Doctrine of St Francis #2: Poverty is A Most Fecund Lady
She´s a looker.
That sapient woman, Simone Weil once remarked, “we cannot grasp the contradictions of the Saints, we have to ascend by way of them.” And its these contradictions that we should grasp onto for dear life with white knuckles, as if our salvation depends on it because it very well may.
And don’t we find oh so many of these with St Francis, the rigid ascetic rigorist and softie troubadour animal lover, the schismatic shunner1 and most affectionate friend of the most hardened sinner. We can either: identify these contradictions, take St Francis seriously, and use them as points of ascent; Or we can do what this present age is all too wont to do: ignore them, make little of them, take and thereby pervert the side of the contradiction that is most readily sanitized for tasty and healthy digestion by the dog-lovers and exuberant-non-conformists of our late-capitalist lebenswelt, by the denizens of the immanent frame. When we break the contradictions in the attempt to bring St Francis to our level, we can´t ascend by means of them. When we break them, we aren´t dealing with St Francis anymore.
Consider this example: As the yearly chapter of the franciscan order in Assisi grew by leaps and bounds each year, the common folk of Assisi, while St Francis was away from the city, took it to themselves to build a large stone structure to house the men for this event, so that they need not be littered among the streets and in the forest, but would be given the honor of a proper dwelling. Skeptics at first, the people of Assisi were by now all convinced about St Francis and his wonderful order, they wanted to respond with proportionate gratitude to the men bringing Assisi worldwide renown. Upon arrival, what did St Francis do? Thank them for their hard labor of love? No. Bless them and consecrate the building to God and use for the conversion of souls? Not that either. Instead, St Francis stood on the roof of the building and began ripping out the roofing and stones out of the walls to destroy it. The Madman. Why do this?
He immediately thereafter ordered his men to destroy the building completely, stone by stone, as he claimed it conflicted with their calling to live in evangelical poverty. Such a generous gift, such a good intention, according to even the most severe sensibilities of the day, we might think. why not let it stand? Why not let it be used once a year, rather than have the hoardes of franciscan brothers strewn out in the streets of Assisi. Why the ingratitude, why the total absence of tact? It turns out his wish wasn’t fulfilled and it did stand as the brothers pointed out to St Francis that it belonged to the city and wasn´t a gift for them to possess, so they had no right to destroy it.2
But time and again, we see the most bizarre, almost inhumane severity from St Francis regarding his obsession with poverty. And its the stories like these that are most essential to grasping what St Francis has to teach us, not the stories we love and understand like him talking to taming the man-eating wolf of Gubbio. It´s because we cant readily internalize the moral or make sense of them that they are important to fixate on and try to grasp, to try to ascend.
Poverty is A Lady to Be Loved and Possessed.
The best explanation I have is that St Francis, the young knight, the poet and troubadour, the romantics romantic, well he fell in love with a very unusual woman. He loved and defended a woman he called Lady Poverty like a jealous, wild, italian husband would defend his prized and precious wife. He didn´t go through the roof for poverty as an ideal, but for Lady Poverty, a comely, if raggedy, woman.
The building for him became a question of fidelity to a woman, a woman to whom he was betrothed and with whom he was in love. She had been insulted by this stone structure and he wanted to show his devotion to his faithful and fruitful wife, the one who had brought him all he´d ever dreamed of, an army, a kingdom, thousands of daughters, millions of sons—he´d seen them all in visions—and it was all because of Her, His Special Lady. Its that simple, and its that crazy. And its really the Gospel.
But about 95% of the behavior from St Francis that seems totally inexplicable and irreconcilable with a basic sense of christian propriety, merciful generosity, humane flexibility, evangelical kindness becomes comprehensible if He´s reacting as an unusually amorous husband to insults against his beloved, if he´s viewing these slants against poverty as insults against his most beloved Lady Poverty.
And this isn´t some hair-brained suspicion, its what St Francis tells us over and over again that people refuse to take seriously. For all its importance for the franciscan order, Francis himself doesn´t always speak of poverty simpliciter, but often of Lady Poverty. One of the classic examples of this was his justification of his unusual, rags-and-vagrancy approach to evangelical life by telling the following allegory to Pope Innocent III:
“A king married a poor and despised woman, taking her from her misery to share in his glory. Her humility and devotion won the king’s favor, and she became a source of grace and blessings to the kingdom. “
It was this allegory that convinced Pope Innocent, along with a mystical dream, to accept St Francis´Rule. But to comprehend the life of St Francis is to comprehend that this allegory was very real to him.
The difference between loving poverty as an abstraction and loving Lady Poverty is the possibility for eros. St Francis sought to possess his bride perfectly, he sought to demonstrate his devotion to her over and over again, and saw slight compromises as potential threats to his pure and single-minded devotion to his bride.
