Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📖
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And first she kept him near her, and, herself taking part in the labor, she made him a large cell of reeds in the monastery garden, that he might be entirely at liberty as to his movements.
How could he refuse a hospitality so thoroughly Franciscan? It was indeed only too much so: legions of rats and mice infested this retired spot; at night they ran over Francis's bed with an infernal uproar, so that he could find no repose from his sufferings. But he soon forgot all that when near his sister-friend. Once again she gave back to him faith and courage. "A single sunbeam," he used to say, "is enough to drive away many shadows!"
Little by little the man of the former days began to show himself, and at times the Sisters would hear, mingling with the murmur of the olive trees and pines, the echo of unfamiliar songs, which seemed to come from the cell of reeds.
One day he had seated himself at the monastery table after a long conversation with Clara. The meal had hardly begun when suddenly he seemed to be rapt away in ecstasy.
"Laudato sia lo Signore!" he cried on coming to himself. He had just composed the Canticle of the Sun.17
TEXT18 Incipiunt Laudes CreaturarumQuas fecit Beatus Franciscus ad laudem et honorem
Dei
Cum esset infirmus ad Sanctum Damianum.
Ad te sole, altissimo, se konfano
et nullu homo ene dignu te mentovare.
Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature spetialmente messor lo frate sole,
lo quale jorna, et illumini per lui;
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore;
de te, altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora luna e le stelle, in celu l' ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate vento et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per le quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sor acqua, la quale è multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu, per lo quale ennallumini la nocte,
ed ello è bello et jucundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa
et produce diversi fructi con colorite flori et herba.
Laudato si, mi signore, per quilli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore et sosteugo infirmitate et tribulatione,
beati quilli ke sosterrano in pace,
ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra morte corporale, de la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare:
guai a quilli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;
beati quilli ke se trovarà ne le tue sanctissime voluntati,
ka la morte secunda nol farrà male.
Laudate et benedicete mi signore et rengratiate et serviteli cum grande humilitate. TRANSLATION.19
O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise, glory, honor, and all blessing! To thee alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce thy Name.
Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures, and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light; fair is he and shines with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies to us thee!
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, calms and all weather by the which thou upholdest life in all creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean.
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits and flowers of many colors, and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for his love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are they who peaceably shall endure, for thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin! Blessed are they who are found walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm.
Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto him and serve him with great humility.
Joy had returned to Francis, joy as deep as ever. For a whole week he forsook his breviary and passed his days in repeating the Canticle of the Sun.
During a night of sleeplessness he had heard a voice saying to him, "If thou hadst faith as a grain of mustard seed, thou wouldst say to this mountain, 'Be thou removed from there,' and it would move away." Was not the mountain that of his sufferings, the temptation to murmur and despair? "Be it, Lord, according to thy word," he had replied with all his heart, and immediately he had felt that he was delivered.20
He might have perceived that the mountain had not greatly changed its place, but for several days he had turned his eyes away from it, he had been able to forget its existence.
For a moment he thought of summoning to his side Brother Pacifico, the King of Verse, to retouch his canticle; his idea was to attach to him a certain number of friars, who would go with him from village to village, preaching. After the sermon they would sing the Hymn of the Sun; and they were to close by saying to the crowd gathered around them in the public places, "We are God's jugglers. We desire to be paid for our sermon and our song. Our payment shall be that you persevere in penitence."21
"Is it not in fact true," he would add, "that the servants of God are really like jugglers, intended to revive the hearts of men and lead them into spiritual joy?"
The Francis of the old raptures had come back, the layman, the poet, the artist.
The Canticle of the Creatures is very noble: it lacks, however, one strophe; if it was not upon Francis's lips, it was surely in his heart:
Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara; thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious, and by her thy light shines in our hearts.
1. Thirty-sixth and last strophe of the song
Perche m' hai si ferito?
found in the collection of St. Francis's works.
2. By the Abbé Amoni, at the close of his edition of the Fioretti, Rome, 1 vol., 12mo, 1889, pp. 390-392. We can but once more regret the silence of the editor as to the manuscript whence he has drawn these charming pages. Certain indications seem unfavorable to the author having written it before the second half of the thirteenth century; on the other hand, the object of a forgery is not evident. An apochryphal piece always betrays itself by some interested purpose, but here the story is of an infantine simplicity.
3. 2 Cel., 3, 104; Bon., 119; Fior. ii. consid.
4. Parti san Francesco per Monte-Acuto prendendo la via di Monte-Arcoppe e del foresto. This road from the Verna to Borgo San-Sepolero is far from being the shortest or the easiest, for instead of leading directly to the plain it lingers for long hours among the hills. Is not all Francis in this choice?
5. 2 Cel., 3, 41; Bon., 141; Fior. iv. consid.
6. 1 Cel., 63 and 64; Fior. iv. consid.
7. 1 Cel., 70; Fior. iv. consid.
8. 1 Cel., 109; 69; Bon. 208. Perhaps we must refer to this circuit the visit to Celano. 2 Cel., 3, 30; Spec., 22; Bon., 156 and 157.
9. 1 Cel., 97 and 98; 2 Cel., 3, 137; Bon., 205 and 206.
10. Richard of St. Germano, ann. 1225. Cf. Potthast, 7400 ff.
11. 1 Cel., 98 and 99; 2 Cel., 3, 137; Fior., 19.
12. 2 Cel., 3, 110; Rule of 1221, cap. 10.
13. See the reference to the sources after the Canticle of the Sun.
14. 2 Cel., 3, 138.
15. This incident appeared to the authors so peculiar that they emphasized it with an ut oculis videmus. 2 Cel., 3, 67; Spec., 119a.
16. Spec., 123a; 2 Cel., 3, 58.
17. I have combined Celano's narrative with that of the Conformities. The details given in the latter document appear to me entirely worthy of faith. It is easy to see, however, why Celano omitted them, and it would be difficult to explain how they could have been later invented. 2 Cel., 3, 138; Conform., 42b, 2; 119b, 1; 184b, 2; 239a, 2; Spec., 123a ff.; Fior., 19.
18. After the Assisan MS., 338, fo 33a. Vide p. 354. Father Panfilo da Magliano has already published it after this manuscript: Storia compendiosa di San Francesco, Rome, 2 vols., 18mo, 1874-1876. The Conformities, 202b, 2-203a 1, give a version of it which differs from this only by insignificant variations. The learned philologue Monaci has established a very remarkable critical text in his Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli. Citta di Castello, fas. i., 1889, 8vo, pp. 29-31. This thoroughly scrupulous work dispenses me from indicating manuscripts and editions more at length.
19. Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series. Macmillan & Company, 1883.
20. 2 Cel., 3, 58; Spec., 123a.
21. Spec., 124a. Cf. Miscellanea (1889), iv., p. 88.
CHAPTER XIX THE LAST YEAR September, 1225—End of September, 1226
What did Ugolini think when they told him that Francis was planning to send his friars, transformed into Joculatores Domini, to sing up and down the country the Canticle of Brother Sun? Perhaps he never heard of it. His protégé finally decided to accept his invitation and left St. Damian in the course of the month of September.
The landscape which lies before the eyes of the traveller from Assisi, when he suddenly emerges upon the plain of Rieti, is one of the most beautiful in Europe. From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of the Velino, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose clouds of mist are visible, and then plunges into the defiles in whose depths the torrent rushes noisily, choked by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a virgin forest. On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are feudal fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda, more giddy, more fantastic than any which Gustave Doré's fancy ever dreamed.
After four hours of walking, the defile opens out and you find yourself without transition in a broad valley, sparkling with light.
Rieti, the only city in this plain of several leagues, appears far away
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