PAPER BY LYNNE REEDER
This
paper was presented to the Spiritual Reading Group at the Carmelite Centre for
its June 2013 meeting and discussion. It provides a short background on St
Francis of Assisi; identifies a range of more recent writers, artists and poets
who were influenced by St Francis; and then identifies some of the elements that
the author, Lynne Reeder PhD, believes constitute a creative approach to the
spirituality of St Francis. A large component of the content has been taken from
her PhD, including the interviews that are mentioned.
BACKGROUND
Francis
was born at Assisi
in Umbria, in 1181 or 1182 and died there on 3 October, 1226. His father was a wealthy cloth merchant. Of
his mother little is known,
but she is said to have belonged to a noble family of Provence.
Francis was one of several children. At baptism he received the name of Giovanni, which
his father
afterwards altered to Francesco, through fondness it would seem for France, where he was at the
time of his son's birth.
Although associated with his father in the cloth trade,
he showed little liking for a merchant's career, and his parents seemed to have
indulged his every whim. Certain
it is the saint's
early life gave no indication of his life to come. No one loved pleasure more
than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and
showy display and he soon became the prime favourite among the young nobles of Assisi. But even at this time Francis showed an
instinctive sympathy with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, it
still flowed in such channels as to attest a generous spirit.
When about twenty, Francis went
out with the townsmen to fight
the Perugians
in one of the petty skirmishes so frequent at that time between the rival
cities. The Assisians
were defeated on this occasion, and Francis, being among those taken prisoners, was held
captive for more than a year in Perugia. A low fever which
he there contracted appears to have turned his thoughts to the things of eternity; at least the
emptiness of the life he had been leading came to him during that long illness.
With returning health, Francis's then became a knight of Assisi.
After a
short period of uncertainty he began to seek in prayer and solitude the answer to his
call; he had already given up his wasteful ways. One day, while crossing the
Umbrian plain on horseback, Francis unexpectedly drew near a poor leper. The sudden
appearance of the leper filled him with disgust and he instinctively retreated,
but presently controlling his natural aversion he dismounted, embraced the
unfortunate man,
and gave him all the money
he had. About the same time
Francis made a pilgrimage
to Rome. Not long
after his return to Assisi,
whilst Francis was praying
before an ancient crucifix
in the forsaken wayside chapel
of St. Damian's below the town, he heard a voice saying:
"Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into
ruin." Taking this behest literally, as referring to the ruinous church wherein he knelt, Francis went to his
father's shop, impulsively
bundled together a load of coloured drapery, and sold it and the horse to
procure the money needful for the restoration of St. Damian's.
INFLUENCE
Identifying
that St Francis still connects with many secular people in the centuries since
his death was shown by Roy Gasnick in his book to celebrate the anniversary of
Francis’ birth. The Francis Book: 800
years with the Saint from Assisi, contains references to poems, articles,
songs and paintings on Francis by a wide range of poets, artists, politicians
and writers. The volume (1980:57) referenced Oscar Wilde’s reflection on the
uniqueness of Christ, and his comments that there has been no other like Christ
since, except for St Francis: ‘But then God had given him (Francis) at birth,
the soul of a poet, and he himself when quite young had in mystical marriage
taken Poverty as his bride; and with the soul of a poet and the body of a
beggar he found his way to perfection not difficult.’
Albert
Camus an atheist took the nonexistence of God for granted, rather finding
meaning in life’s struggle itself. Camus wrote the following after a visit to
Franciscan cells: ‘‘Being naked’ always has associations of physical liberty,
of harmony between the hand and the flowers it touches, of a loving
understanding between the earth and men who have been freed from human beings.
Ah, I should become a convert to this if it were not already my religion’
(Gasnick, 1980:136). And Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote:
‘….Are
we devils? Are we men?
Sweet
Saint Francis of Assisi,
Would
that he were here again,
He
who in his catholic wholeness
Called
the very birds and flowers,
Brothers,
sisters’. (Gasnick, 1980:205)
It
is also documented that Wordsworth, Longfellow, Dante, Hopkins, Rembrandt,
Lenin all recognized Francis’ influence in their work and thoughts. In the
publications’ foreword, Gasnick (1980:7) also referenced an event that took
place in the US city named after St Francis – San Francisco where a sculpture
of Francis was made from the melted-down hand-guns voluntarily turned into the
mayor following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy.
CREATIVE ASPECTS OF FRANCISCAN SPIRITUALITY:
The
following are the aspects of St Francis that I feel brings to his spirituality
a creative endeavor – and can
discuss with you later. They come from my thesis – and the quotes come from
those I interviewed who like me had a connection with Francis.
