The Little Flowers and the Life of St. Francis, with the...

ever have speech with the Emperor, I will entreat him and persuade him and tell him that for the love of God and of me he ought to make a special law that none snare nor kill our Sisters the larks nor do any evil unto them. In like manner, that all the Mayors of the cities and the Lords of the castles and towns be bound every year on the day of the Nativity of our Lord, to compel their men to throw wheat and other grain along the roads beyond the cities and walled towns, so as that our Sisters the larks may have whereof to eat, and other birds also on a day of so passing solemnity, and that for reverence of the Son of God whom on such a night the most Blessed Virgin Mary did lay down in the stall betwixt the ox and the ass, whosoever hath an ox and an ass be bound on that night to provide them provender, the best that may be, and in like manner also that on such a day all poor folk should be given their fill of good victual by the rich.”

For the Blessed Francis had a greater reverence for Christmas than for other festivals of our Lord, saying: “After that the Lord was born for us, it did become a matter of necessity that we should be saved.” Wherefore he would that every Christian on that day should exult in the Lord, and that for the love of Him which did give Himself unto us, all ought not only to make abundant largesse unto the poor, but likewise also unto the beasts and birds.