"The figure of Saint Francis stands on a sort of bridge connecting my boyhood with my conversion to many other things"
Chesterton enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Saint Francis ofFrom the moment the wide-eyed Gilbert first heard the story of Saint Francis, he knew he had found a friend. As such, long before he had submitted to the reason of
It was in this difficult time that the young Chesterton wrote a poem on Saint Francis of
Is there not a question rises from his word of "brother, sister",Cometh from that lonely dreamer that today we shrink to find?Shall the lives that moved our brethren leave us at the gates of darkness,What were heaven if ought we cherished shall be wholly left behind?Is it God's bright house we dwell in, or a vault of dark confusion ... ?
This poem, dedicated to the "lonely dreamer" of
In this journey from darkness to light, he had as his constant ally and companion the "lonely dreamer" of
To most people ... there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position ofSaint Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any
earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called
his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as
it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger: he was,
perhaps, the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his
whole polity on the negation of what we think the most imperious necessities;
in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and
those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most
large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial
atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men
were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and
not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be answered fully here,
but in any life of Francis they ought at least to have been asked; we have a
suspicion that if they were answered we should suddenly find that much of the
enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.
Listen to Chesterton’s words:
"St. Francis must be imagined as moving swiftly through the world with a sort of impetuous politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles on one knee half in haste and half in obeisance. The eager face under the brown hood was that of a man always going somewhere, as if he followed as well as watched the flight of the birds. And this sense of motion is indeed the meaning of the whole revolution that he made; for the work that has now to be described was of the nature of an earthquake or a volcano, an explosion that drove outwards with dynamic energy the forces stored up by ten centuries in the monastic fortress or arsenal and scattered all its riches recklessly to the ends of the earth."
Listen to Chesterton’s words:
"St. Francis must be imagined as moving swiftly through the world with a sort of impetuous politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles on one knee half in haste and half in obeisance. The eager face under the brown hood was that of a man always going somewhere, as if he followed as well as watched the flight of the birds. And this sense of motion is indeed the meaning of the whole revolution that he made; for the work that has now to be described was of the nature of an earthquake or a volcano, an explosion that drove outwards with dynamic energy the forces stored up by ten centuries in the monastic fortress or arsenal and scattered all its riches recklessly to the ends of the earth."
In July 1922 Chesterton was finally received into the Catholic Church. Eight weeks later he received the sacrament of confirmation, choosing Francis as his confirmation name. It would, perhaps, be easy to suggest that the obvious motive for the choice was a desire to show love and respect for Frances, his wife. It was, however, hardly surprising that he should have chosen the saint who had been the friend of his childhood, the ally in his confused adolescence and the companion in his approach to the Faith. In any case, the two motives are not mutually exclusive. In pleasing his wife, he was also pleasing himself.
The admiration that Chesterton felt toward Saint Francis was inextricably bound up with his belief in the superiority of childlike innocence over all forms of cynicism. Saint Francis and his followers were called the Jongleurs de Dieu because of the innocence of their jollity and the jollity of their innocence. " The Jongleur was properly a joculator or jester; sometimes he was what we should call a juggler." It was this mystical synthesis of laughter and humility, a belief that playing and praying go hand in hand, which was the secret of the saint's success. Ultimately, however, the laughter and the humility were rooted in gratitude because, as Chesterton discerned with characteristic and Franciscan sagacity, "there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset".
