that we can learn from that today. Too often religion, despite the trappings, is just a commercial enterprise, even if the product is supposedly god. In free society, if that's what people want, or that is how they relate to reality, then fine. But the life of Francis was more than about getting past the church hierarchy and getting back to basics. It was about getting back to goodness itself through concrete actions rather than goodness via merely obeying authorities or being good by proxy because you maintain certain beliefs or belong to certain organizations or perform the right rituals. Francis was no dishonest "virtue signaler."
A peaceful revolution
Francis is one of those rare cases of being a revolutionary who didn’t leave a body count because of over-reaching or excessive zealotry and ambition. Every revolutionary promises a better way while usually disguising their true motivations (power). In Francis, the power, so to speak, was in lessening himself and living a Christ-like life as he saw it (and, really, as the bible describes it). In a cynical and brutish world, he was quite literally an idea that has become a mere cliché to us today. Francis was “a breath of fresh air.”
Francis was an interesting mix of a “back to basics” reactionary (he was, after all, all about returning to a pretty old-fashioned idea about the meaning of the Gospels) as well as a true revolutionary. The church of his time did all it could to maintain itself as the one and only franchise of god. Francis was able to do an end run around this to some extent. Arguably, what allowed him to stay out of trouble and to avoid being burnt at the stake was that he didn't go around bad-mouthing the Catholic Church by saying how excessively rich and materialistic it had become (even if this was so obviously true). He simply lived his idea of poverty by example and with more or less positive good cheer. This wasn't a covert political statement by him. He wasn't trying to make anyone else look bad. It's what he really believed.
We often struggle today with excessive materialism. Awash in iPhones and all sorts of wonderful gadgets, it’s difficult not to measure life by what we have. And in Francis’ time, he was the proverbial “rich kid.” He had all the best material stuff that a young man could have in his age and he indulged himself fully. And then he hit a wall. Try as he might, he was not fulfilled by his lifestyle. Inherent to Francis’ way is setting aside the material concerns and thereby coming closer to the Divine and to things of lasting permanence.
Francis was by no means the first ascetic, but he was certainly unique in making it a very positive (and popular) expression of life, rather than a rejection of life or an inherently dour and pessimistic thing. If there is more to life than iPads, then living without iPads was Francis' way and no one missed them. It was a different kind of joy, but a joy nonetheless. And it was a joy that made Francis acutely aware of the wonders of nature. Adrian House says of Francis:
There was a darker side to Francis as well, the one that was particularly harsh with "Brother Ass," as he called his own body. He took terrible care of himself and took poverty to an extreme much of the time. And yet, rather than making him hard-hearted and dour (which wasn't in his blood no matter what....he was a fun-loving and likable guy), this was his means to transcend his "business as usual" nature which, for him, was an extremely self-centered party-animal kind of guy. He had a past and he was well aware of it.
More to life than "stuff"
Through sheer will, and through commitment to his ideals, he sculpted himself into something else. He turned his "all or nothing" exuberant energy in a direction other than the accumulation of iPhones and other material things. He may or may not be right that there is more to life than wordily distractions and gadgets, but by sheer will, faith, and commitment, he made a pretty good case that there could be. Whether he made his destiny or revealed it, it's hard to know. But he was a bright and inspirational spark in a world of sad, dull grays.
Although Francis himself, and his order, were extremely disciplined, they also had an air of quest-like adventure and freedom about them. And this was a huge draw at the time, and still is to some extent. There was also a keen sense of integrity to Francis. He was hardly the self-righteous Al Gore of his time, flying around in a jet and living in luxury while selling carbon credits and telling the rest of us why we must do with less. Francis asked nothing of others he wasn't willing to do himself, and what he asked was completely voluntary.
His lay order (The Third Order) was hugely popular in his day. People were thirsting for something that they couldn't find from the often old, tired, and corrupt Church hierarchy which was often more involved in worldly power than spiritual pursuits. The theme running through this book was that the actual parish priests of the day typically where often anything but holy men, to put it mildly.
The centrality of his honoring of material poverty became somewhat of a short-term proposition. Without this sincere, charismatic leader around to inspire by example, his Order gravitated toward the worldly. The Brothers Minor began to own property and become quite rich and relatively cozy themselves. And Modern Franciscans, rather than being Christ-like, are increasingly Karl Marx-like — often little more than socialists in disguise. All religious orders and institutions will tend to slide toward the mundane, bureaucratized into something stable but which often lacks the true heart and zest that ignited the Order in the first place. Or they will take up newfangled “social causes” to try to remain “relevant.”
