Francis of Assisi

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

God is the Most High, the highest good, to be praised and thanked

A personal GodStated explicitly

Francis of Assisi does not argue for God's existence: he sings it. His authentic writings are, to a large extent, praises addressed to a Thou. The Praises of God Most High, an autograph preserved in Assisi, string together attributes in the second person: holy, strong, great, most high, three and one, love, humility, patience, all good. The Canticle of the Creatures opens with the «Most High, all-powerful, good Lord» and ascribes to him all praise, glory and honour. In chapter 23 of the Earlier Rule, the great thanksgiving is addressed to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, creator and saviour. This God chooses, reveals and leads: in the Testament, Francis attributes every step of his conversion to the Lord's initiative. The Absolute is, for him, someone to whom one responds with gratitude.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

A person is what he is before God, and no more

A created, immortal soulInferred from their doctrine

Francis of Assisi does not develop a theory of the self, but his Admonitions contain a precise anthropology. A person's identity lies not in what he owns, knows or appears to be, but in what he is before God: «what a person is before God, that he is, and no more». He places the root of evil in appropriation: Admonition 2 interprets Adam's sin as appropriating one's own will and exalting oneself over the good that God says and does in one. The true self is thus a creature that receives itself and returns every good to its owner; the Earlier Rule asks that one claim nothing as one's own except vices and sins. Like his tradition, he presupposes a created soul destined for eternal life.

Why do we suffer?

What is bitter turns sweet when embraced for love

Separation from GodStated explicitly

Francis of Assisi does not explain the origin of suffering; he shows how it changes sign. The Testament begins with that experience: while he was in sin it seemed very bitter to him to see lepers, but the Lord led him among them and what had been bitter was turned into sweetness of soul and body. The dictation on true and perfect joy places perfect joy not in the order's successes but in being turned away, at night and frozen, at the door of one's own house, without losing patience. The suffering that wounds is that of the soul turned away from God by self-appropriation; that which is embraced in union with Christ's cross purifies and unites.

What happens after death?

Bodily death is a sister; only the second death harms

Eternal life and resurrectionStated explicitly

The last stanza that Francis of Assisi added to the Canticle of the Creatures, in 1226, shortly before his death, praises God for sister bodily death, from whom no living man can escape. The same verse distinguishes two deaths: woe to those who die in mortal sin; blessed those whom death finds in God's most holy will, for the second death will do them no harm. The death of the body is no enemy, but part of the creation that gives praise; what is at stake is the person's eternal destiny. The Letter to All the Faithful describes starkly the death of one who lived clinging to his goods, to move readers to penance while there is time.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

The Lord gives the beginning; following the poor Christ is the answer

Through grace and loveStated explicitly

In the Testament, Francis of Assisi repeats a formula that says a great deal: «the Lord gave me». The Lord gave him to begin doing penance, gave him faith in churches and priests, gave him brothers, and the Most High himself revealed to him that he should live according to the form of the holy Gospel. Salvation thus begins with a gift. The response is to follow in the footsteps of the poor and humble Christ: the Later Rule sums it up as keeping the Gospel by living in obedience, without anything of one's own and in chastity. The Admonitions insist that every good belongs to God and that the blessed servant is the one who gives it back, without appropriating even his own virtues.

Is a teacher necessary?

No one showed him the way: the Most High revealed it, within the Church

Community and traditionStated explicitly

Francis of Assisi had no human teacher, and he says so: in the Testament he recalls that, when the Lord gave him brothers, no one showed him what he should do, but the Most High himself revealed to him that he should live according to the form of the holy Gospel. Yet that revelation did not set him apart from ecclesial mediation: in the same Testament he asks that priests and theologians be honoured, he had his form of life approved by the pope and entrusted the brothers to obedience to the minister general and the Roman Church. His school is the fraternity: ministers who serve, brothers who correct one another with mercy, and a common rule. What guides is the Gospel lived in community.

Is the world real?

Creatures are siblings, and through them the Most High is praised

A good and real creationStated explicitly

The Canticle of the Creatures is Francis of Assisi's answer: the sun, moon, stars, wind, water, fire and earth are brothers and sisters, and through them —or with them, since the Umbrian preposition per admits both readings— the Lord is praised. The world is real, good and beautiful, and bears the meaning of the Most High: brother sun, the text says, is his likeness. But it is not divine: everything comes from God and belongs to him, and praise is due to him alone. The Exhortation to the Praise of God invites heaven, earth, rivers and creatures to bless the Lord, in the line of the Psalms and the canticle of Daniel.

What is love?

Love the brother who sins and do not demand he be better

Love of God and neighbourStated explicitly

For Francis of Assisi love is, before any feeling, a concrete way of treating the other. In the Letter to a Minister he asks a superior burdened by his brothers not to want them to be better Christians, to love them as they are, and that there be no brother in the world who, having sinned as much as he could sin, should leave his presence without having obtained mercy. The Admonitions call blessed the one who loves his brother as much when he is ill and can give nothing back as when he is well. Love of God and love of neighbour form a single charity, learned, according to the Testament, among the lepers.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

He does not discuss freedom: he denounces appropriating one's own will

Did not address it

Francis of Assisi did not take up the problem of freedom versus providence or fate; he was no school theologian. What he does treat, insistently, is the use of the will. In Admonition 2 he interprets original sin as appropriating one's own will: to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good is to ascribe to oneself the good that God says and does in one. His whole rule rests on obedience, understood as the free surrender of that will, and Admonition 3 calls true and perfect obedience the giving up of oneself. He thus presupposes a will capable of appropriating or giving back, but does not theorise about its freedom or about predestination.

Why meditate or pray?

To pray is to praise and make the heart a dwelling for the Lord

Friendship with GodStated explicitly

The writings of Francis of Assisi are full of prayer, and almost always of praise: the Praises of God Most High, the Praises to Be Said at All the Hours, the Office of the Passion composed from verses of the Psalms, the Salutation of the Virgin. His prayer is a relationship with a Thou who is blessed and thanked. The Earlier Rule asks that a home and dwelling place be made in the heart for the Lord, and the Later Rule that the brothers desire above all to have the spirit of the Lord and his holy operation and to pray always with a pure heart; work itself must not extinguish that spirit. The Rule for Hermitages organises retreats of prayer in small groups.

Can reason know the ultimate?

He does not theorise about reason: he subordinates study to the spirit of prayer

Did not address it

Francis of Assisi did not ask whether reason can know God; he asked what knowledge is for. His answer is practical and cautious. Admonition 7 distinguishes between those who study letters only to be thought wiser and to gain riches, whom the letter kills, and those who give back to God what they know by word and example. The Later Rule asks those who do not know letters not to be anxious to learn them. And the short Letter to Saint Anthony authorises him to teach theology to the brothers, provided that study does not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion. Reason is no enemy, but neither is it the way.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

From hermitage to the roads: preach by deeds

Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

Francis of Assisi left the world —in the Testament he says that, after serving the lepers, he left the world behind— but he did not shut himself away. His form of life was itinerant: the brothers go through the world with nothing of their own, work with their hands, serve and proclaim peace. The Earlier Rule asks that all preach by their deeds, and the Letter to the Rulers of the Peoples addresses governors to remind them of judgement and ask them to have God honoured. At the same time, the Rule for Hermitages organises retreats of prayer in which some brothers act as mothers, like Martha, and others as sons, like Mary, taking turns. Contemplation and mission alternate and nourish each other.