As a
mystic Francis was very much about lived experience – Francis was in pursuit of communion
with, or conscious
awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity,
spiritual
truth, or God
through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight.
·
IMAGERY
& SYMBOLS
·
WONDER
& AWE
·
TRUST
& OPENESS
·
PERSONAL
REFLECTION
·
PASSION
·
JOY
IMAGERY & SYMBOLS
Symbols are
very powerful in gaining appreciation and understanding. Francis used his
creative abilities to develop his own spirituality and to reach others. Francis
was well known as the first Italian poet and was instrumental in developing
Italian theatre. Campion Murray in his interview reflected, imagine all the
songs, the stories…a society where everything was passed on by word of
mouth…and he had schooling so he was literate…he wrote the first Italian poetry.
It was Francis who created the first Christmas scene of the crib, to bring to
life the birth of Christ. It was a symbol of an event that happened many years
previously, but one that has provided a long-standing way of relating to the
birth that still exists at Christmas today. Francis himself explained it as ...I
wish to do something that will recall the memory of the little Child who was
born in Bethlehem and set before our bodily eyes in some way the inconveniences
of his infant needs, how he lay in the manager, how, with an ox and ass
standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed. [1]
The Franciscan movement has influenced
all forms of cultural expression. The art and culture of Europe
that surrounded Francis during his life also affected the ways in which he
identified with others. He realized the importance of symbols and of speaking
to people in an inclusive way. In
order to reach as wide an audience as possible, the Franciscans ‘greatly
extended the methods of medieval preaching, making lyric poetry and drama more
accessible through the use of the colloquial speech’ (Cook, 1983:313).
Francis himself sang in French and
wrote in Italian (Moorman, 1968:270). He purposely tried to reach
as many people as he could so as to demystify his messages. In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries preaching was often seen as a theatrical experience. ‘As in opera, the sound of the words was as
important as their meaning, and as in a play, the preacher sought to touch the
hearts of his listeners by his actions as well as his words’ (Constable,
1996:151). This is what Francis sought to do in bringing stories to life,
particularly that of the Nativity. Cook
(1989:89) believed that the first Nativity scene successfully achieved the
'democratization' of mysticism’ and contends that the experience of the Nativity that Francis created at Greccio
‘…was the greatest influence on Franciscan spirituality and thus on the
spirituality of Western Christendom for centuries’. Francis wanted to
ensure that everyone was able to share Christ’s birthday by recreating the
reality of the birth, to clearly
identify the inconvenience of his infant requirements (Fortini,
1992:531-532).
During the Middle Ages, the language of learning had
been Latin, but alongside this international tongue there existed in each
country the popular spoken language, the vulgar tongue or vernacular. It was
medieval France from which the most powerful cultural influences radiated
throughout western Europe, including Italy. In the field of poetry, there were
two traditions from France that had particular importance for Italian
literature. One was the tradition of epic poetry, and the other influential
French tradition was that of courtly love, spread by the troubadours. There
were troubadours in the feudal courts of northern Italy in the later years of
the twelfth century.
These traditions came to Italy
originally in the French language, although there was some literary work in the
Italian dialects in the twelfth century. By the following century, the Italian
dialects had won out, and the thirteenth has been called the first century of
Italian literature and one of the first important poets in Italian was St.
Francis of Assisi.
The imagery
of ‘brother sun’ ‘sister moon’, ‘brother fire’ are clear relational symbols and
evoke the way in which Francis believed humans should relate to, and interact
with the earth. Tenzin Palmo in interview commented …well if there is
a creator, then everything is a child, not just humans, are brothers and
sisters, but the insects, animals, the elements…and it’s very vivid to call
them brother sun, sister water, sister wind...then you can feel immediately -
if you think of sister water there is an immediate sense of relationship and
appreciation...it’s a lovely way of looking at it. Feyer Mathews (2005:204) agrees that a shift in thinking
is what’s required to create a deep connection with the earth. She states that
such a connection requires not only tending the earth at a physical level, ‘…but
also to sing it, to be in poetic rapport with its inner dimensions, to awaken
it and evince its poetic response.’
Francis’
connection with the birds was sometimes interpreted as a hippy response – eg.
Zeferrelli - but Franciscan priest, Murray Bodo[2]
has noted that in the depictions of Francis preaching to the birds, the images
were mostly of crows. In the 13th century crows were often used as
symbols for the poor and marginalised. In other words the image of Francis
preaching to birds could be construed as a symbol of his relationship with the
marginalized.
