Saint Francis (36 page)

I ran, reached the highway, and immediately let forth a shout: the entire road--hedges, stones, dirt--was blanketed everywhere with white flowers, as far as the eye could see! Falling to my knees, I gave thanks to the Invisible. Then I pulled up a handful of flowers, rushed back to the hut, and entered, breathing heavily from exertion and joy.

"Brother Francis," I shrieked, "the road is covered with white flowers. Look, I've brought you a handful."

Father Silvester fell at Francis' feet and kissed them. "Forgive me, Brother Francis. I shook my head; I did not have faith."

Taking the flowers, Francis placed them over his bloody eyelids and upon the wounds at his temples. "Father . . . Father . . ."he murmured, kissing the petals again and again, and weeping.

"Why are you surprised?" he asked, turning to us. "Everything is a miracle. What is the water we drink, the earth we tread, the night which descends upon us each evening with its stars; what are the sun, the moon? Miracles, all of them! Just look at the humblest leaf of a tree, just look at it in the light--what a miracle! The Crucifixion is painted on one side; you turn the leaf over on the other and what do you see: the Resurrection! It is not a leaf, my brothers, it is our hearts!"

Father Silvester kissed Francis' hand. "Brother Francis, you asked for a sign from God and it came: the Lord strewed the road with flowers. Shall I go tell Sister Clara to expect you?"

"Yes, tell her I am coming. Tell her it is not because I wanted to, but because God commanded me. And bring her these flowers which fell from heaven. When they touched the earth they became all covered with blood."

With these words, he gave Father Silvester the bloodstained flowers which he had been holding in his hand.

After Father Silvester's departure I knelt down to light a fire. I heated water and then washed Francis' face, cleaned his feet and hands, and tidied his hair, using my fingers as a comb. He, his arms spread wide, allowed me to tend to him as though he were a small child. When I had finished I took hold of both his hands and lifted him up. But his knees gave way beneath him; he was unable to stand erect.

"How are we going to go, Brother Francis?" I asked in despair. "Your knees won't support you."

"Forget my knees, Brother Leo, and worry about my soul. That will support me. . . . Start walking!"

Biting his lips, exerting all his strength, he left the hut. We started along the path.

"Brother Leo," he said as soon as we were outdoors, "how many times must I tell you that the soul of man is a divine spark--in other words, that it is all-powerful. But we do not know this, and we squash it under our flesh, under our fat. Ah, if we could only let it go free!"

He hesitated for a moment, and then:

"You believe I'm unable to walk, do you? You believe my soul is unable to support my body? Now you shall see!"

He began to stride along the path, his knees firm and unsagging. When we reached the wide road we looked for the flowers, but they had vanished--it was as though they had been a layer of winter hoarfrost melted by the rising sun. Francis crossed himself.

"This is a miracle too," he said. "The flowers came down from heaven, delivered their message, and then returned. They did not want human feet to step on them."

Falling silent, he set out in the direction of San Damiano's, proceeding gingerly along the very edge of the road. Sister Clara, followed by two of the nuns, had already left the convent in order to receive Francis. When she caught sight of him she halted, crossed her arms, and waited with downcast eyes; but as soon as she was able to hear the sound of his footsteps she raised her head and blushed to the roots of her hair.

"God be with you, Sister Clara; God be with you all, my sisters," said Francis in greeting, and he held out his hand to bless them. "Welcome to our home, Father Francis," Clara replied. "We've been expecting you for thousands of years."

She fell prostrate before him and kissed his feet.

"Do not complain, Sister Clara," answered Francis. "I sent you messages regularly through Father Silvester."

Clara prostrated herself once more, requesting permission to speak.

"Messages do not satisfy us, Father Francis. Words which come from far away are nothing but wind, air--and they scatter. We are women. To be calmed we must see the movement of the lips that are addressing us, we must feel upon our heads the hand that is held over us in benediction. We are women, I tell you. If you refuse to come here to comfort us with your words, Father Francis, we are lost."

