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

unto them was that they should take heed to be founded upon holy humility and to imitate pure simplicity, holy prayer, and our Lady Poverty, wherein the holy first brethren did build, and this alone he told them was the safe way to the salvation of their own souls and the edification of others, forasmuch as Christ, to the imitation of whom we are called, did show and teach this way alone by word and likewise by example.

For the blessed father, looking forward to things to be, knew by the Holy Spirit, and many a time and oft did say unto the brethren, that “many brethren taking occasion from the edification of others will let go their own calling, to wit, holy humility, pure simplicity, prayer, devotion, and our Lady Poverty, and it will come to pass with them that they shall think themselves thereby to be the more endued, that is fulfilled, with devotion, and to glow more warmly with the love, and to be enlumined more brightly by the knowledge of God by reason of their understanding of Scripture. Hence in time of trial they will remain inwardly cold and empty, so as that they will not be able to turn back to their early calling, for that the time for living according to their calling they have lost in vain studies and false, and I fear lest that which they did seem to have shall be taken away from them, forasmuch as that which was given unto them, to wit, to hold and imitate their calling, they have altogether neglected.”

And he said further: “Many brethren there be that set all their study and all their care upon acquiring knowledge, letting go their holy calling by wandering forth both in mind and body beyond the way of humility and holy prayer; who, when they have preached to the people and have learnt that some have thereby been edified or converted to repentance, are incontinently puffed up and extol themselves upon their work and the gain of another, as if it had been their own gain; when nevertheless they have preached rather to their own condemnation and harm, and have done nothing for themselves according to the truth, save only as the instruments of them through whom in truth the Lord hath gathered in this harvest, for them that they believe to be edified and converted to repentance by their knowledge and preaching, the Lord doth in truth edify and convert by the prayers of the holy, poor, humble, and simple brethren, albeit the holy brethren for the most part know not aught thereof, for thus is it the will of God they should know not, lest haply they might pride themselves thereon.

“Those brethren be my knights of the Table Round that do hide them- selves in wildernesses and lonely places, that they may give themselves up to prayer and meditation, bewailing their own and others’ sins, living simply and humbly conversing, whose holiness is known unto God, albeit that at times it is unknown to the brethren and to men. When the souls of these shall be presented by the angels of the Lord, then shall the Lord show them the fruit and wages of their travail, to wit, the many souls that have been saved through their prayers and tears, and shall say unto them: ‘My dearly beloved sons, such and so many be the souls that have been saved by your prayers and tears and examples, and for that ye have been faithful over a few things, I will make ye rulers over many things. Others, verily, have preached and labored in sermons of their own wisdom, yet is it through your merits that I have wrought the fruit of salvation, wherefore receive ye the wages of their labors as well as the fruit of your merits, which is the everlasting kingdom that ye have snatched by the violence of your simplicity and humbleness, and of your prayers and tears.’

“And even thus shall they, bringing their sheaves, that is, the fruits and deservings of their holy humility and simplicity, enter into the joy of their Lord, rejoicing and exulting. But they that cared for nought save only to know and to point out to others the way of salvation, doing nought as for themselves, shall stand naked and empty-handed before the judgment-seat of Christ, bringing only the sheaves of confusion and of shame and of sorrow.

“Then shall the truth of holy humility and simplicity and of holy prayer and poverty that is our calling, be exalted and glorified and magnified, the which truth they that are puffed up with the wind of knowledge have dis- paraged in their life and in the idle sermons of their own wisdom, saying that truth itself is a lie, and, as though they had been smitten with blindness, cruelly persecuting them that did walk in the truth.

“Then shall the error and the falsehood of their opinions wherein they have walked, and which they have preached for the truth, whereby they have cast down many into the pit of darkness, come to an end in grief and confusion and shame, and they themselves with the darkness of their opinion shall be overwhelmed in outer darkness with the spirits of darkness.”

Whence the Blessed Francis did oftentimes say upon that word: “The barren hath borne seven and she that hath many children is waxed feeble”: “The ‘barren’ is the good Religious, simple, humble, poor, and despised, vile and abject, that with holy prayers and godly works doth edify others continually, and bringeth forth with grievous groaning.”