But for a time there was a Troubadour who lived life by his large ideals which were constructive, not destructive. He was filled with love, not the desire to tear things down. For Francis, the words of Christ were the words to live by. His freshness, sincerity, and integrity are things needed in any age and that are too often missing in our own.
by Adrian House
Info: Kindle edition, Review by J.A. Wayne Hellman, Presentation on C-SPAN2 BookTV.
Genre: biography
Publication Date: June 27, 2000
Length: 351 pages
Summary: Adrian House saunters through the life of Francis of Assisi much as Francis himself traveled the Italian countryside. He is in no hurry and takes time to digest the curiosities of his journey. On occasion he stops altogether to sing and celebrate what he has discovered.
This is the second of four extensive biographies that I’ve read on the life of Francis of Assisi. And this one is a gem. Adrian House weaves in interesting aspects of medieval history, and its customs and practices, into this biography of this extraordinary man.Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life immerses you in the medieval poverty, decadence, and violence of feudal Italy, although in Francis’ time, parts of Italy were slowly giving way to free-market capitalism. Money was starting to be coined and it was opening up opportunities for those other than the church and princely land owners to profit from their hard work, including Francis' father who become a prosperous fabric merchant.
This was somewhat the start of the middle class and is a glimpse of the beginning of modern times. You realize how far we have come and how relatively precarious our own position of prosperity is today when you see how easily people can be constrained by aristocratic power structures which tend to develop. Today in our own world we see the middle class being squeezed as Big Government, and the political class (of both parties), are morphing themselves into our supposed aristocratic betters. They wish to “care” for us (read: control us), as is the stated purpose of any aristocracy. And as they do so, the life of the people below them is made worse.
The relevance of such a book to today
One may wonder if biographies such as this hold any relevance to our day, whether one is religious or not. It’s easy to forget that “Progressivism” has, to some extent, become our state religion. And many ideas come along with that, including the idea that real meaning is found through environmental causes or marching in the victim-of-the-week parades while wearing the correct color of ribbon. The life of Francis is no less than a poke in the eye to the idea that life is meaningless, religion is inherently stultifying, and that all the really smart people watch Jon Stewart. It’s the idea that there are deeper things in life than just whatever cultural trend or human affectation is making the rounds. Francis was (as the book title suggests) about being a true revolutionary rather than just a fashionable poser.
Francis was a deep believer in Christianity, and yet he set the Christian establishment of the time on its ear by showing that human decency, charity, compassion, and even good humor were real and substantial tonics for what ails mankind. While others were anointing themselves in their own supposed superiority via their position in the hierarchy, Francis was out amongst the lepers rolling up his sleeves and dealing directly in the world. And by doing so he reinforced the idea of finding sanctity via creative and passionate engagement in the world rather than staying at a distance or lording oneself over it. To Francis, the world was a great Creation and one to be cherished and personally attended to.
Francis has since been made a saint, but he was a man that the everyday person could relate to. He is not someone to put on the shelf to collect dust and admire from afar as you would a wax doll painted up nice. Yes, he was kind and compassionate, but he was also funny, energetic, driven, and full of human foibles that made him relatable. Francis was not some far-away god, angel, or devil. He was a real, tangible, living human being with all the failings of youth who (eventually) became an example of what man can be in the here and now, whatever may or may not come in the hereafter. A study of Francis is a study of the best — and the worst — of human life.
The appeal of Francis
Although the author’s style of writing is a wee rough at times, what emerges from House’s biography is Francis’ appeal. When you or I think "religious order" we probably roll our eyes and are bored to tears by the thought of going door-to-door trying to convert people or to sell them monogrammed bibles for $49.99. But Francis wasn't Pat Robertson. Francis was more like Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, or Donald Trump, all rolled into one, with a firm belief in God and a buoyant joy for life. He was funny, charismatic, and although extremely disciplined (and expected no less from others...this was not some goofy “kumbaya” pushover), was evocative of the joy of life. The author states "...Francis’s insistence that joy, harmony, and gratitude for the ubiquitous beauty of creation, were essential to the proper life...”
