Never did Francis regret his renunciation, but ever did the thought of it fill him with gratitude and joy. One day, some years after his disinheritance, the Saint and one of his disciples, Brother Masseo, were eating a scanty meal of broken bread, begged by the way; they ate near a fountain, and a large stone was their table. “O Brother Masseo,” said Francis, his soul bubbling with joy, “we are not worthy of so great a treasure;” and he repeated these words several times. Brother Masseo answered: “Father, how canst thou talk of a treasure where there is so much poverty and indeed a lack of all things? for we have neither cloth, nor knife nor dish, nor table, nor house; neither have we servant nor maid to wait upon us.” Then said the Saint: “And this is the very reason why I look upon it as a great treasure, because man has no hand in it, but all has been given us by Divine Providence, as we clearly see in this bread of charity, in this beautiful table of stone, and in this clear fountain.”[31] Surely here we find the very apotheosis of poverty; of the poverty which, discarding the artificial, is happy in the simple realities and in the bounties of nature, and feels no barrier between itself and the spiritual possession of the very earth itself.
Here it may be as well to take note how alien is the poverty of Francis from the vulgarity and squalor, the idleness and discontent, which mark too frequently the life of the poor. No greater misconception of Franciscan poverty could there be than to conceive it as sanctioning or condoning any condition that detracts from the proper native dignity of man. The “Lady Poverty” of Francis went with bare and bruised feet, her garment was coarse, and she ate but the bread of the peasant; but she retained her native dignity of soul, and bore herself as a Queen wherever she went. She delighted in the pure air, and the flowers, and the running stream, was honest and self-revering, simple and joyous.
The poverty of our city slums where hearts break in discontent, and souls are starved for lack of spiritual intelligence—such was not the poverty of Francis’ dream. To use again his own manner of speech, this is poverty in slavery, degraded and dishonoured by the vice and selfishness of man. With a full heart would he have set himself to rescue his Ideal from her modern degradation and restore her to her place of honour upon the earth. Knight-errant as he was, he would not have rested until poverty was made honourable amongst men. To rescue the poor from the conditions which have so effectually demoralised them during the past two or three centuries of unheeding individualism, would undoubtedly have been to Francis a first and urgent duty were he with us to-day. Even in his own time he regarded with anxiety the conditions which debased the poor; even then he considered himself the knight-errant sent to rescue the comely maiden Poverty from the neglect and heartless scorn of the world.[32] But was ever Italian peasant so utterly degraded as are many of the victims of modern industrialism? Poverty with Francis was the mother of spiritual freedom; poverty in the London slum is synonymous with hard materialism and irreligion. Was ever contrast greater? And yet Francis has made evident to us that beneath the squalor and degradation of the modern city, there is a spiritual possibility, if only it can be recovered. But will it ever be that poverty shall again regain amongst the hungry multitude the honourable estate with which the Saint of Assisi had endowed it? Will it ever be rescued from its present inhuman conditions? The future only can tell; and they who strive that it shall be so can only work in the strength of their faith; but faith verily can accomplish the apparently impossible, if faith itself be strong. Meanwhile the ideal of Francis has assuredly a prophetic message for the multitude which is not hungry.
Poverty, as Francis preached it, is an integral element in the Christian life. Christianity imperatively demands of all its followers an acceptance of the truth which Francis embodied so wonderfully in himself. No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he be as Francis was, a lover of Poverty. Such is the Gospel. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”[33] There are those who so interpret this beatitude as to empty it of all significance concerning material possessions. The meaning of Christ, however, is made clear, by His own earthly life and by the lives of His early disciples. “Poverty of Spirit” means nothing less than detachment of heart from the possession or achievement of material gain, and from its attendant pleasures. No man can be a disciple of Christ who is not free from the moral slavery which wealth and temporal possessions so easily set upon the soul. To no man is given the spiritual insight and vision which alone can bring rest eternal to man’s spirit, unless he have first put from him the lust of the earth. And according to the measure of his detachment is spiritual achievement possible.