The two of them walked ahead, still conversing, while we others followed behind. When Francis reached the convent door he halted, swept away by the sight before him. What a lovely little garden--it was Paradise! How sweet the flowers smelled!

"What did you plant in the courtyard, Sister Clara? I can't see clearly."

"Lilies and roses, Brother Francis. And in autumn we have violets. That's all."

Francis extended his hand and blessed the yard. "Sister Yard, Sisters Lilies and Roses, I am delighted to be here with you! May it please our gracious Lord that on the Day of Judgment you too shall rise from the earth and enter heaven together with Sister Clara."

He stepped inside. The walls were whitewashed with lime; the statue of the Blessed Virgin showed Our Lady smiling as she clasped her Son tightly to her breast. The sisters prostrated themselves, kissing Francis' feet, and he in turn placed his hand on each of their heads and blessed them. They were all tightly wrapped in white wimples, and when they walked, they resembled doves.

A stool was brought for Francis. Clara knelt on the floor next to him, while the sisters remained standing behind, their arms crossed. For a long time no one spoke. Every eye was fixed upon the saintly visitor. How sweet that silence was, how secure we all felt! I was certain that throngs of angels had come down to San Damiano's and were now standing unseen in the air, waiting like the rest of us for Francis to speak. He, however, was in no hurry. You could sense from the expression on his face that he was rapt in unspeakable exultation.

"How clean, how fragrant that air was," he said to me later; "how long it's been since I enjoyed the odor of freshly washed clothes, and of trunks which fill the room with the fragrance of mint and laurel the moment you open them!"

"Take pity on us, Father Francis; let us hear your voice," said Sister Clara finally, kissing the hem of his robe.

Francis raised his head with a start and stretched his arms, as though awakening. "I am glad to be here, my sisters. What more do you expect me to say? When I was in the world and used to hold banquets for my friends, I would throw back my head and sing:

A thousand greetings, my friends,

Ten thousand greetings to you!

The valley is covered with flowers,

The fields with verdure and dew.

My sisters, the same song rises now from my heart: a thousand and ten thousand greetings."

He was extremely moved. I had not seen him so happy for ages. This was the atmosphere he loved: the purity, cleanliness, and ardor which now surrounded him--also those white wimples! He spoke again:

"Listen to me, my sisters, and forgive me if I tell you about a caterpillar that just came again to my mind. This is not a story, it's true--truer than truth itself. . . . Well, once there was a caterpillar which crawled and crawled, until finally in its extreme old age it arrived before the gates of heaven. It knocked and a voice came from within: 'No caterpillars allowed here! You're in much too much of a hurry, it seems to me.'

" 'What shall I do, Lord? Command me,' answered the caterpillar, and it curled up into a ball, it was so afraid.

" 'Suffer some more, struggle some more, transform yourself into a butterfly!'

"The caterpillar returned to earth accordingly, my sisters, and began its journey all over again from the beginning."

"Tell us who this caterpillar is, Father Francis," Clara begged. "We are simple uneducated women. Enlighten us."

"The caterpillar is me, Sister Clara, and you, and also all the sisters listening to me, and every person who crawls upon earth. Good God, what feats this poor wretched caterpillar must accomplish before being transformed into a butterfly! Struggle and more struggle, my sisters, ascent along the uphill road, extreme suffering; and purity, love, poverty, hunger, nakedness, tears--all these are required! Satan has laid his snares everywhere; they are just waiting for us to fall in. If you bend down to smell a flower, my sisters, you will find him there; if you lift a stone he will be hidden beneath and waiting; if you see a blossoming almond tree he will be crouching in the branches, ready to pounce upon you. He is in the water we drink, the bread we eat, the bed on which we lie down to go to sleep: Satan is hidden everywhere, my sisters, everywhere--hidden and waiting. What is he waiting for? For our souls to become momentarily fatigued and drowsy, for the instant when they cease to stand as our ever- vigilant sentinels, and thus enable him to leap on us and drag us down into hell. My sisters, you are the ones I am thinking of, the ones I pity--much more than the men; because you are women, and your hearts do not steel themselves easily against the beauties of the world. You look upon them and they please you. Flowers, children, men, earrings, silk garments, stunning plumes: my God, what snares! How many women can possibly escape?

