Almost early October, a cold wind ripping through the tops of the trees, flowers and leaves still hanging on, holding on to life. In a small, eye-of-the-storm corner of the garden, a tuft of lavender September flowers are peeking through a hole in the tough shrub. On the tiny stalks, nestled in the flowers, are large bumblebees, dying. Death returns in the midst of flowers, and it is just a few days before the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
Mother Church knew what She was doing when She placed St. Francis’ feast here, in this season of nature’s death. For St. Francis was a man who knew that all of nature teaches man about God, about the joy of spring, but the joy of a spring out of a fall and winter. St. Francis was not a jovial, idiotic, eternal optimist. He was optimistic about eternity, but only because of the greatest wounding and death and resurrection ever achieved: Christ’s.
As G.K. Chesterton points out, St. Francis’ entry into the world came in the fall of the world’s purgation of its paganism and nature-worship. Christendom had eschewed the spiritual lessons of nature in its attempt to escape nature-worship. Francis burst into life, to call the world back, now baptized and purged, to learn of God through His creation; and he knew that the little in life must be protected, and loved, and celebrated, because that requires humility- whether in washing a leper’s diseased body, or in providing a blessing for the animals of children. Humility is the foundation of the spiritual life, along with love, and these the little man of Assisi embodied.
How did Francis first learn humility? Again, I refer to G. K. Chesterton’s poetic analysis. Francis was attracted, with all the force of his powerful nature, to the chivalric and romantic ideals of his day. These were the days of dynastic Italian feuds and the Crusades, and Francis fell to the charms of this pageant. His stalwart and stable Assisi was his oyster, out of which he would spring in pearly brightness to troubadour the world. Suddenly, his world was turned upside down- as Chesterton says, his world was literally turned upside down. His soul, in meeting the Lord through locutions in the Portincula and on the battle march, was unfettered and set asail on the wild waters of the love of God. He saw that everything he knew: Assisi, chivalry, his family, his body, his soul, were all hanging upside down and totally dependent on God and His love. Everything. He then saw himself for what he was, a fool and a puffed-up fool. He knew also that everyone else, in heaven and in Assisi, could see him for what he was, as Chesterton puts it, “ like a fly on a windowpane’.
What might strip other souls of courage to go on, Francis responded to with total abandon, abandon almost unparalleled in the history of the Church, abandon to the will of God in imitation of Christ and Our Blessed Lady. Francis used the language of chivalry still, but in the service of God and in acknowledgement of his new understanding of his true relation to the God Whom he loved with ardent fire: he called himself God’s fool. In the language of chivalry, a ‘fool’ was what we would understand as an entertainer, but a comedian-sort, more like the Three Stooges or John Belushi. It is sadly indicative of our day that fools are held up as “comedic geniuses” and celebrities, but Francis knew what a fool was. He knew that he was a fool, and that his only dignity was that he was the fool attendant upon God: and paradoxically, then, what a dignity he had! For God’s fool has a greater dignity than any worldly dignitary. Francis also used the title of ‘fool’ in the sense that he was bent upon serving his Lord and his Love in whatever capacity, in whatever cost to himself and his own thoughts of self-dignity. Almost seven hundred years later, St. Therese of the Child Jesus would live out the same self-abenegation and humility in search of her Love, her Lord, by using the imagery of being a toy, like a ball, waiting in deep longing for the Child Jesus to want to play.
Thus did Francis learn humility: and his humility and his great love of God were born almost simultaneously. All of his actions and words can only be seen correctly by the twin lamps of humility and love of God. His care of the poor and sick, his journeys to the Holy Land to preach love of Christ to Muslim and hardened Crusader alike, his warrior-like defense of the dignity and sanctity of the Eucharist, and his stigmata, all come from these two lights. He was a joyful, but probably more serious man than he is often portrayed. He was battle-hardened and a man who understood the darknesses and illicit attractions embedded in the world of the flesh, and the death to the soul they caused. Yet he was a man full of love, an ardent and chivalrous love for Christ and because of this, for all creatures, regardless of size or importance. He was joyful in and because of his poverty, because this state helped him to remain humble and detached, set free on the wild sea of God’s love.
St. Francis would grieve for the death of bees in the early days of October, but yet would rejoice in that they played their greatest role in reminding and helping to prepare souls for death; and that they demand humility of souls, because we share the same death, and our days are “ short, like the flowers of the field.” It is good for us to remember about death, and so to turn to faith and hope in Christ and His resurrection. The glory of the autumn leaves shout and sing a last song, as if to remind us of that hope in the resurrection, the spring.
St. Francis, God’s Fool, pray for us.
