Chesterton on St. Francis

St. Francis is one of the most popular saints and one of the most misunderstood. Chesterton says the world appreciates the saint but not the sanctity.

Chesterton describes Francis’ transition from being a soldier and fighter to being a builder and a reformer. He describes Francis as troubadour and a clown of God, singing and dancing for his Lord. Finally Chesterton probes deeply the saint’s mysticism.

The amazing thing about mysticism is how physical it is. Everything in the story of Francis is palpable. He gives away all his possessions to the poor, including the clothes off his back (and also, somewhat unwisely, all his father’s possessions, too.) He hears the voice of Christ speaking to him from a crucifix hanging on the wall in the Church of St. Damian, asking to rebuild the church, and immediately gathers stones and starts to repair the building. He wears a rag, with a rope for a belt. He embraces poverty the way other men embrace wealth, he hungers after fasting the way others hunger for food. He embraces not only all men and women as his brothers and sisters, but all creatures great and small.

After achieving a spiritual depth that would have been more than enough for the rest of us, Francis rushes farther, deeper. He disappears into a cave to be alone with God.

The man who came out of that cave, says Chesterton, was not the man who went in. Whatever happened to him “must remain greatly dark to most of us, [we] who are ordinary and selfish men whom God has not broken to make anew.” And yet interestingly enough, Chesterton does seem to know what it is. The mystic, he says, passes through that moment when there is nothing but God.

If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasize the idea of dependence… He would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head downwards…

Chesterton holds Francis up as a mirror of Christ, reflecting the light of Christ as the moon reflects the sun. Francis’ humility prevented him from ever realizing this. He “was full of the sentiment that he had not suffered enough to be worthy even to be a distant follower of his suffering God.” He did not feel he was “worthy even of the shadow of the crown of thorns.” But he apparently was worthy. Francis, the Mirror of Christ, literally bore on his body the wounds of Christ.

(courtesy of Dale Ahlquist, President,The American Chesterton Society)