And its eros that is most missing in our spiritual world, we have agape, self-less, self-sacrificing love, on overdrive from many spiritual leaders. We also have brotherly love, but not the wild Eros that will stop at nothing to possess his beloved, that almost wants obstacles to appear so as to be able to show his love, this aspect is almost entirely absent from the contemporary spirituality. The austerities of St Francis, his magnanimity, things like him wandering around in the forest fasting and doing severe penances until he recovered possession of, what he called, the Spirit of Christ. This is Eros, and St Francis had it in abundance. People, not ideas, transform hearts. Most of all people embodying ideas. And Francis fell for Lady Poverty, its brilliant.
What this looked like in praxis was a desire to possess really absolutely nothing. I mean it, absolutely nothing. In the early franciscan rule, the one Pope Honorius III altered in 1223 to make it less strict, the brothers could not possess anything, not money, not property, not possessions when they traveled on their preaching tours, they were supposed to fly with nothing, not even a bible or prayer book, just like we hear from Jesus in the scripture, “Take nothing with you for the journey: no stick, no beggar's bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt.” (Lk 9:3)
There is a famous legend about a novice who wished to take a psalter—one small book, of psalms!—with him on a journey, so he could pray better while walking. St Francis refused saying “When you have a psalter, you will want a breviary; and when you have a breviary, you will install yourself in a throne like a great prelate, and you will command your brother: ‘Bring me my breviary!’ Francis then took some ashes from the hearth and rubbed them into his body, all the while repeating, ‘I’m a breviary! I’m a breviary! I’m a breviary!’” One of the insights of the parable of the Ten Virgins is that lovers don´t barter with their love. In the Sermon on the Mount we are called to give to those who beg, but we cannot give away our love. A devoted wife doesn´t offer even a smidgen of her love for her husband to those wanting to take it from her and have it for themselves. That´s the psychology of St Francis here, not a smidgen less love for his special Lady.
We could all become breviaries, books of prayer, according to St Francis, if we we’d learn to be content literally with nothing and to trust in God for everything. Many of us would be more likely to become a psalter in this condition of want and dependence on God. The ashes are for his sorrow that so few seemed to get this picture. His love for Lady Poverty and her fecundity didn’t seem to register even with some of his most cherished brothers. With the compromised rule of 1223—where brothers could concern themselves with their own provision on a journey—he was devastated, and he felt as though he failed to deliver on his mission, what he saw as a slippery slope had commenced. In this rule, the Friars bearing his name would seek to avoid—at least a little, just to be safe—the wholesale romance and adventure with His Lady that brought him so much joy and glory. It also brought him Wisdom.
Lady Poverty Binds One Most Perfectly in Friendship with Jesus Christ.
Imitation is flattery, so they say, but the true glory of Lady Poverty is that she leads one on a path that gives one the most essential practical, experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ. For God to renounce his position in heaven and become man was an abnegation, a renunciation, a poverty of the most extreme, truly incomprehensible sort. If St Francis is known for beholding the marks of Our Lords Passion, his mark on Christendom in every household was the discovery of the Manger as a playground of piety and meditation. For the mystery of Bethlehem, that first mystery of the Incarnation is a mystery expressing the beauty and power of poverty: the poverty which the God-Man choose to enter into the world, is the poverty in which he desires us to possess to enter into our hearts. And few want it, fewer choose it, St Francis did. He wanted Christmas joy everywhere and all the time, that meant spreading the significance, the poverty of the Manger.
Renouncing all worldly honor, suffering in the cold and in hunger, worse, bringing dishonor to ones family, in the worldly sense of honor, to be insulted, mocked, despised for a holy non-conformity, these all help us miserable and stupid humans grasp the immense charity of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. We can only know on the basis of likeness, and we can only begin to grasp Jesus by going through this ourselves out of love for Him or in obedience to Him. But through our abnegation we can begin to comprehend His, and by comprehending His abnegation, we can glory in ours. St Francis unbridled magnanimity, as a boy wishing to be a conqueror and knight, took a bizarre twist as Lady Poverty helped him to discover the key to the highest nobility and the greatest conquest, the glory of the cross.
We can only know Jesus by embracing the cross, and Lady Poverty trains her boys in this sport only, so one has to learn to enjoy suffering in likeness to Jesus, or to learn to turn to Jesus’ suffering in meditation to gather strength for ones own difficult travail. But either way, its sink or swim, and Lady Poverty insists on the most essential movements of the christian life, movements others, even religious, can try to artfully avoid: “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Matt 16:24.
Brother Giles one of St Francis´Disciples depicted Lady Poverty thusly:
"She is not dressed in gold or fine robes but in rags; her dwelling is the stable; her food is the bread of tears. Yet she brings freedom and joy, for she carries no burden except the Cross of Christ.”
