St Francis College - Franciscan Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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accept the guidance of some strongly directive force. Naturally, there will be experiments and mistakes, but by a system of trial and mistake, it appears that we shall attain a working plan based on fidelity to fact. It is most interesting to note this reaching forth for better things in the gropings of modern writings. As a barometer of thought, contemporary liter¬ ature is curiously diverse and certainly at extreme cross-purposes. Yet even the occasional reader is forced t o recognize the odd fact that an increasing importance of treatment and position is given to the person of a gentle bird- lover who, some seven centuries ago, prayed on the brown slopes of the Um¬ brian hills. In view of this distinctive trend of thought, does it not seem that society is more interested in the arriving at stability through simplicity rather than through complexity? For Francis Bernadone was essentially a simple man whose life teaches a lesson, not of idealism and systemology, but of an Ideal. Since in their choice of Saint Francis as a poetic or romantic figure modern writers are inspired by reasons as varied as those which motivate our active social workers, it is significant that he has not been chosen as the naughty subject of the scurrilous “debunkers”: neither has he been considered a worth¬ while biological specimen for the biographers who so ingeniously attribute all the intricacies of human nature to chemical secretions and mental complexes —and this during a period when the$e groups dominate the field of literary biography. It must be that St. Francis is far too simple for such an approach. To the great majority of authors, he is a symbol of escapism—a synonym for birds, clouds, trees and sky—a glorified naturalist. As such he is not at all repellent; rather is he a “nice” person and the accident of his religious views matters not at all. Perhaps you remember Armel O’Connor’s evaluation of this pollyanna element in appreciation of the saint: A Lady in the latest gown Speaks to me thus in London Town: “Of all the saints that really were y 1 almost think that I prefer Francesco of Assisi. He Seems absolutely sweet to me” 1 hen to her looking glass she goes And puts fresh powder on her nose. Well, well ... we are so glad that she is pleased. One can imagine the little brown company rocking with charitable glee had the sweet Lady of the Portiuncula whispered to them that they were to be known as “cute.” Still I am fairly sure that the mean looking mendicant must enjoy his new role of boudoir adornment even though the poet rather touchingly concludes.

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ST. FRANCIS TODAY T HERE is occasion for a rather pathetic humor in the realization that in our age of mental confusion and physical conflict we are strikingly unani¬ mous in the belief that the times are so very, very sorely out of joint. Our mere admittance of the disorder is in itself a good sign, but it certainly is not a corrective. It is obvious to us now that society is humanly sick unto death by reason of man’s foolish credulity in the virtues of baseless phil¬ osophies as much as by his strange reverence for the researches of the sages of Laputa. That trouble evinced itself early in modern history, yet it was not until the last half-century that a patent gullibility persuaded the individual to discuss “organized” religion in the jargon of neurosis and psychosis. Then, contemporaneously, since there was no further need for an outmoded scholastic system of thought, the social whole was presented with a grand and attractive Philosophy of Magnitude by the recent geniuses of the lecture halls. They understood that if man would strengthen his faith in the very empty credo of progressivism, an elaborate doctrine based not on simplicity but on complexity was a requisite. In the light of the new teach¬ ing, the home appeared too insignificant a social factor to continue. As a substitute, the individual was given a complete liberation from the selfish and sordid restraints of traditional belief and society was dazzled by mar¬ vellous theories and gigantic projects. Ah, man was so comfortably pleased! No more disturbing thoughts about that terrible invention, God! Now, in youth, we did not think and were respected as flippant cynics; in adulthood we thought but preferred to be conventional sceptics. So there was a repetition of the age-old story—when the drugged dream is held to be the summum bonum of existence—that man is often lower than the swine. But there is goodness; events are stable; and awakenings occur. That is why today is a tragic fact. We know now that the garden of full earthly happiness is a barren wasteland. The entire social structure toppled because the material props of stupendous undertakings were pitifully inadequate in the strain of a new economic crisis. The individual is hurt in his sudden understanding of the law which associates living with suffering. That prin¬ ciple, so hard to learn, is as eternal as the parallel between self-abnegation and happiness, the sob and the smile, the lonely wail of the Crucified and the glad cry of the Child. We had forgotten that in an orgy of pride. Yet the most appalling aspect of the humiliating failure was the terrible thought that even God, so recently forgotten, would not aid us. Fortunately, we have learned a lesson and have definitely decided that present disillusionment will serve as the father of future carefulness. But we are left so badly hurt and bewildered that we will plunge civilization into utter chaos unless we

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Many a mile from London Town A happy spirit clad in brown } Ragged but woodland-scented y clean y Dances and sings before his Queen } Phantom but ringing laughter fills Wide heavens over noble hills , When Fashion deigns to call him sweet. Who bled f row heart and hands and feet. The attitude of Fashion is so lacking in taste that it must be passed over hurriedly. Yet a pertinent remark is in order: one must never be too optimistic of reconversion in the case of our brethren of our religious affiliations who profess an exquisite devotion to the Franciscan Ideal. Oftentimes, such men admire a spiritualized Pied Piper who had an amazing power over the gentle birds and beasts of the fields. Their position is germane to that entertained by the dilettantes of literature. There is a small group of writers, truly spiritual thinkers and visioners of greatness, to whom II Poverello is a living force for the improvement of in¬ dividual and social conduct. They look to him today particularly and relive the life of their model, urgently desiring that they “ . . . might ivake St. Francis in you all Brother of birds and trees, God ' s Troubadour, Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor: Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men, Gome, let us chant the canticle again Of mother earth and the enduring sun. God make each soul the lowly leper ' s slave: God make us saints and brave. It is from such sentiments as these that really constructive thinking follows. When society realizes that it needs most badly the freedom of companionship with fellow-men so that “each soul (is) the lowly leper’s slave” and that in order to be saints we must necessarily be brave, then there will be hope for relative surcease from the disease of our times. With such writers there is the permament knowledge that Francis is as ageless as the perennial Peter Pan, and without being irreverent, as delightful and charming as that literary creation. They have learned from their subject that life cannot be divorced from God; that the easiest way to Him is not through the noise of words or the expression of fine formulae but by way of folly and childishness, for God so loves the simple child and him who becomes so cheerfully a fool for His sake. So Francis never attempted to appear other than a fool, but to us, through the lenses of time, he is a glorious fool who did not recognize limits to love. He has taught that a single soul with a simple purpose, from which