For more than eight centuries, Francis of Assisi has touched and inspired the hearts of many—men and women alike. He showed us a path to make our earth a place of love, of life, and of peace. He proved that it is possible to live the Gospel.
In a world of wars and competition, Francis shone without seeking riches, power, or victory. He shone through his humility and poverty, through his simple life close to nature. He shone with an audacity that remained rooted in peace. He shone by living in community with "brothers" and announcing a new way of life.
Francis knew that his communities were born of God and led by God; that the life of his friars was a life of relationship that transformed hearts and thus became a sign to the world.
Together, we too have discovered that the communities of L'Arche and Faith and Light are born of God and led by God; that they are places of relationship, a relationship that transforms us and thus seeks to be a sign in the world.
Francis was a young man of his time: he loved life, loved earning money, spending it, making good deals. He loved to dance and play the fool. He dreamed of being a knight and took part in a war, wanting to prove his military skill against the people of Perugia—who took him prisoner.
The society in which Francis lived was divided between rich and poor, a minority that had too much and a majority that lacked even the bare necessities. Above all, there were countless outcasts: lepers living in villages that were forbidden to others. It is said that in Europe at that time, there were twenty thousand such villages.
What events transformed the heart of this young man and led him to found his communities? The transformation came gradually. There was first an encounter, then a calling, and finally a mission.
The Encounter
Here is how Francis himself describes this essential moment of his life, in his testament written a few months before his death:The Lord granted to me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: for when I was in sin, it seemed to me exceedingly bitter to see lepers. And the Lord himself brought me among them, and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I stayed a little and went out from the world.What is this sweetness, this joy of having been with lepers? Is it not the experience of the Gospel's reality? The experience of transformation. Lepers were not merely gravely ill. They were the symbol of all that was most filthy, hideous, and repugnant in society. It is no wonder that Francis was horrified by them, could not even bear to look at them. What his society wanted was wealth, health, beauty, power, fame, admiration—the very opposite of the filth, horror, and stench of lepers. Francis was part of that society. Then he discovered the truth of the Gospel: he discovered the person loved by God hidden beneath the leprosy. Then Jesus's message became real to him. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The walls and prejudices that had closed Francis's heart and conditioned his actions fell away. He became free. He was no longer enslaved by what society thought and proclaimed. This liberation was his joy. Many of us could recall the first encounter with a marginalized, rejected person—a "leper" of our time—an encounter that touched and transformed our heart and brought us to L'Arche or Faith and Light. It brought us to open ourselves and to true generosity, knowing full well that society rejects and marginalizes people with disabilities, despite efforts and gains made. Charity, as commonly understood, is when someone "superior" bends down toward someone "inferior" to give them their goods and support. It is a matter of power. The charitable person keeps control: gives what he wants, when and how he wants. There is distance between giver and receiver. True generosity, by contrast, should lead to an encounter: an encounter with a person who is vulnerable. You tell me your story. I listen. I discover your name, your gifts, your sufferings. My heart is touched. I enter into communion of heart with you. I become vulnerable with you. There is no more superior and inferior. We are bound together, brothers and sisters in our humanity. There is a covenant between us. My heart has been transformed. This is a moment of wonder. Is this not what happened to Francis? His vision changed. What mattered to him was no longer being the elite, the best, the victor, having power and wealth—even if it meant doing good and showing charity. What mattered now was having a true relationship and encounter with the poor, living with them as one of them, for God's kingdom, the kingdom of Love.
