My God and My All: The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi

by Elizabeth Goudge

  For the Superior this interruption of his sleep was the last straw; and perhaps remembering the rabbits cooked in their fur he mistrusted Juniper’s pottage. He lost his temper again and told Juniper to take himself off, but still Juniper stood there, full of pity and love, pleading and holding out the pottage. But the patience of the angry man before him had been tried too far and it was not accepted. The heart of a lesser man than Juniper would have broken then; he would have turned away weeping and taken the pottage to the pigs. But Juniper was made of stouter stuff, and if his intellect was not strong he was richly endowed with common sense. It was good pottage and he was not minded to have it wasted. He said, “If you will not eat, my Father, I pray thee do this for me: hold the candle and I myself will eat it.”

  How Francis would have laughed! Perhaps that hard tired man, his successor as the Father of the Little Ones, whose chief virtue it was that he had truly loved Francis, fancied that he heard an echo of laughter in the shadows. Be that as it may, it was his heart that broke, not Juniper’s. He took Juniper into his cell and they sat down and ate the pottage together.

  There is one brother who has come down to posterity only by reason of the briefness of his sojourn in the order and the suddenness of his exit from it. He seems to have thought that the life of a religious was a species of rest cure, for he “did hardly pray at all and never did work, neither would he go forth for alms; but he did eat bravely.” Francis dealt with him summarily. “Go your way, Brother Fly,” he said, “since you are willing to eat the sweat of the other brethren but yourself are idle in the work of the Lord. Like a barren drone you gain nothing and do no work, but you devour the labor and gains of the good bees.”

  Thinking over these good bees, Francis described the good Brother Minor as a man having the faith of Brother Bernard, the simplicity and poverty of Brother Leo, the courtesy of Brother Angelo, the gracious and natural sense and devout eloquence of Brother Masseo, the mind raised in contemplation of Brother Giles, the continual labor of holy Ruffino, “who without intermission prayed always, for even when sleeping or doing anything his mind was always with the Lord,” and the patience of Brother Juniper, “who arrived at the perfect state of patience because of the perfect truth of his own vileness which he had before his eyes.”

  Francis had it all. The virtues of all these men were his virtues, and he seems in a sense to have been them all, to have held them within himself that he might lift them up to God.

  Chapter 8

  The Second Order

  They are clean of heart who despise earthly things and always seek those of heaven, and who never cease to adore and contemplate the Lord God living and true, with a pure heart and mind.

  WRITINGS OF SAINT FRANCIS

  A YEAR AFTER the brothers settled at the Portiuncula another stronghold of prayer was established at San Damiano. Francis had known in the days when he was rebuilding San Damiano that nuns would live there, and so when he was confronted by a tall fair-haired girl, aged eighteen, telling him she wanted to be one of the Brothers Minor, his first shock would quickly have passed into reverent acceptance of a new but expected unfolding of the will of God. That was always the only supremely important thing to Francis and Clare, the will of God. The difficulties in which his acceptance of her as a member of the order would involve them both must have been foreseen by Francis from the first, but what appeared to others a difficult problem was for him extremely simple: God wanted Clare. He knew it and she knew it and so their duty was inescapable. As unhesitatingly as he had answered Pacifico’s appeal to him to take him away from the world and give him back to God he answered Clare’s, and as unhesitatingly as Pacifico and the other brothers Clare did what she had to do and never looked back. Her courage all through her life had a tough masculine quality. She was as doughty a fighter as any of them, and far more obstinate. At the end of her life she postponed death to get her own way in a matter near her heart and having got it died in peace.

  The Lady Clare was probably born in the summer of 1193, when Francis as a boy of eleven was the prince among the children, leading them singing and dancing up through the streets to the high terraces of the city. She was a daughter of the house of Scefi, a cousin of Ruffino and possibly of Sylvester also, so that she was the third member of that noble family to enter the order. Her father was Favorino Scefi, Lord of Sasso Rosso, a castle on the slope of Monte Subasio, though he owned also a palazzo within the city of Assisi, and she was the third of the five children of Favorino and his wife Ortolana. From the beginning the Lady Ortolana, like the Lady Pica, must have known that her child was in some special way chosen of God, for shortly before the baby’s birth, when she was praying for a safe delivery, she heard the interior Voice say, “Fear not, woman, for you shall bring forth a light whose rays shall enlighten the earth,” and when the child was born she called her Clare, “the shining one.” And so even Clare’s name marked her for that order whose light had been seen in the dream of the Portiuncula falling upon the blind faces of the praying men.

