O ye dews and falling snow, and ye ice and cold, bless the
Lord: praise and exalt Him forever.
O ye frost and snow, and ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord: praise and exalt Him forever.
O let the earth bless the Lord: let it praise and exalt Him
forever.
O ye mountains and hills, and all things that spring up in
the earth, bless the Lord: praise and exalt Him forever.
O ye fountains, and ye seas and rivers, whales and all that
move in the waters, bless the Lord: praise and exalt
Him forever.
He clapped his hands; his quivering feet swung back and forth of their own accord, beyond his control. He wanted to dance but could not. Never had I seen Francis so happy. The flame which licked and devoured his face had turned to light. He had felt unburdened ever since the celestial Christ had come down upon him, and now his heart brimmed with assurance.
I remained at his side constantly, night and day. One morning as I opened my eyes at dawn I saw him leaning against his stone pillow, smiling.
"Your face is beaming, Father Francis. Did you have a pleasant dream?"
"How can you expect dreams to make me smile, Brother Leo, when you see the blood flowing from me like this? Until now I wept, beat my breast, and cried out my sins to God. But now I understand: God holds a sponge. If I were asked to paint God's loving-kindness, I would depict Him with a sponge in His hand. . . . All sins will be erased, Brother Leo; all sinners will be saved--even Satan himself, Brother Leo; for hell is nothing more than the ante-chamber of heaven."
"But then--" I began.
But Francis held out his hand and covered my mouth.
"Quiet!" he said. "Do not diminish the grandeur of God."
The earth's wheel continued to turn. The rains began, and Francis closed his eyes in order to listen to the waters of heaven as they descended to earth. His face glistening like a rain-washed stone, he requested me to carry him to the doorway of the hut so that he could hold out his palms and receive the drops.
"These are the last alms I shall ever beg," he said as he watched his palms fill with water. Bending forward, he drank joyously, gratefully.
In this state of uninterrupted joy his body continued to waste away, each day half of him sinking further into the earth while the other half mounted toward heaven. You could see unmistakably now that the two elements which formed him had begun to separate.
"Do not leave us yet, Father Francis," I cried to him one morning. "Your circle is still not complete. You always longed to worship at the Holy Sepulcher, and you never have." Francis smiled. "Yes, Brother Leo, I was not deemed worthy of going to the Holy Sepulcher. But it does not matter, because the Holy Sepulcher is going to come to me, miserable sinner that I am."
The old, beloved brothers arrived continually from all quarters to bid farewell to their master and to bring him news of the regions where they had gone out to preach Love and Poverty. Many friars had been tortured and martyred in the wild forests of Germany. In France they were taken for heretics and thrashed mercilessly. In Hungary the shepherds set their dogs against them and the villagers pricked them with oxgoads. Elsewhere, the people had undressed them and left them to shiver in the snow.
Francis heard all this with radiant face. He deemed particularly blessed those brothers who had known the joy of persecution and the scorn of mankind.
"Which is the finest route to Paradise?" he kept asking. "The scorn of mankind. Which is the shortest? Death."
Bernard came, as did Father Silvester, Masseo, Juniper, Sior Pietro, Ruffino, Angelo, Pacifico. Sister Clara sent him a message: "Father Francis, all God's graces have descended upon you. Give me permission to come and worship the marks which they left upon your body." Francis replied: "Sister Clara, you do not have the slightest need to see or touch in order to believe. Close your eyes, my sister, and you shall see me."
"Why didn't you let her come?" I asked. "Don't you pity her? It would have done her a great deal of good."
"I do pity her, and that is precisely why I refused. She must grow accustomed to seeing me without my body, Brother Leo, and so must you and all who love me."
I averted my eyes so that he would not notice my tears. Invisible presences were not enough for me: as soon as I stopped seeing Francis I would be lost.
I think he divined my thoughts. He had begun to open his mouth and was about to comfort me, but at that moment Elias, the very last to appear, came to greet Francis and bid him farewell. He had just returned from a long tour which had produced vast amounts of gold. In Assisi the foundations had already been laid for a great monastery which was to consist of an imposing church with paintings, silver lamps and delicately carved stalls, a ring of cells, and a large library where the brothers could study, have discussions, and give lectures.
Francis placed his hand on the enterprising brother's head.
"God forgive me for saying so, Brother Elias, but it seems to me that you have misled our brotherhood. You expelled Poverty, our great treasure, and you granted dangerous liberties to the other virtues which were the original building blocks of our order. They were severe, pure; they made no compromise with ease or affluence. Now, so I hear, you are collecting funds to erect a monastery; and you have adorned the brothers' feet with sandals: no longer do they walk with bare soles upon bare soil. The wolf has entered our fold while I sit outside the Portiuncula like a chained dog, and bark. Where are you leading us, Brother Elias?"
