St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis : Chapter 4 : 11

The following posts present The Life of St Francis (1181-1226) written by St Bonaventure (1221-1274) who joined the Franciscan Order in 1243. Confirmed as Minister General in 1257, he later wrote this life of St Francis (Legenda Major Sancti Francisci, c1260-63).

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 4 : Of the advancement of the Order under his hand, and of the confirmation of the Rule already sanctioned

- 11 -

 Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule, by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1483-5).
Basilica di Santa Trinita, Florence. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

1. Now as the Order was spreading abroad, Francis was minded to make the Rule of their life (that the lord Innocent had sanctioned) be confirmed in perpetuity by his successor Honorius[1], and he was admonished by a revelation from God as follows. 

2. He seemed to see in a vision that he had gathered from the ground some very small crumbs of bread and was about to share them among many famished Brethren that stood round about him. 

3. While he hesitated, fearing to distribute among them such minute crumbs lest haply they might slip between his hands, a Voice from above said unto him: “Francis, make one Host out of all the crumbs, and give it unto these that would fain eat.” 

4. This he did, and such as did not receive it devoutly, or despised the gift as they received it, were speedily stricken with leprosy, and so marked out from the rest. 

5. At morn, the holy man narrated all these things unto his companions, grieving that he could not interpret the mystic meaning of the vision[2]. 

6. But on the day following, as he kept prayerful vigil[3], he heard a Voice speaking unto him from heaven as follows[4]: “Francis, the crumbs of the night past are the words of the Gospel, the Host is the Rule, the leprosy is sin.” 

7. Being fain, therefore, to reduce into a more convenient form the Rule that was to be confirmed – it having been somewhat diffusely compiled by simply putting together words of the Gospel – and being directed thereunto by the vision that had been shewn him, he went up into a certain mountain with two companions, the Holy Spirit leading him. There, fasting, or living on bread and water alone, he compiled the Rule, according to what the divine Spirit had taught him in prayer. 

8. When he came down from the mountain, he entrusted this Rule unto the keeping of his Vicar who, when a few days had gone by, affirmed that he had lost it through negligence. Then the holy man returned unto the lonely place and there drew up the Rule again, like the former one, as though he had received the very words from the mouth of God; and he obtained its confirmation, as he had desired, from the lord Pope Honorius aforesaid, in the eighth year of his pontificate[5]. 

9. When persuading the Brethren with ardour to observe this Rule, he would say that he had set naught therein of his own devising, but that he had made all things be written according as they had been divinely revealed unto him. 

10. That this might be more assuredly confirmed by the witness of God, it was but a few days thereafter that the stigmata of the Lord Jesus[6] were imprinted upon him by the finger of the Living God[7]. This was the seal, as it were, of the Chief Pontiff, Christ, to sanction in all ways the Rule and to approve its author, even as is described in its own place below, after the recital of his virtues.

Footnotes

[1] Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) succeeded Pope Innocent III (1198-1216).

[2] Cf. “Then was the mystery revealed to Daniel by a vision in the night: and Daniel blessed the God of heaven”: Dan. ii, 19.

[3] Cf. “But continuing in prayer with tears besought God”: Tob. iii, 11.

[4] Cf. “For he received from God the Father, honour and glory: this voice coming down to him from the excellent glory”: 2 Pet. i, 17.

[5] Pope Honorius III approved the Rule of the Friars Minor through his Bull Solet annuere on November 29, 1223, 

[6] Cf. “I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body”: Gal. vi, 17.

[7] Cf. “And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God”: Apoc. vii, 2.

[End of Chapter 4]

.

 +       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

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. 

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.