A Saint Recanonized

A Saint Recanonized by Samuel M. Crothers

Samuel M. Crothers presents St. Francis of Assisi as a saint who has been “recanonized” by the wider imagination: though formally honored by the Church, he has also won the affection of people beyond it because of his vivid humanity, joy, and spiritual daring. To understand him, Crothers argues, modern readers must imaginatively enter the thirteenth-century world of forests, robbers, visions, poverty, and religious wonder, setting aside modern habits of scientific, economic, and rational calculation. Francis is portrayed not as a theologian or reformer but as a childlike spiritual leader whose ethical idealism arose from love rather than system. Like a flower that cannot be transplanted, he must be viewed within his medieval setting. Crothers therefore asks readers to look forward with the young Francis rather than backward critically upon him. The transformation begins with Francis, son of Peter Bernardone, aspiring to military honor and knighthood. Visions redirect his ambition: he dreams of a palace filled with armor for himself and his knights, then is asked why he serves the servant rather than the lord. Hearing the Gospel command to take neither gold, money, extra clothing, shoes, nor staff, he abandons worldly prospects, takes a peasant’s dress, and becomes the devoted knight and lover of Lady Poverty. Francis’s poverty is not grim self-denial. He finds it joyful, liberating, and spiritually rich. Perfect bliss, he tells Brother Leo, lies in patiently enduring cold, hunger, rejection, and insult without resentment. Poverty frees the preacher from dependence on patrons, buildings, wealth, and permission. Francis and his brothers travel the byways of Italy, preaching repentance and love of God wherever they find people. When there are no people, Francis preaches to birds; when confronted with the wolf of Gubbio, he treats its violence as the result of hunger and makes a covenant by which the wolf will receive food and cease harming people or beasts. His missionary spirit likewise appears in his journey to the Sultan, where he seeks conversion rather than destruction. His preaching resembles that of wandering minstrels: Brother Pacificus and the friars preach and then sing the “Praises of the Lord,” asking as their reward that listeners turn to true repentance. This joyous, musical religion makes Francis beloved. Though severe with himself, Francis is compassionate and courteous toward others. When a sick friar needs grapes, Francis eats with him so that he will not be ashamed. When Brother Peter’s tomb becomes crowded because of miracles, Francis commands him, through obedience, to perform no more miracles, restoring peace. Though loyal to the Church, Francis lives with an unworldly freedom. He values charity above ornament, declaring that the adornments of the altar of the Blessed Virgin should be sold if need requires it. Pope Innocent grants Francis and his poor brethren permission to live by the Gospel without the conventional wealth of monastic institutions. Crothers recognizes that Francis’s idealism was medieval and unscientific, shaped by the freer poverty of Umbria rather than the problems of modern cities. Yet he finds enduring power in Francis’s worship of poverty, understood as the recognition of values that money cannot measure. Against a society that equates worth with wealth and permits special interests to dominate the common good, Francis represents those who possess something not for sale and who prove that happiness is possible without riches. Such worshipers of Lady Poverty still appear among artists, scientists, incorruptible statesmen, geniuses, ideal gentlemen, and lovers of nature. Francis remains especially dear to those who find religious meaning in the natural world, who can praise Master Sun, Brother Wind, Sister Water, and Brother Fire, and who can see abundance in a smooth stone and a spring of cold water. He endures as the saint of those who believe in Nature as well as Grace, embodying the joyful bohemianism of piety.

By Samuel M. Crothers · First published 1920 · Genre: Religious Essay, Biographical Criticism, Hagiography · 5,012 words

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All the world loves a lover," but all the world does not love a saint. Our hearts do not leap up when we behold a halo on the title-page, and so the lives of the heroes of the Church are frequently neglected. When the saint has been duly canonized, that is generally the end of him in popular esteem. But sometimes the ecclesiastical and secular judgments coincide and the saint is invested with human interest.

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St. Francis of Assisi · medieval Christianity · thirteenth-century Italy · Umbria · Franciscan poverty · Lady Poverty · spiritual idealism · religious biography · literary essay · saints and sainthood · Christian ethics · joyful asceticism

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