A Little Pilgrimage in Italy

by Olave M. Potter

ASSISI: S. MARIA MADDALENA AT RIVO TORTO.

A faint odour of romance clings round the ancient stones of San Damiano, for there St. Francis laboured with his own hands to build a habitation of apostolical simplicity which was to be the spiritual home of Clare. This humble place, a mere chapel in the olive-gardens below Assisi, is pregnant with memories of the simple Francis and the saintly Clare. For it was here, as he knelt before a crucifix in the little ruined church, that Francis, the gay merchant-prince of Assisi, heard the voice of Jesus saying, 'Francis, seest thou not that my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me.' It was just what he needed, this troubled boy. Here was an obvious work for his hands, and in the doing of it he might find relief from the fears and doubtings that had assailed him since he rose from his weary sick-bed and looked upon an altered world. With no premonition of his life-work, truly the rock on which the Catholic Church built up its power when it was in danger of being swept away in tidal waves of lust and avarice during the stormy Middle Ages, the ever-literal Francis bethought him of the letter of his miraculous command.

It is such an old story that it is not worth retelling, how he sold the bales of cloth from his father's warehouse in the market of Foligno and brought the money to the priest of San Damiano; how the good man refused it, being fearful of Pietro Bernardone's wrath; how Francis flung it into the corner of a little window and would not touch it either; how his angry father renounced him; and how St. Francis, having yielded up his earthly goods, begged through the streets of Assisi for the stones with which to accomplish his work. There was no more fitting spot in all Umbria to be the home of the Second Order than San Damiano. But I think that Clare in her long life within its walls must have often wept, seeing the rough stones which Francis, with his tender unaccustomed hands, had fashioned into a house of God and a shelter for the Poor Ladies who had renounced the world to serve his Master.

I remember well coming upon it one evening, breathless with sirocco, when all the world was gray and silver. In the little cloister-garden the flowers were yielding up their fragrance to the night in perfumed sighs, and in the tiny vaulted chapel two brothers and a priest were singing vespers with a few peasants who had wandered in from the fields. A flight of steps led down into the dark chapel, so little altered from the church which Francis built. And here I rested. Every moment the shadows below the olives crept nearer, shutting out the distance. At my feet in San Damiano the altar lights grew brighter in the dusk, and the swinging censer glowed like a live coal in the dark choir. So I waited, thinking of another Clare, in England, who was lying sick unto death, but with peace in my heart, for it was very sweet to hear Vespers in this holy place while the curious shadows of night crept up under the olives. Presently the chanting ceased. The priest went away, and the peasants passed out into the soft dusk.

I went down then into the silent chapel and saw the relics of Saint Clare; the little sacristy with ancient wooden seats, such hard uncomfortable planks, where she and the sisters heard Mass; the room she died in; the hollow in the wall through which she received her spiritual food; her yard of garden overlooking the wide Umbrian plain and Rivo Torto. How often as she stood here upon the convent roof must she have thought of the Seraphic Father toiling down in the valley, for I doubt not she loved him, even as Madonna Pica, his mother, and Giacobba di Settisoli loved him, and hungered over him, and grieved for his poor weary feet, and exulted in the purity of his soul.

What memories of Francis and Clare, the true type of the brother and sister in Christ, are here! Francis indeed came seldom to the convent after the Poor Ladies were installed, for as he was not ordained, he had not the right to hear their confessions or administer the Holy Sacrament. But we know that he often sent to ask advice of the saintly abbess; and he stayed here before his journey to Rieti, when he was worn-out and sick, and almost blind, and took much comfort in her sympathy. Here, too, his body was brought, so that the sisters might look their last upon it before it was borne in triumph to Assisi. But Clare, whose cry of grief still has the power to stir our hearts to pain, lived on through bitter years to see the ideals of the little lover of Poverty shattered by Brother Elias and the Papacy before she followed him up the hill to rest.

The way up to the Carcere is steep and long. The path is a mere track of broken stones which radiates heat, and there is no shade to mitigate the pitiless August glare. And yet I would not have forgone that toil up the side of Subasio, if only for the pleasures of the way. Assisi lay behind us like a city of the Middle Ages, with Gothic towers and palaces grouped in échelon below her fantastic castle. On our right the hillside, veiled in the tender grey of olives, sloped away to the Valley of Spoleto, which was a vision of pure beauty, with mists clinging about the banks of its streams, and its many little cities, Spello, Foligno, Bevagna, tall Trevi and Spoleto, rising from the green folds of encircling hills. Above Subasio was barren except for some scanty oaks, but the bushes by the roadside were heavy with fruit, blackberries, and shiny red and yellow hips and crimson haws. Out of the parched stony earth grew clumps of broom, long-stemmed and slender, with a crest of golden blossoms like a flight of butterflies; and scabious, white and purple, rosettes for a fairy's shoe; and little Morning Glories smiling at the sky; and sugamele, and that wonderful blue thistle, which looks as though it had been soaked, leaves and all, in the rare dye of mountain mists at dawn.

ASSISI: THE CARCERE.

We did not see the Carcere until we were actually upon it. It is completely hidden in a ravine of ilexes, in a fold, as it were, of the brown skirts of Subasio. Small wonder that the Poverello loved this place; it is so humble, so silent, so restful. Often and often while he toiled down in the valley, ministering to the lepers of Rivo Torto, or preaching to the hard of heart, himself beset with doubts and fears, he must have lifted his eyes unto the hills, and longed for the Peace of God, which he knew dwelt in this solitude. Far away on the spur of the mountain is Assisi, where he laboured to bring love; and further away still, beyond the peaceful vales of Umbria, are great cities in which men worked, and hated, and struggled, ay, and loved unceasingly. But here in this leafy ilex grove, in these tiny cells and chapels, there is a little world of dreams and tender memories.