Living in such squalid times in which the corrupt Church was often a source of cynicism, rather than inspiration, people were drawn to Francis. Francis wasn't a dour bible-thumper, per se. He was, in his own mind as well, a Troubadour. He was a knight for God. Francis, and many of the people in his age, idealized the Arthurian idea of the chivalrous knight. That is one thing that drew Francis to the Crusades. He later renounced violence, but certainly took his part in it early in his life to some extent. There were many exciting and noble ideas in his day about what a knight or Troubadour were all about. Francis eventually took the romantic ideal of the Troubadour (apart from the lusty part), combined it with a non-violent image of the knight's quest, and started his Friars Minor.
Francis was a magnet to people even before he started his order. In his youth, and before his spiritual conversion, he was at the center of his drunken and debauching circle of rich Assisi friends. He might have sold snow to Eskimos had that been his calling, such was the draw of his effervescent personality. But Francis eventually chose a different route than the eternal playboy. He took the gifts of his charming personality and abundant energy to a cause other than self-indulgence. And when he did, he (and his message) attracted people to his way of life, for as the author notes ”[there were] poor penitents springing up everywhere, the men preferring a philanthropic to a cutthroat existence and the women to take charge of their own lives.”
Clare, inspired by Francis, started an order for women based upon his rules and was immediately responsible to Francis himself. In that day and age, women didn't have much freedom. As odd as this notion would be secular or anti-religious types, it was in a religious order for women, particularly Clare’s, where women had much more say over their lives. And thousands of women took this route.
Following Francis — A difficult path but a way out
It's interesting to note the idea of men wanting to escape the normal "cutthroat experience" of the day. Compared to today in the West, the age that Francis lived in was indeed a much harsher life and there was much that one would want to escape from. And without a doubt, the desire to escape the normal harsh realities of life — the “cutthroat experience” — is much the same motivation that has many people running today to socialism. The difference is, in Francis' day, joining his order (or some other order) was voluntary. If that's what you wanted to do, and if you were willing to abide by the rules of the order, you could do so. You could give up all your worldly possessions and align your life around a different pursuit.
But it was not something that the Friars Minor tried to impose on others through government. Nor were they naive about the reality that life inherently contained hardships and duties. They did not feel the hard weight of existence (which is inherently a competitive struggle) and wish to forcibly stamp it out and demonize anyone as "evil" or "greedy" if they wished to pursue a career in private business or otherwise enjoy the comforts of the world. Francis didn't go around demonizing the oil companies of his day. (Please don't mention this to modern day Franciscans. I don't think most of them could comprehend the difference. Many seem to have taken thoroughly onboard the Marxist-socialist vibe.) In fact, Francis specifically forbade demonizing the rich and understood an aspect of poverty that was holy.
For Francis, this was a religious calling. And yet what he was doing, and the way in which he was doing it, is probably something our modern mind cannot relate to. But back in his time, he was considered as cool as an iPhone. His order was not dowdy and stuffy. His was not a retreat from the world but a full engagement with it. And although the emphasis was on the sanctity of poverty, Clare's earliest companions, just like Francis's, were often drawn from the majores (the “nobles” or the wealthy in Francis' day). Francis combined the true spirit of Christ with the excitement of a quest. I cannot think of any equivalent to this in our time. The idea of “religious” and cutting-edge-cultural-excitement don’t tend to mix. Nor does the idea of worth being measured beyond the material. It’s okay today to believe in Jesus, as long as you don’t have to really believe.
Extremely rich and privileged yutes of Assisi and elsewhere gave it all up to join Francis (or his sister in his crusade, Clare). Rather than escaping the world, they were on a rich and adventurous quest deeply into it. This was cutting-edge stuff, perhaps vaguely similar to the fervor and idealism attached to JFK's Peace Corps, but with a grounding in something far more substantial, and with a leader of true moral merit. And yet this movement was not simply maintained by the fire of zealotry, fleeting passions, or promise of amusement to escape the normal drudgery. The author notes:
It is often said of him that he possessed genius, and he certainly exercised an exceptional ability to engage people's spirits with God and each other, so that their capacity for love and their will to help others was constantly strengthened. Of course their hearts and minds were involved in this but his inspiration appealed to the deeper dimension of their souls, though he and his friars exerted their moral influence through an unassuming metaphysical light rather than the ostentatious fire of the zealous.
