G.K. Chesterton ~ Saint Francis of Assisi

~ For it is in giving that we receive ~

The great G.K. Chesterton’s little “sketch” on the complex character of Saint Francis of Assisi offers a unique take on the beloved saint’s life and work. I use the term “complex” to describe Saint Francis because that is what Chesterton makes of him. Francis is loved by secularist for his compassion, love of nature and animals, and for being a humanitarian hero of sorts. However, he is also deeply loved by Christians those for his religious devotion, humility, austere way of living, and great love for God Almighty. In Chesterton’s little book he tries to make sense of these two seemingly divergent ways of viewing the “morning star of the Renaissance.”

Saint Francis was a dramatic figure who viewed all things dramatically. Chesterton uses the example of when Francis gave up his clothing and renounced his kinship to his father Pietro Bernadone and his begging for stones in the street and his sudden decision to embrace a leper. What Chesterton does best in Saint Francis of Assisi is tie together and make sense of the two extremes of the humble rag-tag dressed saint: the strict ascetic and the happy poet who sings God’s praises in nature. The point of Saint Francis is not his revival of the natural pleasures, as secularist would like to believe, no the point of Francis “was that the secret of recovering the natural pleasures lay in regarding them in the light of a supernatural pleasure.”1 Francis' relationship with God was first and foremost in his life, which is why his way of relating to nature is profound but usually misunderstood by those who only know him for being a nature lover. But that is a partial understanding of the saint. Chesterton goes deeper and does his best to articulate through the pen who Saint Francis was and why he was ahead of his time. 

Indeed Chesterton does a masterful job bringing the larger than life saint to life with his words. This was by far the best book I have read on life of a saint. Chesterton's writing is impeccable and he dials in on the person of Francis that most biographers misunderstand or completely miss. Although there are some historical inaccuracies (noticed or looked up) and no real references to where Chesterton received his information about Saint Francis, I still found his book engrossing and well worth the read. Francis brought much needed light into the darkness of the Middle Ages. He founded a radical new way of living for Christ, a way that loves every individual human, a way that sees every tree as a unique brother. Saint Francis of Assisi reads quicker than a dry biography or a religious meditation book; instead it reads as an intriguing story, a story about fighter, a builder, Le Jongleur de Dieu, a poor man, a mirror of Christ. Francis lived for Christ and he died for Christ. 

“The amazing vividness with which he [Francis of Assisi] stamped himself on the memory and imagination of mankind is very largely due to the fact the was seen again and again under such dramatic conditions. From the moment when he rent his robes and flung them at this father’s feet to the moment when he stretched himself in death on the bare earth in the pattern of the cross, his life was made up of these unconscious attitudes and unhesitating gestures.”2 


________________
1. G.K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi (Printed in USA), 53.
2. Ibid., 68.

______
Chesterton G.K. Saint Francis of Assisi. Printed in USA.