The final way poverty binds one with Jesus Christ is perhaps the most counter-intuitive, and the most essential of the lessons she teaches. This is that sin and weakness bind one to Jesus Christ, rather than separate us from Him. The Franciscan vocation was back in the day considered the most difficult in that it was the most austere, it would inflict through want, and hardship, the most weakness on a man. And weakness is one of the most extraordinary occasions for sin. Anyone can be patient in comfort, amongst friends. But patience in sickness, and in the cold, or amongst lepars is a different story. All souls going to heaven have to learn to turn their sin over as an occasion for uniting with Jesus rather than fearing separation from him. And this very basic movement of the soul to its redeemer—one that many souls never learn due to pride—is insisted upon as a matter of course by Lady Poverty. To embrace the way of the cross is to learn to embrace weakness as an occasion of God showing his strength, and even accept that more sin may seem to be made manifest through weakness and that this is an occasion for God to make manifest His Mercy (so long as it is not intentional).
Lady Poverty Lays Bare Divine Providence
If you have nothing, then you have to rely on God to provide. For most of us this is reason enough not to have nothing, but for St Francis this was a reason to have nothing. When he prayed that he and the brothers would be given a place for retreat, he and the brothers were offered the mountain of La Verna, where he recieved the Stigmata and one of his favorite places to pray. This magestic mountain was given to them by a wealthy man who owned rights to it. But consider this: what if the Franciscans had taken money, what if they gathered donations and decided with the money they gathered to purchase what they deemed to be the best place for retreat. It ultimately would have been their choice, not God´s. They never would have had the satisfaction of recieving it directly from Providence. Because they had nothing and the offer came as a direct response to prayer, St Francis could be sure this was a work of God. This gives great confidence, strength, and gratitude for God´s plan and gifts are usually better than we could imagine. The Mountain of La Verna is spectacular, the woods surrounding the mountain are verdant and peaceful, full of small caves in which one could make a small hermitage and pray, it couldn’t be more perfect for St Francis and his confreres, but its most perfect of all and can be most perfectly enjoyed coming from God´s Providential hand. Thus contrary to expectation: those who know God´s goodness and delight in it the most intimately are the poor living in total dependence on God´s provision.
In another legend, St Francis sent a brother to found a community in Bologna. The brother arrive with nothing, no connections or platform, just begging and living with the poor. But a wealthy man noticed the patience and mildness with which this destitute man endured insults and taunts, day after day, while begging and thought perhaps he was a righteousness man and took him into his home. There he heard of his mission and the strict rule he was living by and was impressed and resolved to use all his resources to help with the foundation. And such a foundation, being born though absolute poverty shows the will of God more clearly than through wealth and human device. There is just an interior genius to Lady Poverty, in the sense she impartes a delight in God´s goodness and provision, but outwardly, she convinces the unconvinced of God´s plan, because who could explain one poor beggar drawing down divine riches on millions of soul. Philanthropists seek to get rich to help the poor, but Saints, become poor to bestow riches, and to shew forth God´s Holy Will.
Lady Poverty Bestows Great Riches
The greatest obstacle to God using us as his instrument is pride. Lady Poverty has a painful but effective solution to pride, she removes its sources of sustenance, that being human strength and human respect. Poverty makes us weak, and brings weakness, and puts us in a compromised, weak circumstance, one that crushes pride. Furthermore, pride survives more so on the basis of a human worldly respect, of being considered well in the eyes of others, and poverty removes this as well. Being weak, poor, and despised, its harder to be prideful, and its easy to be used by God for great things, because in weakness and without reputation, we must put all our trust in God’s provision and God’s good pleasure.
In God´s mercy, he can´t use the prideful for great things as it would harm them, His Blessing would be a curse that separates the prideful even further from him. Thus Lady Poverty prepares her Sons for great things and works of Heaven.
Theologians marveled at the theological knowledge and insights given to the young, totally unschooled, simple men of Assisi, gifts which made their own book learning look like nothing in comparison. These gifts were only possible to give through and in poverty. This weakness of the boys from Assisi became their greatest strength, just like the apostles: “have you ever heard men speak of God like that!! And unlearned men! What a miracle, this work must be of God.“ If they had studied for years, people wouldn't have been so astounded and convinced by their witness.
Poverty brings want, weakness, inability that reveals not only who Jesus is but who we really are, we are all poor beggars, but only franciscans or those living in this spirit know it. The biggest obstacle for most people in the spiritual life is running away from this picture, and Lady Poverty gives a sweetness to embracing it, the joy and honor of participating in the life and spirit of the Incarnate God-Man.
God wants to raise all of us up to great works, to grow in virtue, to arrive at Holy Wisdom, but he gives these gifts to those who are aware of their dependence, and living in total dependence on Him, those who known their inability, who rejoice in their weakness as an opportunity to show confidence in God to carry them.