  Ortolana was a devout woman, fond of escaping from the world for a while and going on pilgrimage, and Clare was a devout little girl, who liked to escape to hidden corners to say her prayers in secret. She grew up in her two homes, the castle and the palazzo, hearing the topics of the day discussed around her, hearing the minstrels play and delighting in their music, learning to read and write and do exquisite needlework, a well-educated, cultured, and beautiful girl destined by her father for distinguished and suitable marriage. But as she grew older her inclinations began to take what her father must have thought an unsuitable turn and she became absorbed not in the thought of marriage but in the sufferings of the poor. She would have been about twelve years old when the young Francesco Bernadone began to serve the poor of Assisi. Perhaps one day, passing up the street with her mother or her nurse, she saw him bending over some poor wretch who was pouring out a tale of woe to him, and the sight of the compassionate figure remained a vivid memory with her. Perhaps even then he became her hero. Everyone in Assisi knew about his father’s treatment of him, his quarrel with his father, and the scene in the bishop’s palace, and so she would have known too and perhaps she wept for him. She was about fifteen when he began his costly service to the lepers, and when she too began to serve the poor she saw to it that her service also was costly. She did not condescend to them as a great lady, she denied herself her food to help them. Her family let her have her way in this service; possibly they could do nothing else, for her will was so strong that even the men stood in some awe of her. But to the poor she was all gentleness and her marvelous sympathy and understanding won her so much love that all men spoke of her, and of the light of heaven that seemed to shine about her in the dark and sorrowful places where she went. To many a poor sick creature, bedridden in some hovel, it must have seemed like the sunrise when the door opened and the Lady Clare came in, fresh and young and smiling, her fair hair gathered in its crespine of golden mesh, a long cloak worn over her plain belted gown. Under her cloak she carried a woven basket on her arm with bread and fruit in it, bandages and salves and bunches of sweet herbs. It was so that Francis heard of her, all love and light and courage, and he longed to see and speak with her.

  She longed to speak with him. She saw him frequently, for she made one of the large congregation that heard him preach in the cathedral, and as she listened to his sermons she knew that here was the man who would help her. For her life just now had reached an impasse. She had been allowed to remain unmarried for longer than most girls of her rank but now, a suitable husband having been found for her, marriage was being pressed upon her by her parents. But she knew she was not made for the conventional life of a married woman. What she wanted was nothing less than God himself. “Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.” But neither did she want the conventional life of a nun in one of the convents for women that were little more than appendages of the noble houses, where unmarriageable d
aughters could lead lives of gentle prayer interspersed with fine needlework and a little gossip. Her heroic temper was made for something more than this and what she wanted was total giving. Francis had given himself utterly and only he could understand and help her.

  Her need seems to have communicated itself to him, for it was he, not Clare, who brought about their first meeting. Speechlessly she had cried out to him, as Pacifico had done, “Take me away,” and her chronicler says, “He was wishful to snatch this noble prey out of the reach of a wicked world.” He must have been extremely certain of God’s will for Clare, for to take the initiative in this way was unlike him. As a rule his dealings with women had a shattering simplicity. He avoided them whenever possible, but if they insisted on talking to him about their souls, he kept his eyes on the ground, or the sky, while the interview lasted. He was a naturally ardent and loving man who had cut women out of his life for God’s sake and he was taking no risks.

  One would like to know where his first meeting with Clare took place; perhaps outside the cathedral after the Sunday sermon, with Clare in all her patrician finery curtsying to the shabby young friar who had been her hero for so long. After it Clare and her aunt the Lady Bianca Guelfucci, who understood Clare and knew all that was in her heart, often went down the hill to talk to Francis at the Portiuncula. Many other citizens of Assisi must have done the same, for his own sufferings had given him a rare understanding of troubled souls, and his natural gentleness and courtesy had been fashioned by prayer into a channel of the comfort of Christ. His visitors could not go inside the quickset hedge, where the conventual silence held, but Francis could come out to them and talk to them in the cathedral of the wood. And so it was “into the wood” that Clare went to speak with Francis of the love of Christ. It was here that she told him that she must do what he had done and he agreed with her. It was God’s will that the order should give to him the service of daughters as well as sons, and in the wood he strengthened her for what she had to do. It was early spring and the buds were thickening on the trees.

  On Palm Sunday, April the 18th, 1212, the Lady Clare left the world. In the morning she went with her family to the cathedral for high mass and the blessing and distribution of the palms. Her chronicler says that she was dressed in the festival garments of a nobleman’s daughter, her scarlet robe girdled with a jeweled belt, a high stiff headdress on her head, and embroidered shoes on her feet. The cathedral was crowded, for the people of Assisi loved this Palm Sunday service, but among all the beautiful women gathered there, Clare of the oval face, fair hair, and delicate features was one of the loveliest. Her emotions must have almost torn her in pieces. She was here for the last time with her father and mother, brother and sisters. She must give up home and security, the fulfillment of marriage and children, of worldly dignity and gracious living, for a life of hardship for which nothing in her life so far had prepared her. And being what she was, there would be no turning back, for she was not of the type that turns back. Her world would be outraged and her family heartbroken. And all this she was doing at nineteen years of age for love of a God whom her eyes could not see and her human arms could not hold, and whom she would not truly find until after long struggle all the self-love in her had been destroyed. She was doing what she wanted to do but it is a paradox of human life that what we want to do with the noblest part of us is not accomplished without blood and tears. When the time came for them all to go up to the altar to receive their palms, Clare could not go with the others but had to stay kneeling and trembling in her place.