, "Where God pushes me. You know as well as I that everything happens because God wills it. The times have changed, and with them the heart of man has changed, and with this change in the heart of man, the virtues have changed as well. But you may rest at ease in the knowledge that I am guiding the order toward the spiritual domination of the world. Trust in me. The blood of our brothers has already begun to be spilled: it is watering the seed we have been sowing."
"I trust in God, and have no need of additional consolation. I am stupid, Brother Elias, illiterate; the whole of my life I never knew how to do anything except weep, dance, and sing God's glory. Now I can't do even that. All I am now, I tell you, is a barking dog chained outside our order. May God intervene and set things right again! I feel at ease and am not afraid of you, Brother Elias, because I am certain that this is exactly what He is going to do."
Elias kissed Francis' hand and departed hurriedly for Assisi in order to supervise the masons who were building the new monastery. As soon as he was gone, Pacifico, who had been present and had overheard all, approached Francis and said, "Father Francis, our hearts are very wide; words are very narrow, far too narrow to contain human feelings. What is the use then of talking? Give me permission to play the lute for you, for this is your true mouth, Father Francis: it is with the lute that you should speak to men. You don't know how to play? Well, let me teach you."
Crouching, he showed him the strings. His fingers ran up and down producing high and low notes, and Francis leaned forward, listening attentively to his instructor.
"Come every day and give me a lesson, Brother Pacifico. Ah, if only, before I die, I can say my final prayer with the lute! And now, sing a joyful song to cheer me."
Pacifico bent over his lute and began to play and sing. Once he had composed songs in praise of the beauty of his lady; now he praised the beauty of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The melody was the same, the words of praise the same; nothing had changed but the lady. Francis listened, softly humming the melody in his turn. The nimbus of light around his face grew brighter, and the hollows in his temples and cheeks filled with flames.
The days went by. Pacifico came each evening and Francis, like a young pupil, listened to him and exercised his fingers upon the strings. He was delighted to find that he was making progress: soon he would be able to speak to God and men with the lute.
One day a wild hare dashed up to him and burrowed beneath his frock. We knew the terrified creature must have been running for i
ts life, because we heard the piercing cry of a fox in the distance.
Francis stroked the hare and spoke to it with such tenderness that I was astonished. He had never spoken so tenderly to a human being.
"Put your hand over its tiny heart, Brother Leo, to see how the poor thing is trembling. Its whole body is shaking. I'm sorry, Brother Fox, but I'm not going to let you eat this hare. God sent it to me so that I could save it."
The hare remained near him from that moment on, and the days when Francis was breathing his last, it crouched at his feet, quivering and refusing to eat.
The animals and birds loved him exceedingly, for they seemed to sense how much he loved them. One day he had been presented with a pheasant whose beauty he never tired of admiring.
"Raise your head, Brother Pheasant; give thanks to God for making you so beautiful," he used to say to it, whereupon the pheasant would unfold its wings and begin to strut in the sun like a great nobleman.
On another occasion--if I hadn't seen this with my own eyes I would never have believed it--an incensed wolf leaped out in front of us as we were strolling beneath the oaks of Alvernia. It was winter at the time, and the wolf was famished. Going up to it, Francis began to speak to it calmly, sweetly, as though it were a human being, a dear friend.
"Brother Wolf, great ruler of the forest, give us permission to walk a little beneath your trees. My companion here, who trembles and is afraid of you because he does not know you, is Brother Leo; I am Francis of Assisi, and we were talking about God, who is our Father, and your Father too, Brother Wolf. We beg of you not to interrupt our holy conversation."
When the wolf heard its brother's tranquil voice, it grew gentle and stepped aside, letting us pass. Francis calmly resumed our holy talk.
More than anything else, however, Francis loved light, fire, and water.
"How great God's kindness is, Brother Leo," he often said to me. "What miraculous things surround us! When the sun rises in the morning and brings the day, have you noticed how happily the birds sing, and how our hearts leap within our breasts, and how merrily the stones and waters laugh? And when night falls, how benevolently our sister Fire always comes. Sometimes she climbs up to our lamp and lights our room; sometimes she sits in the fireplace and cooks our food and keeps us warm in winter. And water: what a miracle that is too, Brother Leo! How it flows and gurgles, how it forms streams, rivers, and then empties into the ocean --singing! How it washes, rinses, cleanses everything! And when we are thirsty, how refreshing it is as it descends within us and waters our bowels! How well bound together are man's body and the world, man's soul and God! When I think of all these miracles, Brother Leo, I don't want to talk or walk any more; I want to sing and dance."
Of all the great feasts, he loved Christmas best. One year the holiday fell on Friday, and one of the new brothers, Morico by name, did not want to eat meat. Francis invited him to sit down next to him at the table.
"When it is Christmas, Brother Morico," he said to him, "there is no such thing as Friday. If the walls could eat meat, I would give them such a day so that they too could celebrate the birth of Christ. But since they cannot eat the meat, I will use it to anoint them!"
Having said this, he took a piece of meat and daubed all four walls of the Portiuncula with its juice. Then he reseated himself contentedly at the table.