"Morning and evening, my sisters, you pray for all those women on earth who adorn themselves with cosmetics and jewelry, for all those women who laugh. In heaven, the Blessed Virgin echoes your prayer. Don't you hear a deep, divine silence above your heads at night, and in the midst of this silence a sound like the rustling of the leaves of the poplar: the sound of invisible lips praying and beseeching? It is the Virgin Mary, and she is praying for all women everywhere.

"But you must be on your guard, my sisters. Do not say to yourselves: 'We have entered the convent, we have escaped the world and are now promenading in heaven.' This thought is a trap, my sisters, a trap laid by Satan. Listen to what I am going to tell you. We are all one--I swear it to you. If a single woman somewhere at the ends of the earth paints her lips, the shameful color spreads over your lips as well! What is the definition of heaven? Complete happiness. But how can anyone be completely happy when he looks out from heaven and sees his brothers and sisters being punished in hell? How can Paradise exist if the Inferno exists also? That is why I say--and let this sink deep down into your minds, my sisters--that either we shall all be saved, all of us together, or else we shall all be damned. If a person is killed at the other end of the earth, we are killed; if a person is saved, we are saved."

Francis' words made my heart pound with astonishment, for this was the first time I had ever heard him embrace the world with such overabundant love. His heart had blossomed luxuriantly in this feminine air; as he looked at the sisters, his compassion sprouted wings which covered the entire earth.

The nuns had all fallen to their knees. Creeping slowly forward until they encircled Francis, they gazed at him in ecstasy, their faces beaming as though being struck by the sun.

Francis felt their warm exhalation upon him. He parted his lips once more:

"The awareness of your presence around me makes my heart expand, my sisters, makes it desire everyone to enter it --everyone, the wicked as well as the virtuous, so that there may be an end to lamentation and wailing both in this world and the next. O God, a rebellious thought is mounting from my heart to my lips. Permit me to reveal it to these women, for they are my sisters. Their hearts are feminine, full of love and compassion--they will understand. Listen, my sisters: Now, at this moment--O God, forgive me!--I feel sorry even for Satan. There is no creature more unfortunate, more wretched than he, because once he was with God, but now he has left Him, denied Him, and he roams the air, inconsolable. Why is he inconsolable? Because God allowed him to retain his memory. Recalling the sweetness of Paradise as he does, how can he ever be consoled? We must pray for Satan too, my sisters; we must pray that our gracious Lord will take pity on him, forgive him, permit him to return and take up his place among the archangels.

"Love: that--God bless it!--is woman's destined role. Satan is an ugly bloodthirsty beast, but if he is kissed on the mouth he becomes an archangel once more. That, my sisters, is Perfect Love. In the same way, let Perfect Love kiss Satan so that his original, radiant face may be restored to him.

"Love . . . Love!" Francis cried until his voice was stifled by sobs. Then he lowered his face into his palms and gave himself up to weeping.

Tears began to fall from Clara's eyes as well. Soon she was joined by all the sisters, and lamentations echoed throughout the convent. When Francis heard this, he raised his head, extended his arms, and said in a troubled voice: "I did not intend to make you weep, my sisters. Forgive me. I came to talk to you about heaven, not about hell, and I wanted you to talk to me about heaven also, so that we all could be comforted. Life is oppressive; if Brother Death did not exist to open the door and let us depart--my God! What an unbearable prison this earth would be, what an unbearable prison our bodies would be! But now (what joy, what an ineffable hope--no, not a hope, a certainty), now the soul has crowned itself with lemonflowers and begun to advance over the stones and precipices of the earth, crying, 'O my beloved husband, my beloved husband--Thou, Lord!' "