Vigils Reading – St Francis

THE HUMILITY OF ST FRANCIS

From “The Life of St Francis” by St Bonaventure4 ◊◊◊

In order to render himself contemptible to others, he did not spare himself the embarrassment of bringing up his own faults when he preached before all the people. Once it happened that when he was weighed down with sickness, he relaxed a little the rigor of his abstinence in order to recover his health. When his strength of body returned, he was aroused to insult his own body out of true self- contempt: “It is not right,” he said, “that the people should believe I am abstaining while, in fact, I eat meat on the sly.”

Inflamed with the spirit of true humility, he called the people together in the square of the town of Assisi and solemnly entered the principal church with many of the friars whom he had brought with him. With a rope tied around his neck and stripped to his underwear, he had himself dragged before the eyes of all to the stone where criminals received their punishment. He climbed up upon the stone and preached with much vigor and spirit although he was suffering from a fever and the weather was bitter cold. He asserted to all his hearers that he should not be honored as a spiritual man but rather he should be despised by all as a carnal man and a glutton.

Therefore those who had gathered there were amazed at so great a spectacle. They were well aware of his austerity, and so their hearts were struck with compunction; but they professed that his humility was easier to admire than to imitate. Although this incident seemed to be more a portent like that of the Prophet [Isaiah] than an example, nevertheless it was a lesson in true humility instructing the follower of Christ that he should despise the fame of transitory praise, suppress the arrogance of bloated bragging and reject the lies of deceptive pretense.

He often did many things like this so that outwardly he might become like a discarded utensil while inwardly possessing the spirit of holiness. He strove to hide the gifts of his Lord in the secret recesses of his heart, not wanting them to be exposed to praise, which could be an occasion of a fall. For often when he was praised by the crowds, he would answer like this: “I could still have sons and daughters; don’t praise me as if I were secure! No one should be praised whose end is still uncertain.” This is what he would say to those who praised him, and to himself he would say: “If the Most High had given so much to a brigand, he would be more grateful than you, Francis.” He often used to tell the friars: “No one should flatter himself for doing anything a sinner can also do. A sinner,” he said, “can fast, pray, weep and mortify his flesh. This one thing he cannot do: be faithful to his Lord. Therefore we should glory in this: if we give back to the Lord the glory that is his, if we serve him faithfully and ascribe to him whatever he gives to us.