So here we are, about to leave the Rieti valley which Francis very much loved, and move on to Assisi which he also loved though it was, I guess, a more complex relationship. And that rather complex relationship has come down to us all, I think, in that the relationship we have with Assisi has a wide range of feelings. In a curious way it is the goal of our pilgrimage, but at the same time it is only the start of it. We come to Assisi in order to find, experience, discover, understand or simply to be nourished by the sense of drinking the river near the source. Assisi will offer us innumerable things, some of which we know we are looking for and some may well be a surprise or even a shock. But for the moment I would like to connect our journey with an important ,journey made by Francis and his first companions in 1208, when they too were approaching Assisi, though a very different city from the one we are going to approach. By that I dont really mean because 800 years have passed or because it has changed or because we are people of a very different culture etc etc. Rather I mean that in 1208/9 Assisi was still a symbol for the brothers of all they had renounced whereas for us it is no longer that. So to pick up the story of Francis . . .
When I first read The Rediscovered Life of Francis, that short version which Thomas made somewhere before 1239, I was very struck by one short paragraph which, to my surprise I later discovered was in all the other accounts by Thomas as well. The paragraph refers to the 15 day stay which Francis and his first brothers made at Orte on their way back from seeing Innocent III. It has already been mentioned but I dont apologise for doing so again because I really believe it to be important because it set the agenda for all that was to come. The extract from the sources for today refers back to that stay at Orte, not explicitly but, coming as it does from the Three Companions, I think we can accept that the reference is there. This made me think that we are being invited at this point to stop and reflect.
On that journey in 1208/9 from Rome to Assisi, we are told that the brothers discussed how they were to live the Gospel life which the Pope had just told them they could do. It is as if they said to themselves: When we wake up tomorrow morning, what will be different? What are we to do that we did not do before? So they did the obvious thing and consulted the Gospel itself which told them: 'Seek first the kingdom of God and its justice'. And they spent the next 15 days discerning together about what that meant and how they were to do it. And in the opening words of the reading from the Sources we are told:
The servant of God, Francis, stripped of all that is of the world, is free for God's justice.
'He is free for God's justice' - unless we connect this to the days of searching at Orte, that phrase remains simply a pious expression, but if we connect the two texts, then we are being told something of significance, which is what I would like to try and unpack with you, because we should not forget that we too are on the way from Rome to Assisi. We too are following the same journey both geographically and spiritually.
The three companions, Angelo, Leo and Rufino, who wrote today's text many years after Francis' death, had all been part of that original group which had gone to Rome with him. Together they had made a commitment to Lady Poverty which shaped the rest of their lives. In order to understand this and to gain some insight into the power it had for them for the rest of their lives, we need to recall the passage about Orte because that shows us how their commitment to Lady Poverty was closely connected to their thinking about the kingdom of God and its justice. They started from the simple conviction that our Heavenly Father is the source of everything. This made them realise that nothing was theirs, and they began to understand sine proprio (having nothing of their own), was a way of living which imitated the generosity and open-handedness of the Father. Being troubadours at heart, they called this a commitment to the Lady Poverty. She was and is closely linked to justice. As Francis used to say, if a poor man needed something he, Francis, had, then it belonged to that poor man. Lady Poverty is Kingdom living whereas the poverty of the impoverished is the fruit of injustice. This is the link between Lady poverty and the justice of the Kingdom.
So when the Companions tell us that Francis was now free for God's justice, we sit up and - as Bonaventure says in the Journey- we prick up our spiritual ears. We attend to what is going on.
(Fox cubs, pricking ears, Dad's here!)
So we, with our pricked ears, hear the three companions telling us that, free for God's justice, Francis is able
- to Give himself to God's service in every way
- to comfort the priest in the same way that the bishop had comforted him
- to begin praising God
- then to turn to repairing the church.
When we look at the first reading for Mass this morning, from the Book of Revelation, we have what we could call the architect's model for that repaired church, the holy city Jerusalem. The writer obviously finds it impossible to describe the beauty of the city. It has the glory of God, radiant like a very rare jewel, angels at every gateway shining like pure gold, clear as glass. Even the sun and the moon are eclipsed, outshone, by the light of the glory of God which is at the heart of this city. The whole world walks by its light and all the glory and honour of earthly kingdoms are just a poor offering in this temple. And the temple itself is the Lord God Almighty, there is no other.
So our texts for today give us a map for the true and ultimate pilgrimage which we are all making. We think we are travelling from Rome to Assisi via Rieti but the texts tell us that something far greater is also going on Though we may not know what that is. However this moment of departure for Assisi is an ideal time to pause and look at the spiritual view, to check the map and to get our spiritual breath both individually and collectively. Reading this map, we see once again that Francis is like a mirror for us showing us our personal journey, and he is also a mirror in the sense of giving us an example. This is why the Three Companions tell us that once he had shed all his unnecessary baggage, he was 'free for God's justice'. This is not the goal of our spiritual journey but the starting point, of the kingdom.
So perhaps the first thing to check out on our map is what we understand by God's justice. We touched on it yesterday at La Foresta when we prayed for our Sister Mother Earth and the restoration of God's kingdom on her. There is a Taizè chant which says:
The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
And this is what Francis was beginning to find, justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is what the scripture reading must mean when it says that people bring into the Kingdom 'glory and honour'. When those three come together, justice, peace and joy, then we can go forward trusting that we are working for the Kingdom of God.
The 3 Companions, who all their lives pondered on the deeper meaning of Francis, show us how he did this. Because he finally
accepted God's forgiveness at Poggio Bustone, he was now free for God's justice.
He was also free to share with others the gifts given to him, I think that is the meaning of 'the comfort he gave to the priest'. St Paul says somewhere about sharing with others the same comfort that we ourselves have received. This is a first stage in the life of justice and the companions saw it at work in Francis.
The next thing Francis did was to praise God, this is the true work of justice. Justice means giving others what is due to them. In daily life it often means things like paying our debts and telling the truth. In relation to God is means much the same, giving back to God all that we owe and telling the truth by acknowledging the wonder of God. So Francis began to praise God and to speak of God as good, all good, supreme good, the only good.
Only after all those spiritual foundation stones were in place was he free to turn to the material dimension. He was began to create beauty outside because he had been restored to beauty inside. He began repairing the material fabric of the church and only gradually began to understand that God's plans were greater than three small buildings.
We are told that he turned to obtaining stones to repair the churches, and God gave him brothers as stones for the spiritual building of the Church. So just as yesterday at La Foresta, the story of the vineyard and Francis became a mini version of the greater story of our planet, so here the story of Francis rebuilding the church is a mini version of every Franciscan vocation. In more ways than anyone can count, Franciscans of every kind and every degree of commitment and with every different level of awareness, are all called to the rebuilding of the church. By the goodness of God, we have a pope who even though he is a Jesuit, is profoundly Franciscan and knows that together we are all summoned to rebuild the church. So as we leave the Rieti valley and leave Rome even further behind us, let us look forward to the things that are before us, the tasks and the gifts. As we keep our eyes fixed on Assisi let us not lose sight of the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. That is our gift and our task.
No comments:
Post a Comment