At these words the poor invalid stretched out his hands as if to call on God, crying with an indescribable expression of joy, "Welcome, Sister Death!" Then he began to sing, and sent for Brothers Angelo and Leo.
On their arrival they were made, in spite of their emotion, to sing the Canticle of the Sun. They were at the last doxology when Francis, checking them, improvised the greeting to death:
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Be praised, Lord, for our Sister the Death of the body, whom no man may escape; alas for them who die in a state of mortal sin; happy they who are found conformed to thy most holy will, for the second death will do to them no harm. |
From this day the palace rang unceasingly with his songs. Continually, even through the night, he would sing the Canticle of the Sun or some other of his favorite compositions. Then, when wearied out, he would beg Angelo and Leo to go on.
One day Brother Elias thought it his duty to make a few remarks on the subject. He feared that the nurses and the people of the neighborhood would be scandalized; ought not a saint to be absorbed in meditation in the face of death, to await it with fear and trembling instead of indulging in a gayety that might be misinterpreted?[40] Perhaps Bishop Guido was not entirely a stranger to these reproaches; it seems not improbable that to have his palace crowded with Brothers Minor all these long weeks had finally put him a little out of humor. But Francis would not yield; his union with God was too sweet for him to consent not to sing it.
They decided at last to remove him to Portiuncula. His desire was to be fulfilled; he was to die beside the humble chapel where he had heard God's voice consecrating him apostle.
His companions, bearing their precious burden, took the way through the olive-yards across the plain. From time to time the invalid, unable to distinguish anything, asked where they were. When they were half way there, at the hospital of the Crucigeri, where long ago he had tended the leper, and from whence there was a full view of all the houses of the city, he begged them to set him upon the ground with his face toward Assisi, and raising his hand he bade adieu to his native place and blessed it.
FOOTNOTES
[1.] The following is the list of monasteries which, according to Rodolfo di Tossignano, accepted the ideas of Angelo Clareno before the end of the thirteenth century: Fermo, Spoleto, Camerino, Ascoli, Rieti, Foligno, Nursia, Aquila, Amelia: Historiarum seraphicæ religionis, libri tres, Venice, 1586, 1 vol., fo, 155a.
[2.] Spec., 129b; Fior., 19. In some of the stories of this period the evidence is clear how certain facts have been, little by little, transformed into miracles. Compare, for example, the miracle of St. Urbano in Bon., 68, and 1 Cel., 61. See also 2 Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159.