Francis worked very hard to remain humble and to avoid producing anything like a Piety Aristocracy. (He would not even give himself the title of "Prior" for fear of setting himself above others.) One day he overheard one of his brothers criticizing a beggar for simply being a beggar and had that brother kneel down before the beggar and beg his forgiveness for his arrogance. Many of the Cardinals in Rome — hard-bitten, sometimes corrupt, and having certainly seen their share of charlatans and nut-jobs come and go — were often quickly won over by Francis' tangible sincerity, clarity, goodness, and good humor. It wasn't an act. Whether or not it was a divine expression of goodness, Francis brought weight to the idea of an all-loving God in a world that was full of sadness, disease, war, injustice, and shit-happens. And he lived his ideals (ideals he found in such a rare place as the actual Gospels) to a remarkable degree.
House gives a splendid summing-up of the gist of Francis and his Order:
Fundamentally they and Francis developed their perception of the world's actual or potential rhythms and harmonies — physical, musical, visual, intellectual — to benefit mankind through their creation of beauty, revelations of truth, or demonstration of goodness.
Although Francis was very obedient to the established religious order, he was also fundamentally not of that established order. People liked him, in part, because of this. House notes:
Whenever Francis stood up to speak, however ill he felt, he still drew crowds even among the mutinous people of Rome, many of whom were surprised and grateful if someone cared for them enough to preach in their own language. Men and women pressed to join his order of penitents, the least susceptible of the three to clerical interference, the least in need of his protection, and the only one to give him unalloyed pleasure at the end of his life.
This was a man leading a movement whose charisma, grace, and compassion were a huge draw. But he did not draw out a mob. If ever it was true that “You will know them by their fruits,” this was a great and wondrous instance of that.
A Reformation come early
This biography paints a picture of the people (at least in Italy) having a very cynical view of religion. It is said that the success of Francis put off the Reformation by about 300 years. That may be the case. But I do think that the Church had become somewhat like our own Federal government: Big, bloated, corrupt, and often not looking out for the needs of people.
Francis, on the other hand, did connect with people. Converts to his order were free to express their mystical, spiritual, and religiosity in a more vibrant way, and without the omnipresent and oppressive Church breathing down their necks. It was an odd thing, since Francis himself was fully endorsed by the Church. It was not just a cold calculation, for some quite high up in the Church were truly moved by Francis. But they (including the pope) also saw him as a way to re-invigorate the Church. And that is precisely what Francis did.
And whatever one believes about the particulars of a religion, I think Adrian House provides an apt description of the difference between the St. Francis types, fresh with the love of life, and the religious bureaucrat types. Here House is talking about Ugolino, advisor and protector of the order, and who later became Pope Gregory IX:
Despite his genuine devotion for Francis and Clare, and for all this admiring tears of compassion when faced with the penury of the friars at Santa Maria and their equally penniless sisters in their convent at Spoleto, he was marching to a quite different drum. His paramount loyalty was to the Church of Rome established in dogma, theirs to the Kingdom of Christ revealed in the gospels.
Francis and his order brought a new sense of energy, joy, and unstuffy freedom to the idea of God. There was no escaping the Church and its requirement for authority and obedience. Francis was by no means a heretic and stressed obedience to the existing authority. And yet his very example was subversive to that pedantic, stuffy, often corrupt authority. Perhaps the only reason he was not killed was because he was absolutely sincere. He was not evangelizing against the Church but for his idea of what the Gospels said a person should do.
It also was a great help that his personal charm and communication abilities won over many of the people high in the hierarchy who otherwise would have stamped him out like a flea. But Francis is said to have radiated goodness. One could say that if there is a God, if there is some kind of goodness-from-on-high that courses in and through reality, Francis makes a good case of himself being a conduit of that. Here’s another quote by Adrian House regarding this difference:
For Francis, Christ was his compass and God his magnetic north; but for rigidly orthodox bishops and cardinals like Ugolino, the pope was their compass and church dogma their pole.
There is much that we can learn from that today. Too often religion, despite the trappings, is just a commercial enterprise, even if the product is supposedly god. In free society, if that's what people want, or that is how they relate to reality, then fine. But the life of Francis was more than about getting past the church hierarchy and getting back to basics. It was about getting back to goodness itself through concrete actions rather than goodness via merely obeying authorities or being good by proxy because you maintain certain beliefs or belong to certain organizations or perform the right rituals. Francis was no dishonest "virtue signaler."