"If the king were my friend," he said, "I would ask him to command that on Christmas Day each person take some grain and scatter it throughout his courtyard and the streets for our brothers the birds, because it is winter, the earth is covered with snow, and they cannot find anything to eat. Also, that whoever has oxen, donkeys, or any other animals should wash them with warm water on this day and give them double rations out of love for Christ, who was born in a stable. Also, that the rich open their doors during this season and invite the poor in to eat; for on this day Christ was born --Christ, and joy, and dancing, and salvation!"
December had begun; Christmas was approaching. Francis counted the days, the hours, waiting anxiously for this great day of Christianity so that once again he could behold Christ as an infant child. "This will be my final Christmas," he kept saying to me. "This year is the last time I shall see the infant Christ moving His tiny feet in the manger. Therefore, I must celebrate this Christmas with great devotion--I must say goodbye to it forever!"
He had a good friend in the city, a pious man named Sior Belita. He sent for him, and Belita came with great alacrity and kissed the holy, wounded hand.
"My brother," Francis said to him, "it would please me exceedingly if we could celebrate holy Christmas Eve together this year. Listen, therefore, to what I have in mind. Nearby in the forest you'll find a large cave. Would you be kind enough to place an ox and a small donkey in it on Christmas Eve, just as it was in Bethlehem? This is my last Christmas and I want to see how very humbly Christ was born in the stable, born to save mankind: to save me, sinner that I am."
"I'm at your service, Father Francis," replied the friend. "Everything will be done exactly as you wish."
He kissed Francis' hand and left.
"I will see Christ's birth," Francis said to me happily; "then I will see the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and after that, I will die. Praise the Lord for giving me strength to enjoy the complete cycle: Birth, Crucifixion, Resurrection."
From that moment on, forgetting his pains and all his cares, Francis gave himself over to preparations for the Nativity.
"Brother Leo," he said to me, "you must help me celebrate my last Christmas joyfully and with deep and pious emotion."
He called for Giles.
"Brother Giles, you will be Joseph. Put a tuft of cotton beneath your chin to make a white beard, and take along a staff to lean on."
He sent Juniper to the mountain to bring him two shepherds. They came, one a robust old man, short and sunburned, the other young, his cheeks covered with blond fuzz.
"Brother shepherds," he instructed them, "on Christmas Eve you shall come to the cave which Sior Belita will point out to you, and you'll bring your lambs along with you. Do not be afraid: you won't have to do anything. You'll simply stand at the mouth of the cave leaning on your crooks and watching what goes on inside. That's all. You shall be the shepherds who see the newborn Christ."
He also sent a message to Clara: "Have your sister Agnes come to me. I have something to tell her."
"She will be the Virgin Mary," he said to me. "I chose her because her name is Agnes."
He sent me to the Portiuncula to fetch several young novices to portray the angels. They were to carry swaddling clothes and bands, and to sing "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men."
And Brother Pacifico was to be with them to play the lute; and Father Silvester would celebrate Mass.
On Christmas Eve Sior Belita sent word that everything was ready and that we should come. We set out in the middle of the night accompanied by several of the friars--Bernard, Sior Pietro, Masseo, Father Silvester. Pacifico marched at Francis' side, carrying his lute.
The sky was entirely clear, the air frosty. It was a peaceful night, with the stars so low that they almost touched the ground. Each one of us had a star above his head. Francis was walking with dancelike steps. Suddenly he turned:
"What joy this is, my brothers! What great happiness has been given to men! Do you realize what we are going to see? God as an infant! The Virgin Mary suckling God! The angels coming down to earth and chanting hosanna! Brother Pacifico, if you want my blessing take your lute from your shoulder and sing: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.' "
He leaned over to my ear. "Brother Leo, I cannot hold back my joy. Look how I'm walking: my feet do not hurt me any more. Last night I dreamed that the Virgin Mother placed her Child in my arms."
The peasants from all the surrounding villages had come with burning torches; the entire forest was splendidly illuminated. When we reached the cave, which was already crowded with people, Fr
ancis lowered his head and entered, the brothers following behind him. The manger was at the far end, lined with hay. An ox and a small donkey stood by quietly; they had eaten and were ruminating. Father Silvester placed himself in front of the manger and began to intone Mass just as if he had been before an altar. Francis, meanwhile, circled the crib on all fours, bleating like a lamb. And when Father Silvester came to the place in the Gospel where it says: "And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger . . ." a bluish radiance spread over the wall of the cave and everyone saw Francis bend down and then stand up again holding a newborn babe in his arms.
The peasants bellowed and waved their torches insanely, while we all fell prone on the ground, unable to bear the miracle. I raised my head for an instant and saw the infant extend its tiny hands and stroke Francis' beard and cheeks, then smile at him, moving its diminutive feet. Francis, raising the child above his head, held him in front of the burning torches and cried: "Brothers, behold the Savior of the world!"