04/10/2024
For the Feast of St. Francis today:
Brother Leo remembers Brother Francis.
âWhat was he like?â
I asked,
exhausted from my climb to pierce the
cold cliff top cloister of
this cowled brotherâs retreat,
hoping to stir to remembrance his soul
first stung by the Seraphâs fire so long ago,
yet burning still in eyes ancient but clear
that gazed upon my lack of grace with mercy,
and smiled at me from a distance I cannot fathom.
âWhat was he like?â he whispered to himself,
holding my question as carefully as the jug
with which he poured me water, cave cold and clear,
to quench a pilgrimâs thirst.
Then on that hill above Assisi
the old hermit friar spoke,
slowly at first, and stumbling,
as though his tongue, long lost in silence
of cave and forest, had now to stretch itself
and awaken language once spoken long ago;
like one who comes home from a foreign shore,
and finds now the accents of his own confusing.
So we sat before his cave he and I,
friar and novice both,
lost in legends and lore,
all the more beautiful for being
at the same time,
truth;
and needing to be told once more
to a world longing for his possibility to be made present,
in edenic blessing
once again.
"What was he like?"
"Like a Tree he was,
that on Summer days shines green
and in its topmost branches feels,
the waft of Heavenâs winds
and dances even at the stillest hour,
or that in Autumn clings not to leaf
but,
changes loss to gift by
casting clothes windwards and
delights in lightness,
its bare bones describing sky
and pointing arrowlike
always upwards."
"What was he like?"
"Like a Stone he was,
smoothed by the sweet rain,
graced by countless hours of chiselling prayer
into a solidity of stillness.
A cornerstone, a keystone, a foundation stone;
able to hold the weight of wisdom lightly,
yet bear up the broken and bridge the gap;
a stepping stone to wholeness and home
for those long lost."
"What was he like?"
"Like the Night Sky he was,
open, and sheltering, and many
couloured in magnificence, but
starlit in simplicity.
Its beauty simply a gradation of light,
infinite in scope and eternal in origin."
"What was he like?"
"Like Fire he was,
tracing his storied path from spark to ember;
even in stillness, a banked flame,
and always an energy of exultation breathing blessed,
a conflagration of communion,
buried just beneath the ashes of abstinence."
"What was he like?"
"Like a Stag he was,
who knows where the sweet water flows,
and travels the deep dark valleys
and mountain crags to reach his slaking spirit stream."
"Loud as a Bear he was,
and as quiet too,
spending his winters between
wakefulness and sleep,
lost in the cave of the heart,
barely breathing,
but
murmuring mercy for all,
until spirit spring stirs and his
honeyed roar was heard again
upon the hills."
"Like a Wolf he was,
singing soul songs beneath sister Moonâs gaze
with clear eyes lost in Heavenâs love,
calling to himself his pack, those
who heard their song and soul sound
in his echoes of emptiness."
"Badger brawny and
filled with faithâs wisdom he was,
and, likened to old Broc
he knew the ancient ways and
night walked, as they do,
secret silent paths of prayer,
long trodden, but needing
refinding always, in each
generationâs journey."
"Like a Salmon leaping he was,
glittering like glass,
light sparkling from sliver scales,
struck by sunlight, suspended
between sky and stream in a
moment of stillness
over ever rushing river."
"What was he like?"
"A living song spark wrapped in the
nest of Mother earth,
enfolded in the dun dust brown of the Sparrow,
small and thin he was,
with a barefooted skipping gait
barely holding the joy that burst from his breast,
his cross feathered soul
never far from song."
"Like a Wren in a thornbush he was,
cocking its eye wryly at the earth bound,
certain of its power of flight
and yet choosing our company."
"Like a Robin he was,
who, tree hidden from view,
sings its piercing song of Heaven
drawing down remembrances
of innocence past
into tired hearts sure they were
long past childhoodâs delight in sheer being,
and there waking wonder once again."
"Thin like a Thrush he was,
who seeks the highest branch
even in storm, and sway-sings with delight a tone made purer
for the assault of wind, and rain,
and thunder crackling all around it."
"Like a Hawk he was,
staring with unblinking eye into Loveâs light
and falling like a stone from heaven
to shock his sleeping prey awake."
"And now?" I said,
"What is he like now?"
"Like a Lark he is,
free and flying heaven high
whose sun-kissed song
seeks only an open soul and then,
beckons all skywards."
"And I miss him, though
he sings his lark song in my heart too,
Aye, and in yours as well or you
wouldnât have visited me here
now would you?"
"But I shall fly to him soon,
and there we will sing together
once again our lark lauds for the One
who gathers all, bird, and beast, and brother, in blessing."
And then we sat, old and young together
Cowled in brown both,
though centuries between,
and ghosts to each other,
meeting in eternity's one moment,
until the sun set and the moon rose
waiting for the Nightingale to chant her compline call,
and Assisi bells
to ring out again
in midnight matins
his song of peace.
An old one today for the feast of St. Francis....
But one I keep coming back to that arose from a day spent among the hilltop cave hermitages of the early brothers above Assisi...
blessings to one and all who walk the way of peace with St. Francis, even if like me it is with stumbling steps...
Artwork of
P. Subercaseaux Errazuriz
Happy Feast!
