My God and My All by Elizabeth Goudge

Author:Elizabeth Goudge [Goudge, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Plough Publishing House
Published: 1987-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

3

JOY CARRIED FRANCIS THROUGH the whole of that triumphant preaching tour. All the way through the valley of Spoleto, and later in the Marches of Ancona, the people flocked to hear him preach to them of the kingdom of God. And so, tired and happy, he came back in the hot late autumn to the Portiuncula, but not to rest there, for he could not forget the infidels whom he had failed to reach. They tugged at his heart and he made a plan to travel through Spain and Morocco and preach to the Moors. He chose a few companions, among them Bernard da Quintavalle, and set out again, walking with such an eager stride that his companions could scarcely keep up with him, for “he seemed like one intoxicated in spirit.” But the strength of his frail little body was never quite sufficient to support his zeal for God’s service, he had spent himself, and when he reached Spain he fell ill and could not go on. As soon as he was strong enough he went home, for he saw in his illness another indication of God’s will; the plight of the infidels still tugged at his heart, but the time was not yet.

But Francis never allowed illness to prevent him preaching the gospel. Perhaps in this illness, perhaps in another attack of fever two years later, he dictated his “Letter to all Christians” which afterward formed the basis of the rule of the Third Order. Lying on his straw pallet he had no visible congregation to inspire him but the eyes of his spirit saw the vast concourse of all Christian people, men and women who like himself were trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ, but whose pilgrimage through this world was beset with temptations, with cares and anxieties that were like choking weeds about the flower of their faith. Forgetting the heathen for a while, his heart yearned over them. He remembered the lords and ladies riding to the castle of Montefeltro, and the Lord Orlando bowing before him and asking for his help. He remembered the people of Cannara asking if they might join the order, and the promise he had made them. He remembered Christians living in crowded cities, and he knew how evil pressed upon them, and how the indifference of those about them could be a harder trial to their faith than ridicule or persecution, and he remembered the multitudes of the toiling peasants who were often too tired to say their prayers. They wanted help. He called Leo to him, and while he talked to them Leo’s accomplished pen sped over the parchment.

The letter opens by saying that Francis, “the servant of all,” is sick, and so this letter comes as a messenger in place of his bodily presence. Then it passes on to a remembrance of the poverty of Christ; for that was what they all so desperately needed, that poverty of spirit that would enable them to move with detachment among the luxuries, the anxieties, and the evils that beset them.

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