The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi

UNDER this title a precious series of spiritual counsels on the religious life has come down to us from the pen of St. Francis. The early Legends afford no indication of the time or circumstances of the composition of these Admonitions; nor is it possible to determine by whom they were collected. But they accord so completely with the Saint’s genuine works and are so redolent of his spirit that their authenticity is admitted by all.[58] Moreover, the various codices in which these Admonitions may be found are unanimous in attributing them to St. Francis, while the number of the Admonitions[59] and the order in which they are given in the different codices are almost the same as in the Laurentian codex at Florence, dating from the thirteenth century.

1. Assisi (Munic. lib. cod. 338, fol. 18);—2. Berlin (Royal lib. cod. lat. 196, fol. 101);—3. Florence (Laurentian lib. cod. X. Plut. XIX. dextr., fol. 448);—4. Florence (cod. of the Convent of Ognissanti, fol. 5);—5. St. Floriano (monast. lib. cod. XI. 148, fol. 38);—6. Foligno (cod. of Capuchin Conv., fol. 21);—7. Lemberg (Univ. lib. cod. 131, fol. 331);—8. Liegnitz [60] (lib. of SS. Peter and Paul. cod. 12, fol. 131);—9. Luttich (Munic. lib. cod. 343, fol. 154);—10. Munich(Royal lib. cod. lat. 11354, fol. 25, number 1 only);—11. Naples (Nation. lib. cod. XII. F. 32, folio antepaen. numbers 6-27);—12. Oxford [61] (Bodl. lib. cod. Canon miscell. 525, fol. 93);—13. Paris (Nat. lib. cod. 38327, fol. 354);—14,

Of the foregoing codices that in the Laurentian Library at Florence dates from the thirteenth century; those at Ognissanti, Florence, at Assisi, Berlin, St. Floriano, Oxford, Rome (St. Antony’s, St. Isidore’s, and the Vatican codex 4354), Toledo, and Volterra date from the fourteenth, and the others from the fifteenth century.

For the Quaracchi edition of the Admonitions, upon which the present translation is based, the two oldest of all these codices, to wit, those of the Laurentian Library at Florence and of the Municipal Library at Assisi,[63] have been used. Those at St. Isidore’s, Rome, and Ognissanti, Florence, have also been consulted, besides the editions of the Admonitions found in the Monumenta Ordinis Minorum (Salamanca, 1511, tract. 11, fol. 276 r), the Firmamenta Trium Ordinum [64] (Paris, 1512, P. I, fol. 19 r), and the Liber Conformitatum of Bartholomew of Pisa (Milan, 1510, fruct. XII, P. 11). But for the titles and paragraphing, which differ more or less in different codices, the Laurentian codex has been followed.[65]

The Lord Jesus said to His disciples: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me. If you had known Me you would, without doubt, have known My Father also: and from henceforth you shall know Him, and you have seen Him. Philip saith to Him: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you and have you not known Me? Philip, he that seeth Me seeth [My] Father also. How sayest thou, Shew us the Father?” [66] The Father “inhabiteth light inaccessible,”[67] and “God is a spirit,”[68] and “no man hath seen God at any time.”[69] Because God is a spirit, therefore it is only by the spirit He can be seen, for “it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.”[70] For neither is the Son, inasmuch as He is equal to the Father, seen by any one other than by the Father, other than by the Holy Ghost. Wherefore, all those who saw the Lord Jesus Christ according to humanity and did not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity, that He was the Son of God, were condemned.

In like manner, all those who behold the Sacrament of the Body of Christ which is sanctified by the word of the Lord upon the altar by the hands of the priest in the form of bread and wine, and who do not see and believe according to the Spirit and Divinity that It is really the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are condemned, He the Most High having declared it when He said, “This is My Body, and the Blood of the New Testament,”[71] and “he that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life.” [72]

Wherefore [he who has] [73] the Spirit of the Lord which dwells in His faithful, he it is who receives the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord: all others who do not have this same Spirit and who presume to receive Him, eat and drink judgment to themselves.[74] Wherefore, “O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart?”[75] Why will you not know the truth and “believe in the Son of God?”[76] Behold daily He humbles Himself as when from His “royal throne”[77] He came into the womb of the Virgin; daily He Himself comes to us with like humility; daily He descends from the bosom of His Father upon the altar in the hands of the priest. And as He appeared in true flesh to the Holy Apostles, so now He shows Himself to us in the sacred Bread; and as they by means of their fleshly eyes saw only His flesh, yet contemplating Him with their spiritual eyes, believed Him to be God, so we, seeing bread and wine with bodily eyes, see and firmly believe it to be His most holy Body and true and living Blood. And in this way our Lord is ever with His faithful, as He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”[78]

The Lord God said to Adam: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat.”[79] Adam therefore might eat of every tree of paradise and so long as he did not offend against obedience he did not sin. For one eats of the tree of knowledge of good who appropriates to himself his own will[80] and prides himself upon the goods which the Lord publishes and works in him and thus, through the suggestion of the devil and transgression of the commandment, he finds the apple of the knowledge of evil; wherefore, it behooves that he suffer punishment.

