St Francis knew that men and women cannot be harangued or bullied into the Kingdom of God. Rather Francis knew that people cannot only be loved into the Kingdom. What condemnation and accusation cannot do, gentle kindness, courtesy and understanding can achieve.
G.K. Chesterton said that Francis “walked the world as the Pardon of God.” It was as if, in him, their little brother, people could glimpse the smile on the Father’s face, see how much they were accepted and cherished, and so felt free to come home. This is the approach of redemptive compassion that Francis wanted the friars to adopt – revealing a compassion that lifts people up with the hope of change, that life can be different.
The Rule told how the friars are to go among the people as humble brothers. “I counsel, admonish and exhort my bothers in the Lord Jesus, that, when they go about the world, that they do not quarrel, or fight with words, or judge others. Rather, let them be meek, peaceful and unassuming, gentle and humble, speaking courteously to everyone, as is becoming.”
Francis, in choosing to side with the outcasts, the lepers, ascended low enough so as to discover the Incarnation writ everywhere. The Franciscan vision is about the dignity of the human person. It is about making the language of the human community a language of “brother and sister.”
Francis called us to bend low in love, to find the humble goodness of God in the simple and oftentimes broken hearts in the world.
In one of his admonitions to the friars St Francis described evangelisation as using “the most holy words and deeds of the Lord” to lead “people to the love of God in joy and gladness.” Francis’ experience of Christ flowed with great energy into mission. He told the friars that they had been called by the Lord “not for themselves alone but for the sake of others.” God had sent them “into the entire world for this reason that in word and deed you may give witness to his voice.”
The way Francis viewed Christ had an impact on how he and the friars exercised their ministry of evangelisation.
Francis knew that the friars were in the communication business, meant to be bearers of Good News, as is the whole Church. We forget that at our peril. The friars were called to be “heralds of the Great King” and “troubadours of the Lord.”
God’s pastoral strategy was Francis’ guide. He recognised a progression whereby God enters into ever deeper communion with men and women, accommodating himself to our needs:
- The image and action of God impregnates all creation
- The Son of God took upon himself our flesh
- The glorified Christ becomes Bread for the life of the world.
Francis saw that the Eucharist is the last step in the long path of God’s humble “condescension” towards us – creation, revelation, incarnation, Eucharist.
Francis wanted the way of ministry, of witnessing to the Gospel, to be rooted in how God works among us - drawing close to us, adapting to our needs.