  And then there occurred an incident that suggests that in what they were doing Clare and Francis had the approval and support not only of Bianca Guelfucci but of Bishop Guido too. When he saw that Clare had not come up with the others he left the altar, came to where she was kneeling, and put the blessed palm between her hands.

  That night Clare left her home, and the little pointed doorway through which she went is still to be seen. Umbrian houses had a special door which was used only for the carrying forth of the dead and between each death was blocked up with stones. Afraid to leave the palazzo by the main door, in case she attracted notice, Clare somehow managed to move these heavy stones and passed out through the door of death. Perhaps it flashed through her mind, as she stepped out into the cool spring night, that the Lady Clare was dead and that she who now stood under the stars was Sister Clare.

  Bianca was waiting for her in the street and together they went down the dark hill from the city and made their way through the forest. As they came near the Portiuncula they heard singing and saw lights shining through the trees. All the brothers, having recited matins in the church, were coming to meet her carrying torches and candles and singing God’s praises. Taking Clare with them they returned again to Santa Maria degli Angeli and kneeling before the altar she made her vows, and Francis cut off her hair and put on her the cross-shaped habit of the order. She was with them when they sang the first mass of Holy Monday and from it she drew strength to face the persecution, the poverty, and suffering that she knew were coming. The epistle and gospel, the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah and the fourteenth chapter of Mark, must have seemed like a special gift to her. “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?” What could any suffering of hers be compared with the sufferings of the divine hero? And he would be with her through it all and at the end would be her prize. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saves them. . . . thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting.” And when the gospel was read she heard the story of the woman who brought her treasure to Christ, “an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious,” and broke it and poured it out, and he accepted her total giving with love and compassion.

  Mass ended and now it was the dawn, perhaps a chilly one, the lights had gone out, and what was Clare to do next? Francis had not a convent in one hand and a community of nuns in the other with which to endow her, and the kindly Bianca, who had helped them so gallantly up till now, must go home. It is open to question whether Francis, who lived with such childlike faith and trust for the moment only, had given much thought to this morrow, or even any thought at all, Christ in the Gospels having explicitly commanded otherwise. However, whether from aforethought or on the inspiration of the moment, he took Clare to the Benedictine convent of San Paola at Bastia, a quiet place at the edge of the forest where two streams met, and asked the nuns to take care of her until he could find a home for her. Then he went away and Clare was left alone to face the coming storm.

  It did not take her family long to discover where she was and they came next day, deeply angry, to take her home. She fled to the church, and when they threatened to take her away by force if she would not come willingly, she uncovered her shorn head and clinging to the altar cried out that she belonged to God alone now and they could not take her away. She was so strong, so sure, that she convinced them. To the end of her life Clare could always convince people that she was right. She could subdue even popes to her will, so queenlike was she in her authority. And perhaps the Lady Ortolana, her mother, remembered that this child was Clare the “shining one” and suddenly understood that this was her daughter’s destiny. And so they left her before the altar.

  A few days later she left San Paola and went to the convent of Sant’ Angelo in Panzo, not much more than a mile from Assisi on the slopes of Monte Subasio and fairly close to her father’s castle of Sasso Rosso, and here a little later she was joined by her sister, Agnes, who had run away too because she could not bear to be without Clare. Agnes was only fifteen, not such a resolute character as Clare but strong enough to know that where Clare went she must go and what Clare did she must do too, so dearly did she love her. But a second runaway child was more than the family could endure and this time an expeditionary force of twelve male members of the house of Scefi rode out from Assisi and up th
e mountain to the convent, bringing with them into the story the comedy that is never far away. The jingling clattering arrival of the cavalcade terrified the nuns, and sent the two girls running to the convent chapel for refuge, but the twelve men trooped in after them and stood around them where they clung together before the altar. At first, as the chapel was holy ground, they moderated their voices and struggled for a sweet reasonableness. But to Agnes nothing was reasonable except that she should stay with Clare, and with Clare there to strengthen her she did not give in. Then one of them, perhaps the girls’ brother Boso, lost patience, grabbed hold of Agnes by her long hair and pulled her out of the chapel and the convent into the open air, where they could all express themselves without the restraint that had been imposed upon them by the holiness of the place where they had been before. Clare remained on her knees before the altar, praying to God to save her sister, until above the noise that her relatives were making she heard Agnes’s voice crying out to her for help and knew that they were trying to take her away. Then she too ran out of the convent and overtook them on the mountainside. Agnes was lying on the ground and the legend says that through the power of Clare’s prayer she had become so heavy that the men could no longer carry her. Perhaps the truth is that she fought so hard that they could no longer hold her without hurting her. Clare came flying down upon them, took Agnes in her arms and commanded her menfolk to go home. And they went home, baffled and defeated by the calm imperious strength of this extraordinary girl.

  Clare and Agnes stayed with the nuns at Sant’ Angelo for a year, a time of patient waiting, solitude, and prayer, and then the kindly Benedictines of Monte Subasio once more presented the order with a “place.” They gave San Damiano, the church and little house, to be the first convent of the Second Order, and Clare and Agnes came home rejoicing.