The Lord says in the Gospel: he “that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be” a “disciple “[81] and “he that will save his life, shall lose it.”[82] That man leaves all he possesses and loses his body and his soul who abandons himself wholly to obedience in the hands of his superior, and whatever he does and says—provided he himself knows that what he does is good and not contrary to his [the superior’s] will—is true obedience. And if at times a subject sees things which would be better or more useful to his soul than those which the superior commands him, let him sacrifice his will to God, let him strive to fulfil the work enjoined by the superior. This is true and charitable obedience which is pleasing to God and to one’s neighbor.

If, however, a superior command anything to a subject that is against his soul it is permissible for him to disobey, but he must not leave him [the superior], and if in consequence he suffer persecution from some, he should love them the more for God’s sake. For he who would rather suffer persecution than wish to be separated from his brethren, truly abides in perfect obedience because he lays down his life for his brothers.[83] For there are many religious who, under pretext of seeing better things than those which their superiors command, look back [84] and return to the vomit of their own will [85] . These are homicides and by their bad example cause the loss of many souls.

I did “not come to be ministered unto, but to minister,” says the Lord.[86] Let those who are set above others glory in this superiority only as much as if they had been deputed to wash the feet of the brothers; and if they are more perturbed by the loss of their superiorship than they would be by losing the office of washing feet, so much the more do they lay up treasures to the peril of their own soul.

Consider, O man, how great the excellence in which the Lord has placed you because He has created and formed you to the image of His beloved Son according to the body and to His own likeness according to the spirit.[87] And all the creatures that are under heaven serve and know and obey their Creator in their own way better than you. And even the demons did not crucify Him, but you together with them crucified Him and still crucify Him by taking delight in vices and sins. Wherefore then can you glory For if you were so clever and wise that you possessed all science, and if you knew how to interpret every form of language and to investigate heavenly things minutely, you could not glory in all this, because one demon has known more of heavenly things and still knows more of earthly things than all men, although there may be some man who has received from the Lord a special knowledge of sovereign wisdom. In like manner, if you were handsomer and richer than all others, and even if you could work wonders and put the demons to flight, all these things are hurtful to you and in nowise belong to you, and in them you cannot glory; that, however, in which we may glory is in our infirmities,[88] and in bearing daily the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us all, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who to save His sheep bore the suffering of the Cross. The sheep of the Lord followed Him in tribulation and persecution and shame, in hunger and thirst, in infirmity and temptations and in all other ways;[89] and for these things they have received everlasting life from the Lord. Wherefore it is a great shame for us, the servants of God, that, whereas the Saints have practised works, we should expect to receive honor and glory for reading and preaching the same.

The Apostle says, “the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.” [90] They are killed by the letter who seek only to know the words that they may be esteemed more learned among others and that they may acquire great riches to leave to their relations and friends. And those religious are killed by the letter who will not follow the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, but who seek rather to know the words only and to interpret them to others. And they are quickened by the spirit of the Holy Scriptures who do not interpret materially every text they know or wish to know, but who by word and example give them back to God from whom is all good.

The Apostle affirms that “no man can say the Lord Jesus but by the Holy Ghost,”[91] and “there is none that doth good, no not one.”[92] Whosoever, therefore, envies his brother on account of the good which the Lord says or does in him, commits a sin akin to blasphemy, because he envies the Most High Himself who says and does all that is good.

The Lord says in the Gospel, “Love your enemies,” etc. [93] He truly loves his enemy who does not grieve because of the wrong done to himself, but who is afflicted for love of God because of the sin on his [brother’s] soul and who shows his love by his works.

There are many who if they commit sin or suffer wrong often blame their enemy or their neighbor. But this is not right, for each one has his enemy in his power,—to wit, the body by which he sins. Wherefore blessed is that servant who always holds captive the enemy thus given into his power and wisely guards himself from it, for so long as he acts thus no other enemy visible or invisible can do him harm.

To the servant of God nothing should be displeasing save sin. And no matter in what way any one may sin, if the servant of God is troubled or angered—except this be through charity—he treasures up guilt to himself.[95] The servant of God who does not trouble himself or get angry about anything lives uprightly and without sin. And blessed is he who keeps nothing for himself, rendering “to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”[96]

Thus may the servant of God know if he has the Spirit of God: if when the Lord works some good through him, his body—since it is ever at variance with all that is good—is not therefore puffed up; but if he rather becomes viler in his own sight and if he esteems himself less than other men.[97]

How much interior patience and humility a servant of God may have cannot be known so long as he is contented.[98] But when the time comes that those who ought to please him go against him, as much patience and humility as he then shows, so much has he and no more.