Jesus's Call
Francis then began a life of prayer and a life close to the poor and people afflicted with leprosy. In late 1206, Francis found himself in the church of San Damiano, a half-ruined structure falling to pieces. As he prayed before a painting of the crucified Jesus, it seemed to him that Jesus spoke to him from that image:"Francis, repair my house, which is falling into ruin."In this painting, the body of Jesus appears full of great sweetness, great serenity, great gentleness. It is not the body of a strong man, a warrior, someone hard. It is the body of whom John the Baptist called the "Lamb of God"—a small lamb. Francis took Jesus's words literally: he would repair the crumbling church of San Damiano. To do so, he sought money. He sold his clothes and his horse, begged for funds, and set to work. But Jesus's invitation held a much deeper meaning: the Church is the house of Jesus, and at that time, the Church had fallen into ruin. Many bishops, many abbots, many priests lived worldly lives, owned great wealth, wore sumptuous clothes, and had many servants. It was a Church corrupted by scandal and, driven by the desire for riches and power, far removed from Jesus's message. Pope Innocent III was aware of the gravity of the situation. In 1215, he convened the Fourth Lateran Council to reform the Church, "deploring," he said, "the scandals that dishonored Christ's flock." Jesus had asked Francis to "rebuild" the Church. These words echo those of God reported by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 58:
"Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, clothe the naked when you see them. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindication shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in."Through his love and the love lived by his companions, Francis would accomplish more than any council could to reform the Church. He would show the true path to God's kingdom, the kingdom of Love. He wanted the Church to recover its original beauty, the beauty of the Beatitudes. Are we not also called by God—at L'Arche and Faith and Light—to repair the wounds of the world, the separations between the powerful and the weak, between the healthy and those living with disability, the divisions between religions and between churches? Today Jesus says to us: "Go, repair my house." Is this not our vocation? As it was for Francis, this commitment will be costly and will demand much time.
The Mission
Listening, probably on October 12, 1208, to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Francis understood what his mission was: "Go and proclaim everywhere that the kingdom of God is near. Take with you neither gold nor silver in your belts, nor a bag for the journey, nor two tunics." (Mt. 10) In hearing these words, Francis felt the same joy he had experienced in his encounter with lepers. Saint Bonaventura, who wrote a life of Saint Francis, reports that the saint, seized by joy, exclaimed: "This is what I want. This is what I desire with all my heart!" His first companions followed Francis because they felt this deep joy pervade the simple way of life he proposed. Francis did not seek at first to help the poor; he chose to be poor himself, as his Master, Jesus, was. He could not announce the Good News to the poor and those afflicted with leprosy if he and his brothers continued to live in comfort. He had to be with them. He understood well that his own transformation had happened through his relationship with them. They are signs of God's presence on earth. God is close to those whom society rejects. For Francis, being poor means walking in Jesus's footsteps, living as Jesus lived—stripped of every form of glory, living close to lepers, sinners, prostitutes. For Francis, being poor means depending on another. It means depending on God, even for life's most basic needs. If you own nothing and have complete trust in God, you do not need to protect yourself or your possessions. You no longer live with frustrated desires but experience the joy of having everything, because God gives you all. The joy of having nothing, of possessing nothing, is a challenge of Love. If Jesus calls his disciples to poverty, it is not to exalt poverty itself but to show clearly that Jesus himself will care for his friends. For Francis, poverty is for love's sake—an experience of radical and total trust in Jesus. The joy of poverty is the joy of Love. Being poor is a call to communion, to friendship and love, because if we are together as brothers and sisters who truly love one another, we have what is essential. Friendship and love are the greatest riches. For Francis, being poor also means identifying with the poorest in society, accepting to be rejected with them. This was Francis's innovation. The Church of his time—and perhaps all times—wanted to help the poor, to be charitable, which implies a certain power. But how can one live with the marginalized and excluded? How can one truly serve the poor? Francis felt called to live as they did: it was a particular form of stripping away. Was he too idealistic? Must the path to living the Gospel pass through study and a particular discipline, or must it pass through living with the poor? This question was at the heart of misunderstandings with Church authority. For Francis, being poor also meant accepting his own poverty and weakness, his own inner disabilities. Can we accept to live with people who have visible and irreparable limits and disabilities without accepting our own invisible and irreparable limits and disabilities? Francis chose to be a sign of the Gospel's truth, a sign that the world is not condemned to war and the injustices that flow from the division between rich and poor. Peace and love are possible, Saint Francis tells us with his life.This text is taken—with the author's permission—from the "Vigil of Saint Francis" held in Assisi by Jean Vanier in May 2005 for leaders of L'Arche. Those who wish to have the complete text may contact Ombre e Luci.