I was speaking to my spoiled 13 year old about gratitude and mentioned the book. She is reading it now.
Would love to hear her (name removed by moderator)ut after she reads the book! Kids that age get right to the point!
I was a 5th grader when I read it and it moved me. Timmermans is reader friendly, because he keeps the action moving. Chesterton also wrote a very good book on Francis of Assisi, but it’s too heavy for kids.
Another awesome book on Francis of Assisi Brother Francis of Assisi by Ignacio Larañaga. Br. Ignacio takes you into Francis’ personality. He analyzes this incredible man and he shows you how God fertilizes the soil that will give birth to this man who will be transformed from John Bernadone to Brother Francis of Assisi.
I have always found it fascinating that Francis’ real name is John Baptist. He is very much like John the Baptist. In a world that was lost, confused and on a slippery slope, Francis was a voice in the wilderness who preached penance, conversion and pointed to Jesus.
It’s also interesting to observe how despite everything that is happening in the Church, Francis is always faithful to the pope, the bishop, the clergy and the monks. This is important to us today.
We read about every scandal, every debate and conflict between those who think the Church began at Vatican II and those who think it ended at Vatican II, and we forget that history is like a cycle. The issues change, but human nature stays constant. Francis is able to look past the issues and focus on human nature.
When he and the brothers decide that they need a rule, they are challenged by the fact that they are not welcome by the hierarchy, because they’re a novelty. The Church had its fill of mendicants and penitents. All of them had fallen into heresy.
But Francis trusts in the authority of the bishop and of the pope. He never concerns himself with the debates. The sins of these men, their wisdom or foolishness are irrelevant to him. They are the successors of the Apostles. To him, that is a daunting reality.
When the brothers remind him that they can’t get Jesus to come down and sign their rule, he says that there is one man who can do this. That’s when they decide to take their rule to Rome.
There is some interesting history here. Innocent III was involved in the Crusades. He was a young pope and a military pope. He was also a great administrator who ran the Church like a CEO. He was not an easy person to deal with. He had energy, intelligence and he was a busy man. What moves Innocent is not this man’s rhetoric, but his submissiveness.
Innocent had penitents clamoring for a return to basics. He had cardinals pushing for more hard-line government in the Church. He had emperors and monarchs competing for his power. In other words, he was no stranger to people coming at him from all fronts telling him what was wrong with the Church and the world and how he should fix it.
Brother Francis and his ragamuffins could easily be mistaken for another group who was going to tell the pope how to run the Church. Instead, Francis just asks for permission to live the Gospel. He doesn’t even ask for permission to preach, do any ministry or to help fix things. That’s not in his plans. The only thing in his plans is to unite his brothers as a family. This was the selling point, . . . family.
Francis brought a word into the Papal Court that had been forgotten . . . FAMILY. I think we need to restore that word to our Catholic vocabulary; but we have to live it and believe it as Francis did. What made and makes the Franciscan family bond such a strong one is the Trinity. Francis understood the Trinity as a family. When he reads the scriptures, “Let us create man in our image and likeness,” Francis understands that man has been created to live in God and to commune with God. Man is meant to be the image of the Trinity, where three are one and their love for each other is infinite. Each of us is a distinct person, as are the persons in the Trinity, but we must remain in the one love, as the Apostle John wrote.
Francis approached the hierarchy as one approaches the elders in a family. Every family has saints and sinners, wise men and fools, and angels and demons. However, they are still family. He is not afraid of the hierarchy, nor is he presumptuous toward them. Just as in the Trinity, there is a relational order, so too in the Church there is such an order. Francis operates within that order, completely convinced that if he stays within it, no matter what its problems may be, he will remain in communion with the Trinity.
You may say that he has a holy indifference to the issues of the time. There is something of greater value and he has discovered it: the pearl of great price, to live in a family that loves as the Trinitarian family loves. God will lead the way and point to the solutions. For his part and that of his brothers and later sisters too, we just have to attend to what is before us each day, one day at a time.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Br. J.R., I’m bookmarking this thread forever and ever. What a fountain and wealth of information your posts are!