WONDER AND AWE
Francis
viewed the world with wonder and awe and this view had its basis in his
mysticism and spirituality. Freke (1998:28) reminds that ‘for the mystics, religion
is not just a matter of creeds and rituals; it is a spiritual path to
experiential knowledge of God’. Francis believed
that reflection and direct experience of the wonder of the universe was most
important (Moorman, 1968:77). His direct connection with the
environment stayed with him all his life. The
Fioretti reveals that
Francis and his followers prayed in the woods many more times than they did in
churches (Armstrong, 1973:24). When he was dying, Francis requested that he be
laid naked on the earth. This was so that he could be close to the earth and to
acknowledge his humbleness. G K Chesterton (1990:82) describes the
gesture as a desire ‘...even in his death
agony to lie bare upon the bare ground, to prove that he had and that he was
nothing’.
This aspect
of Francis’ direct connection to all living creatures, including to elements,
such as the stars and fire as having its basis in admiration for the created
universe was commented on by some of the interviewees. There is a story about St Francis and the
moon: … one night Francis saw the moon and was so overcome with awe that he
ran into the village of Assisi and began ringing the bell. Everyone came
because you should only ring the bell in an emergency. They said ‘what are you
doing?’ and he replied ‘lift your eyes and look at the moon’.
Tenzin
Palmo commented on Francis’ ability to be in harmony with all around
him, stating Francis was a wonder, he really must have somehow had a very
profound experience…because even insects and animals moved him so, that he
showed his complete empathy with everything around him… Martin (2001:14) describes St Francis’
connection with all on the earth and in the heavens in another way, stating
that Francis ‘…was not so much a nature lover…as a man who saw no distinction
between himself and the natural world’.
More
contemporary writers have also used such imagery to articulate the link between
nature and humans. Thoreau for example has written that, ‘[I]t is in vain to
dream of a wilderness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog
in our brain and bowels, the primitive vigour of Nature in us that inspires our
dreams’ (Rothwell, 1991:126-27).
TRUST & OPENNESS
Intuition
and openness - not only did Francis show respect for another way of knowing, he
incorporated some of what he had learnt and observed from the Muslim faith.
Rout (1996:80) states that Francis was particularly ‘struck by the religious
attitudes of the Muslims, the call to prayer, the approach to a transcendent
God, the deep respect for the sacred book of the Qur’an’. Svenhoven (survey)
commented on this, noting that Francis changes his mind about the Sultan and
Saracens…Francis is the one who learns by making himself vulnerable,
susceptible for other people, other insights, other ways of life. He
experienced meeting other people, other cultures, other religions as a gift
Francis’ sense of
trust was also commented upon by Peter Kearney when describing the way
in which he approached putting together a musical based on the lives of St
Francis and St Clare entitled “Good Morning Good People’. Kearney noted that in
staging his performances that in general I’d go places and not look for any
guarantee and take my chances on the doors … so in small ways I’ve felt that
Franciscan spirit in taking those chances… Jan Ruff-Aherne gave another
perspective on a sense of trusting in commenting on her experience in the
Second World War prison camps and that’s Franciscan poverty, that I really
experienced in the war prison camps…because we had nothing there, totally
nothing and you become completely dependent on God alone…
REFLECTION
Francis
sought to rebuild lives of all his listeners, through the same purifying action
of the Spirit, i.e. without external coercion. In this context Francis reminded his
friars of the requirement of reflection to review their actions and beliefs
stating ‘[T]herefore, let us stop speaking and let us pray to the Lord that we
may be granted the experience of that about which we have spoken (SC Epilogue,
in Rout, 1996:87).
Petrea
King in interview spoke about the different ways of knowing, there’s
intellectual understanding…which is different from a real knowing… your
intellect is fascinated by intellectual knowing because it’s looking for an
answer…but when you experience the answer then no-one can take it away from
you…it becomes who you are, and filters down literally to every cell of your
body…
Francis'
power as a mediator, reconciler and bringer of peace was grounded in part on
his integration of the negative and the positive aspects of his being (Dennis,
1993:90). His way of being is reflected in the prayer ‘make me an instrument of
your peace’. Francis did not want to ‘do’ as much as ‘become’ G.K. Chesterton
(1990:89) believed that Francis’ imaginative response to life enabled him to
make ‘the very act of living an art…’ and described him as ‘a poet whose whole
life was a poem’. Similarly, Simone Weil noted that, ‘not only his poem was
perfect poetry, but his whole life was perfect poetry in action….wandering and
poverty were poetry for him’ (Irwin, 2002:193). Francis’ mystical approach to
directly ‘experiencing’ his faith and not being ‘instructed’ in it, meant he
was adamant that learning should not interfere with the friars’ reflective
life, nor diminish their humility. Francis was very inclusive in all his
undertakings. This led him to establish the Third Order for those people who
for various reasons were not able to join monasteries; albeit that the
establishment of such Orders was not unheard of at this time.