One gets the impression with all the hubbub about St Francis that he was a sort of one-off guy, but really reading i fioretti and the early legends of St Francis and his brothers, one realizes that St Francis was surrounded by, if not his equals in sanctity, a group of men who have never since found equal in sanctity. Why? Because of the Lady who was giving birth to these Sons, they bore all the same resemblance to the Seraphic Father. His Lady bore Sons made for this privileged Way of Poverty, bestowing the Honor of Knowing and Loving The Incarnation in the most intimate way. The early brothers in Assisi were just regular townsfolk, dime a dozen, who got caught up in the womb of Lady Poverty and were born and raised with the greatest honor and nobility know to man, imitating Christ, partaking in the Poverty He Chose to enter into the world and through which he sought to reveal Himself.
Lady Poverty Reveals the Heart
Its this circumstance, acting in love with nothing, giving all that one has when one has nothing, that reveals heart, and shows heart. The genius of Poverty, its transformative power, and the reason St Francis fell in love is that in trying to give all he had to Lady Poverty, He saw the majesty and grandeur of Jesus Christ´s gift to us and the love he has for us with a depth and profundity that few have before or since. He would stare at the crucifix in San Damiano and after a short time would be worked into a frenzy at the love he beheld and this drove him into the streets of Assisi, preaching of the love of the living God, of Jesus Christ, and leading souls on the way to the knowledge and love of Him. But without poverty, the heart has things to grasp onto, to hold onto, and with things to hold onto, the heart can´t see the heart of Jesus Christ so clearly, for having withheld something for itself the miracle of God giving His whole Self remains opaque.
The evil nature of human beings is that they will give anything and everything away before they give themselves, we often have to be totally out of options to decide to offer the heart, and this is what Holy Poverty took from St Francis, all other options, it took everything but His Heart, and Poverty put his heart on a pedestal, for the world to see. First begging to rebuild the tiny church in San Damiano, then an earnest street preacher and wandering preacher, then finally a holy crucified victim of charity for the conversion of souls. Within his lifetime the flame in his heart spread throughout the world, saying with St Paul, “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” (I cor 11.1)
Lady Poverty is Most Fecund
It´s this display of the heart that lets poverty win so many hearts. St Anthony of Padua hearing of how the franciscans sought and found martyrdom in Morocco asked permission to take leave from his monastery to sail to Morocco, to join the order, and to die with them as well at the hands of the muslims. Academics, Monks, Comfortable Priests all wished to flee their lives of comfort and join the new friars minor, because the saw the heart behind it was the Heart of Jesus Christ and hearts living purely for him.
Not since the 5th century, when droves of men flocked to the sketis in Egypt, had Christian Europe seen a movement grow so quickly. Aristotle says that friendship is about sharing goods and the greater the good shared the deeper the friendship. The comrades whose friendship shared a love for Lady Poverty knows no equal, both the cross and the joy they shared together are incomparable, because there was and is no higher vocation than this, no deeper fraternity with Jesus than that bestowed by Lady Poverty. St Francis won souls not by asking less of them and calling it mercy, he won souls by asking so much more of them—a prudence to which the contemporary church remains blind to at great cost, All in all, for all his rigors, St Francis was strict about Nothing—possessing nothing that is— because of a Lady who gave him Everything.
Addendum
At his death St Francis, barely able to walk on account of his final illness, struggled to remove his habit as he stripped himself nude before his brothers. Seeing in this last action one final chance to show his total devotion and gratitude to Lady Poverty, whose finest suitor always managed to combine his love for his bride with perfect imitation of Our Lord. He was asked in obedience to put back on his habit and he did so. I’ĺl close with the words of Dante in his Paradiso (11):
"His bride, as none had sought her before,
Till death he wed her, and to her joy
He sealed the sacred love for evermore."
Doctrine of St Francis Series
Read: Doctrine of St Francis #1: “I am the Greatest Sinner”
Read: Doctrine of St Francis #3: Justice and Mercy are Inseparable
Coming Soon…
#4. “If you knew the Glory Promised Me!”
#5. “I am a Herald of the Great King”
#6. “I am a Breviary”
#7. “You Only Know What You Have Achieved”
#8. “Death is Your Brother”
#9. “The Sun, Wind, Rain and Cold are Father, Mother, Sister, Brother”
#10. “The Body is an Ass and Your Worst Enemy”
#11. “Academics Blather, Love Acts”
#12. “Perfect Joy is found in the Cross”
one of the famous stories from i fioretti is of a brother who st francis knows will die outside the order and the church and be damned because of this and st francis ceases to talk to him. but then later saves him from this fate through prayer.
This story can be found in the Speculum Perfectionis written in the 13th century.