The Popes seem to have troubled him by their persistent efforts to persuade him to alter the extreme simplicity of this Rule, and to assimilate his teaching with that of the other Orders. But St. Francis, always most humble and gentle in his denials, pleaded so earnestly and so sweetly for the original lines on which he had begun, that he succeeded in gaining his point both with Innocent the Third, and his successor Honorius. Even his dear friend Ugolino, the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, tried hard, when he succeeded to the Papacy as Pope Gregory the Ninth, to convince El Poverello that union with the Dominican Order would be a gain to the Church, but the saint's sweet humility at last conquered Ugolino. These discussions, however, which made needful journeys to and from Rome, involved much loss of time, as well as mental weariness, and wore out his decreasing strength.
He was, after a time, constantly suffering, but always cheerful and uncomplaining. His greatest trial seems to have been the tendency he saw, especially in the more recent converts, to relax the strictness of the Rule in regard to Poverty; when he heard, during a journey which would take him past Bologna, that larger and more comfortable houses had been built for the Brethren there, he at once showed his displeasure by passing by the city without stopping to greet the Franciscans therein.
He always returned with fresh joy to the Portioncula, and his life there with his dear sons; a hard life, supported by the work of their own hands.
The gentle saint seems to have had plenty of dignity when called on to rebuke a wrongful act; we see this in his dealings with one of his early converts, Brother Juniper, that delightfully simple but most indiscreet of the Minor Brothers, yet of whom Francis said, after pondering on his simplicity and patience in the hour of trial:
"Would to God that I had a whole forest of such Junipers."
Indeed, on that day Brother Juniper was in sad disgrace with the other monks. He was visiting a sick Brother, and, being afire with the love of God, asked the sick man with much compassion, "Can I do thee any service?"
Replied the sick man:
"Much comfort would it give me if thou couldst get me a pig's trotter."
Straightway cried Brother Juniper:
"Leave that to me; you shall have one directly."