Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📖

And so Rome, which canonized the petty Celestine V., refused this supreme consecration to the glorious Innocent III. With exquisite tact she perceived that he was rather king than priest, rather pope than saint.

When he suppressed ecclesiastical disorders it was less for love of good than for hatred of evil; it was the judge who condemns or threatens, himself always supported by the law, not the father who weeps his son's offence. This priest did not comprehend the great movement of his age—the awakening of love, of poetry, of liberty. I have already said that at the opening of the thirteenth century the Middle Age was twenty years old. Innocent III. undertook to treat it as if it were only fifteen. Possessed by his civil and religious dogmas as others are by their educational doctrines, he never suspected the unsatisfied longings, the dreams, unreasoning perhaps, but beneficent and divine, that were dumbly stirring in the depths of men's hearts. He was a believer, although certain sayings of the historians8 open the door to some doubts on this point, but he drew his religion rather from the Old Testament than from the New, and if he often thought of Moses, the leader of his people, nothing reminded him of Jesus, the shepherd of souls. One cannot be everything; a choice intelligence, an iron will9 are a sufficient portion even for a priest-god; he lacked love. The death of this pontiff, great among the great ones, was destined to be saluted with songs of joy.10

His reception of Francis furnished to Giotto, the friend of Dante, one of his most striking frescos; the pope, seated on his throne, turns abruptly toward Francis. He frowns, for he does not understand, and yet he feels a strange power in this mean and despised man, vilis et despectus; he makes a real but futile effort to comprehend, and now I see in this pope, who lived upon lemons,11 something that recalls another choice mind, theocratic like his own, sacrificed like him to his work: Calvin. One might think that the painter had touched his lips to the Calabrian Seer's cup, and that in the attitude of these two men he sought to symbolize a meeting of representatives of the two ages of humanity, that of Law and that of Love.12

A surprise awaited the pilgrims on their arrival in Rome: they met the Bishop of Assisi,13 quite as much to his astonishment as to their own. This detail is precious because it proves that Francis had not confided his plans to Guido. Notwithstanding this the bishop, it is said, offered to make interest for them with the princes of the Church. We may suspect that his commendations were not very warm. At all events they did not avail to save Francis and his company either from a searching inquiry or from the extended fatherly counsels of Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo14 upon the difficulties of the Rule, counsels which strongly resemble those of Guido himself.15

What Francis asked for was simple enough; he claimed no privilege of any sort, but only that the pope would approve of his undertaking to lead a life of absolute conformity to the precepts of the gospel. There is a delicate point here which it is quite worth while to see clearly. The pope was not called upon to approve the Rule, since that came from Jesus himself; at the very worst all that he could do would be to lay an ecclesiastical censure upon Francis and his companions for having acted without authority, and to enjoin them to leave to the secular and regular clergy the task of reforming the Church.

Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo, to whom the Bishop of Assisi presented them, had informed himself of the whole history of the Penitents. He lavished upon them the most affectionate tokens of interest, even going so far as to beg for a mention in their prayers. But such assurances, which appear to have been always the small change of the court of Rome, did not prevent his examining them for several successive days,16 and putting to them an infinite number of questions, of which the conclusion was always the advice to enter some Order already existing.

To this the unlucky Francis would reply as best he could, often not without embarrassment, for he had no wish to appear to think lightly of the cardinal's counsels, and yet he felt in his heart the imperious desire to obey his vocation. The prelate would then return to the charge, insinuating that they would find it very hard to persevere, that the enthusiasm of the early days would pass away, and again pointing out a more easy course. He was obliged in the end to own himself vanquished. The persistence of Francis, who had never weakened for an instant nor doubted his mission, begat in him a sort of awe, while the perfect humility of the Penitents and their simple and striking fidelity to the Roman Church reassured him in the matter of heresy.

He announced to them, therefore, that he would speak of them to the pope, and would act as their advocate with him. According to the Three Companions he said to the pope: "I have found a man of the highest perfection, who desires to live in conformity with the Holy Gospel and observe evangelical perfection in all things. I believe that by him the Lord intends to reform the faith of the Holy Church throughout the whole world."17

On the morrow he presented Francis and his companions to Innocent III. Naturally, the pope was not sparing of expressions of sympathy, but he also repeated to them the remarks and counsels which they had already heard so often. "My dear children," he said, "your life appears to me too severe; I see indeed that your fervor is too great for any doubt of you to be possible, but I ought to consider those who shall come after you, lest your mode of life should be beyond their strength."18

Adding a few kind words, he dismissed them without coming to any definite conclusion, promising to consult the cardinals, and advising Francis in particular to address himself to God, to the end that he might manifest his will.

Francis's anxiety must have been great; he could not understand these dilatory measures, these expressions of affection which never led to a categorical approbation. It seemed to him that he had said all that he had to say. For new arguments he had only one resource—prayer.

He felt his prayer answered when in his conversation with Jesus the parable of poverty came to him; he returned to lay it before the pope.