Those who have read Chesterton know that reading him is unlike almost anything else we tend to read. In this case, he writes a biography that is wholly unlike a biography anyone else might write, as he is concerned much less with things like dates than he is with the story.
For Chesterton, Francis was the great example of what a religion should look like, that it would be "not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love affair." In this sense, we can begin to see what I think is Chesterton's most overwhelming point about Francis - that he is such a great figure because he was so unique.
Francis' greatness seems to be summed up in this idea: he saw the world completely the opposite way of everyone else, and in his view was able to see the world as a great poem and adventure to be explored. Francis was amazed by the day-to-day, seeing the beauty of the Creator in every moment and being better off for it. This began early in his life, Chesterton tells us, when Francis spent time in a cave, and came out from there looking "at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands."
In a way that is typical of the extraordinary men and women who have walked the earth, but is never exemplified more than in the person of Francis, he was able to see the beauty of the world. For Francis, the world was not a theory, not a set of rules nor a path to be followed, but rather an adventure and love affair to be journeyed and lived.
"The whole point of his point of view was that it looked out freshly upon a fresh world that might have been made that morning." It is well-known that Francis referred to all creation as his brother or sister, but it is often confused why; here, it is obvious. For this man, a romantic at heart and lover of poetry and music and adventure, life was beautiful and wonderful, something which had an endless joy to give the person who lived it. Each morning, he saw the world new, believing in his heart that the Creator had done nothing short of extraordinary in the rising of the sun and the fresh coat of dew on the grass.
And Francis not only thought this way, he lived it as well. His whole life, completely extraordinary in how beautiful he lived the ordinary ups and downs of daily life, was a journey of love, seeing the world for the beautiful place it is, all the while looking to the Creator to understand it all. "[H]e took the queerest and most zigzag shortcuts through the wood, but he was always going home."
One last story of Francis, I think, will help illustrate my point. Late in his life, while he was aging and dying, it became clear that he was going blind. At the time, Francis, who desired martyrdom but had found only the beauty of daily life, was told that this remedy was to cauterize his eye, but to do so without anesthesia. And so, the day came when it was time to take a red-hot iron and put it into Francis' eye in order to make him able to see, and this is the account we have of him: "When they took the brand from the furnace, he rose as with an urbane gesture and spoke as to an invisible presence: 'Brother Fire, God made you beautiful and strong and useful; I pray you be courteous with me.'"
The accounts of the marvelous life of Saint Francis are seemingly endless, but hopefully we can narrow in here on why he might have lived so extraordinarily. For Francis, unlike for most of us, life was poetic, beautiful, and glorious no matter the circumstances. For him, the Creator had given so much good, so much beauty, so much to be grateful for, and he had called for a response out of His servant Francis in a very specific way. Again unlike many of us, Francis didn't hesitate, but he responded.
At a time in history when the world desperately needed a bright light to shine forth and awaken it to the beauty all around, Francis came onto the scene. In our world, do we not likewise see a darkness? Does the world not need people who are willing to see the world as if we are on our hands, allowing us to see not as the feeble senses see but as the Divine Creator does?
Maybe, for us, this is the call of Francis. Maybe we're supposed to look at the world every morning and see Brother Sun, Sister Tree, and all of the creation and see the Creator who loves immensely through His creation. Maybe, like he said to Francis, He is echoing into the depths of our heart "go rebuild my Church, for it has fallen into ruin." Maybe, we are to see in Francis a man who lived so beautifully and be roused to joy, to prayer, to love, and to live life as less of a theory and more of a love affair.
Now, just because they're worth reading, I will close with the poetic and magnificent words of Chesterton on the death of Saint Francis:
A man might fancy that the birds must have known when it happened; and made some motion in the evening sky. As they had once, according to the tale, scattered to the four winds of heaven in the pattern of a cross at his signal of dispersion, they might now have written in such dotted lines a more awful augury across the sky. Hidden in the woods perhaps were little cowering creatures never again to be so much noticed and understood; and it has been said that animals are sometimes conscious of things to which man, their spiritual superior, is for the moment blind. We do not know whether an shiver passed through the thieves and the outcasts and the outlaws, to tell them what had happened to him who never knew the nature of scorn. But at least in the passages and porches of the Portiuncula there was a sudden stillness, where all brown figures stood like bronze statues; for the stopping of the great heart that had not broken till it held the world.
By the way, go pick up the book from Chesterton on Amazon: Saint Francis of Assisi
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