PASSION
Francis
spent his converted life reflecting on what it was that gave his life substance
and what this meant for his life’s journey. At the end of his life Francis was
credited with saying, I have lived my
life as I felt called to do, may Christ teach you what is yours to do. This
has come to be known as the Franciscan question ‘what is mine to do?’ [3] and
it still reverberates today. In her recent book, Martin (2001:14) writes that
she had no particular connection to Francis, was neither Italian nor a Roman Catholic,
but in visiting Assisi was significantly influenced by Francis. She recounts
that like many of the tourists looking at the frescos that covered the walls of
the Basilica at Assisi, she was initially more interested in the art than in
the story. ‘But that story, so sorrowful
and triumphant, seemed to reach out from the walls and ceilings and grasp me by
the shoulders. At Assisi, Florence, Rome, Arezzo the ragged barefoot beggar
cried out to me: This is what I made of my life! Now go out and change your
own!’ Assisi - In commenting on the
images by Giotto in the upper church at Assisi Margaret Wertheim notes that: The frescos in Assisi heralded a revolution both in
representation and in metaphysical leaning whose consequences for Western art,
philosophy, and science can hardly be underestimated.
Mansukh
Patel commented on another aspect of discovering your passion and that is the
importance of finding your own sense of self ….unless you find your
own place, then you can’t operate from a place of courage and clarity or
selflessness, because outside that domain is selfishness, outside is greed and
fear and all that tarnishes your decisions, so from Francis’ perspective we are
invited to go back to that place that is within us, which means we will come to
the decision ourselves about what is right and not right…You start practicing
what comes out of yourself.
Petrea
King in interview highlighted that Francis’ power was in his passion about his
work and his philosophy, not in his ability to establish an Order…he wasn’t
interested in creating an organisation that would go on into the millennium. He
was interested in demonstrating a life that was lived with passion for the
philosophy that he felt… … his power was in his passion about his work and his
whole philosophy - to be confined to a structure…that wasn’t his interest…
However,
Mertens in his survey response agreed that it was the Franciscan movement
that ensured the message of St Francis was passed on through the centuries.
Without the academic contributions of people like Bonventure, William of Ockham
or Duns Scotus who introduced the Franciscan seminal institutions into the
academic discussions of the day, our Franciscan vision would be incomplete.
JOY
The 13th century was
a time of troubadours,
and Francis had their best characteristics. He was happy, he sang, he loved nature.
For Francis the ability to discover
joy in sadness was the heroic quality he defined as ‘perfect joy’ (Fortini 1992:483). Francis’ notion
of joy is best understood in the context of his adoption of values associated
with chivalry. For Francis sadness was an ‘illness of the soul’ and he wanted
his approach to joy to be incorporated into the Rules of the Order. Chapter 7 of
the Rule of 1221 stated, ‘They
should let it be seen that they are happy in God, cheerful and courteous, as is
expected of them’ (Fortini, 1992:483). This value of Francis
should not be underestimated, as during the Middle Ages, the Church drew on the
imagery of the devil and hell to often rule by fear.
Thomas Celano in his first biography
The First Life of St Francis wrote,
‘[F]or who could ever give expression to the very great affection he bore for
all things that are God’s? Who would be able to narrate the sweetness he
enjoyed while contemplating in creatures the wisdom of their Creator, his power
and his goodness? Indeed, he was very often filled with a wonderful and
ineffable joy from this consideration while he gazed upon the stars and the
firmament’.[4]
Tenzin Palmo also noted this when she moved from
India to live in Assisi …although there are a great many scholarly
Franciscans, they still do have that sense of appreciating spontaneity and joy
and what comes from within...even today the Order has a very special
flavour…when you’re in Assisi and you see the Friars there you know you’re with
Franciscans, you’re definitely not with Dominicans, not to speak of the
Jesuits! There is definitely an allegro...you see the friars running down the
road...you know these young friars, their habits up the little bare legs, and
they can still do that and everybody is happy to see them...there is a
simplicity, there is an appreciation of the meditative, the joy.
So these are the elements I have identified of St Francis’ creative
approach to his spirituality: i.e imagery & symbols; wonder & awe; trust
& openness; personal reflection; passion and joy - and I’m happy to
discuss.