A peaceful revolution
Francis is one of those rare cases of being a revolutionary who didn’t leave a body count because of over-reaching or excessive zealotry and ambition. Every revolutionary promises a better way while usually disguising their true motivations (power). In Francis, the power, so to speak, was in lessening himself and living a Christ-like life as he saw it (and, really, as the bible describes it). In a cynical and brutish world, he was quite literally an idea that has become a mere cliché to us today. Francis was “a breath of fresh air.”
Francis was an interesting mix of a “back to basics” reactionary (he was, after all, all about returning to a pretty old-fashioned idea about the meaning of the Gospels) as well as a true revolutionary. The church of his time did all it could to maintain itself as the one and only franchise of god. Francis was able to do an end run around this to some extent. Arguably, what allowed him to stay out of trouble and to avoid being burnt at the stake was that he didn't go around bad-mouthing the Catholic Church by saying how excessively rich and materialistic it had become (even if this was so obviously true). He simply lived his idea of poverty by example and with more or less positive good cheer. This wasn't a covert political statement by him. He wasn't trying to make anyone else look bad. It's what he really believed.
We often struggle today with excessive materialism. Awash in iPhones and all sorts of wonderful gadgets, it’s difficult not to measure life by what we have. And in Francis’ time, he was the proverbial “rich kid.” He had all the best material stuff that a young man could have in his age and he indulged himself fully. And then he hit a wall. Try as he might, he was not fulfilled by his lifestyle. Inherent to Francis’ way is setting aside the material concerns and thereby coming closer to the Divine and to things of lasting permanence.
Francis was by no means the first ascetic, but he was certainly unique in making it a very positive (and popular) expression of life, rather than a rejection of life or an inherently dour and pessimistic thing. If there is more to life than iPads, then living without iPads was Francis' way and no one missed them. It was a different kind of joy, but a joy nonetheless. And it was a joy that made Francis acutely aware of the wonders of nature. Adrian House says of Francis:
Nevertheless, it has much in common with Francis's insistence that joy, harmony, and gratitude for the ubiquitous beauty of creation, were essential to the proper life of a friar.
There was a darker side to Francis as well, the one that was particularly harsh with "Brother Ass," as he called his own body. He took terrible care of himself and took poverty to an extreme much of the time. And yet, rather than making him hard-hearted and dour (which wasn't in his blood no matter what....he was a fun-loving and likable guy), this was his means to transcend his "business as usual" nature which, for him, was an extremely self-centered party-animal kind of guy. He had a past and he was well aware of it.
More to life than "stuff"
Through sheer will, and through commitment to his ideals, he sculpted himself into something else. He turned his "all or nothing" exuberant energy in a direction other than the accumulation of iPhones and other material things. He may or may not be right that there is more to life than wordily distractions and gadgets, but by sheer will, faith, and commitment, he made a pretty good case that there could be. Whether he made his destiny or revealed it, it's hard to know. But he was a bright and inspirational spark in a world of sad, dull grays.
Although Francis himself, and his order, were extremely disciplined, they also had an air of quest-like adventure and freedom about them. And this was a huge draw at the time, and still is to some extent. There was also a keen sense of integrity to Francis. He was hardly the self-righteous Al Gore of his time, flying around in a jet and living in luxury while selling carbon credits and telling the rest of us why we must do with less. Francis asked nothing of others he wasn't willing to do himself, and what he asked was completely voluntary.
His lay order (The Third Order) was hugely popular in his day. People were thirsting for something that they couldn't find from the often old, tired, and corrupt Church hierarchy which was often more involved in worldly power than spiritual pursuits. The theme running through this book was that the actual parish priests of the day typically where often anything but holy men, to put it mildly.
The centrality of his honoring of material poverty became somewhat of a short-term proposition. Without this sincere, charismatic leader around to inspire by example, his Order gravitated toward the worldly. The Brothers Minor began to own property and become quite rich and relatively cozy themselves. And Modern Franciscans, rather than being Christ-like, are increasingly Karl Marx-like — often little more than socialists in disguise. All religious orders and institutions will tend to slide toward the mundane, bureaucratized into something stable but which often lacks the true heart and zest that ignited the Order in the first place. Or they will take up newfangled “social causes” to try to remain “relevant.”
But for a time there was a Troubadour who lived life by his large ideals which were constructive, not destructive. He was filled with love, not the desire to tear things down. For Francis, the words of Christ were the words to live by. His freshness, sincerity, and integrity are things needed in any age and that are too often missing in our own.
