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| Christ heals the ten lepers. Luke xvii, 11-19. James Tissot (1886–1896). Brooklyn Museum, NYC. Public domain. |
I offer this annotated presentation of St Bonaventure’s biography firstly as a small gift to our gentle Queen and Mother in gratitude for her many graces and favours, at the same time praying she will continue to provide help and protection for the author and his family; and secondly, to honour and thank St Francis whose name I received at my Confirmation in 1961 when I was seven years old.
This presentation of St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis is based on E. Gurney Slater’s English translation published in 1904, to which I have added Scriptural excerpts and occasional comments in footnotes.
Chapter 2 : Of his perfect conversion unto God and of the repairing of three churches
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1. Thereafter, this despiser of the world, loosed from the bonds of worldly desires, left the city and, glad and free, sought a secret solitude where he might hearken in loneliness and silence unto the hidden treasures of divine conversation.
2. And while the man of God, Francis, was making his way through a certain wood, chanting praises unto the Lord in the French tongue[1], and rejoicing, it chanced that some robbers rushed out on him from their hiding-places.
3. With fierce mien they asked the man of God who he was and he, full of confidence, gave a prophetic answer, saying : “I am a herald of the great King.”[2]
4. Then they fell upon him, and cast him into a ditch full of snow, crying: “‘Herald of God?’ Lie there, churl!”
5. But he, on their departure, climbed out of the ditch and, uplifted with exceeding gladness, in a yet louder voice began to make the woods echo with praises unto the Creator of all.
Footnotes
[1] Catholic and Franciscan tradition records the maiden name of Francis’ mother as Pica de Bourlemont, identifying her as a French noblewoman from Provence or the Languedoc region in the South of France. This would explain Francis’ fluency in French and perhaps his father’s insistence on calling him Francesco, the French one.
[2] The city of Jerusalem is called the city of the great King (Ps. XLVII, 3); see too Matt. v, 35.
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1. When he came unto a neighbouring monastery, he asked an alms as a beggar, and received it as one unrecognised and despised.
2. Departing thence, he came unto Gubbio, where he was recognised and entertained by a friend of former days, and was clad by him with a poor tunic, such as became the little poor one of Christ.
3. Thence that lover of utterest humility betook himself unto the lepers, and abode among them, with all diligence serving them all for the love of God.
4. He would bathe their feet, and bind up their sores, drawing forth the corrupt matter from their wounds, and wiping away the blood;
5. yea, in his marvellous devotion, he would even kiss their ulcerated wounds, he that was soon to be a Gospel physician.
6. Wherefore he obtained from the Lord such power as that he received a marvellous efficacy in marvellously cleansing both soul and body from disease.
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| “Be thou cleansed. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.” Luke v, 13. James Tissot (v. supra.) |
8. A man in the county of Spoleto had his mouth and jaw eaten away by the ravages of a loathsome disease, and received no succour from any remedy of the physicians.
9. It chanced that, after visiting the shrines of the holy Apostles to implore their merits, he was returning from his pilgrimage, and met the servant of God.
10. When out of devotion he was to kiss his footprints, Francis in his humility would not brook it, but kissed on the mouth him that had been fain to kiss his feet.
11. Lo, as in his wondrous goodness the servant of the lepers, Francis, touched that loathsome sore with his holy lips, the disease utterly vanished, and the sick man at once regained his longed-for health.
12.I know not which of these twain is the more rightly to be marvelled at, the depth of humility in such a gracious embrace, or the excellence of power in such an astounding miracle.
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have lifeeverlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.
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