Is then every man to imitate St Francis of Assisi, and cast off all wealth and become dependent upon the labour of his hands or the charity of his neighbour? No such claim is made by Francis, for it was not made by Christ. If Christ demanded of the young man that he should “go and sell what he had and give it to the poor” in order to follow Him, He also acquiesced in the rich Zacchæus keeping his wealth so long as he did not neglect his duty to those in need. Francis, too, following the Divine Model, gave no injunction to the Lord of Chiusi or to the Lady Giacoma to renounce their property, and he expressly forbade his friars, who like himself gave up all right of possession, to judge those who have possessions. No, it is not the holding of property, but the selfish misuse of it and the inordinate desire of material gain and its pleasures, which is opposed to the virtue of evangelical poverty. In few words may the Christian precept of poverty be set forth: Let no man set his heart on any material possession for its own sake, or for the mere holding of it; if a man is lacking in this world’s goods, let him not fret nor complain, but seek rather the life of the spirit. If, on the other hand, he is endowed with this world’s goods, either by inheritance or as the result of honest labour, let him bear in mind that such goods are not absolutely his own; they belong, in the first instance, to God, the Master of all, and may rightfully be used and distributed only subject to the Divine laws of justice and charity. No man has an absolute ownership before God, so that he may satisfy his own whim or pleasure without consideration for what is due by Divine Law to his fellow-men. Possession in the sphere of conscience is stewardship. The rich are God’s stewards, appointed to “give to every man his just measure in due season.” Such briefly is the precept of Evangelical Poverty—a precept which has no direct connection with any theory of social economics, but is based upon the fundamental law of religion, that only the poor in spirit are spiritually free and capable of citizenship in the realm of eternal life.
Assuredly to us who live our lives upon the pulse of a great industrial empire, this message of the Poverello comes with a distinctness not to be passed unheeded. As a race we are a prosperous people, and money-making is our first preoccupation. Luxuries are easily within our grasp; cheap luxuries, perhaps, which is all the worse, for that very cheapness is a snare blinding us to the fact that what we indulge in is a luxury. In money-making and luxury lie the elemental dangers to our spiritual life. “Money,” says Cardinal Newman, “is a sort of creation, and gives the acquirer, even more than the possessor, an imagination of his own power, and tends to make him idolise himself. Again, what we have hardly won we are unwilling to part with; so that a man who has himself made his wealth will commonly be penurious, or, at least, will not part with it except in exchange for what will reflect credit on himself or increase his importance. Even when his conduct is most disinterested and amiable (as in spending for the comfort of those who depend on him), still this indulgence of self, of pride, and worldliness insinuates itself.” And he adds: “If such be the effect of the pursuit of gain on an individual, doubtless it will be the same on a nation; and if the peril be so great in the one case, why should it be less in the other?”[34] The enduring strength of a nation, as of an individual, depends upon moral fibre and spiritual vision. If these be destroyed no nation can long remain save as a warning to the nations that shall come. Undoubtedly there are strong tendencies amongst us towards the worship of wealth and its attendant luxuries and towards a selfish accumulation of wealth beyond all possible needs, tendencies which acquire strength with the growth of empire and trade. Well for us is it that at this time Francis of Assisi is becoming widely known. To all who revolt against the vulgar materialism which dominates so much of our present life, Francis of Assisi is as a prophet sent by God. Standing against the dark background of Avarice and Luxury which had already infested the growing commercial centres of the mediæval world, he throws the light of his own clear personality into the dark corners of our own life.
We yearn, many of us, for a deeper spiritual life; we sorrow because the joy of life seems flitting ever further and further away from this complex social organism of ours. We seek direction, and the Poverello is here to lead us; and the way he leads is that of detachment and renunciation. But his own personality and life are an assurance to us that the renunciation he preaches, leads to richer gain; he leads us through death, only that we may find life even here, in some measure, upon the earth, and in the fulness of the spirit hereafter. Thus and not otherwise does he interpret to us the Poverty of Christ.
FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C.
Crawley, Feast of St Anthony
of Padua, 1901.