Readings for the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi
This excerpt from Herman Hesse’s novel Franz von Assisi was shared at the St. Francis Blessing of the Animals and the Sacred Saunter Outdoor Eucharist on Saturday October 4, 2024 at Sequoia Park in Eureka CA
An excerpt from Franz Von Assisi by Herman Hesse about being “rich toward God” (translated by DeForest London)
One day, Francis threw a rich and lavish party for his friends. While the guests were indulging in excessive food and drink, they declared their host to be “The Party King,” even awarding him with their special “Party King” scepter. As they continued to drink, the guests grew louder and more rowdy, eventually parading noisily through the streets, late into the night, while everyone else in the town of Assisi was trying to sleep.
After a while they noticed that their “Party King” was no longer with them, so they sought him out and found him sitting alone in a dark alley, silent and pensive. With drunken frivolity, they ran towards him laughing and were about to tackle him rambunctiously when they noticed a significant change in his countenance. For at that moment, Francis’s troubled soul had been pierced through with a holy light and he had been shown a path out of his misery.
Meanwhile his drunken comrades began clamoring and tugging at him, asking him mockingly, “What are you daydreaming about, Franky? Why so serious? What great mysteries are you pondering?” And then one laughed loudly and shouted: “Look, friends, he’s acting like he’s about to get married!”
When Francis heard these words, he straightened up with a pale but cheerful face and said in a clear voice: “That’s right, you speak truth. I do indeed plan to take a bride, but she is much nobler, richer and more beautiful than you could ever dream or imagine.” And his smile grew even larger with these words.
His friends responded with more jokes and laughter and then returned to their drunken parade through the streets, leaving Francis alone in the alley. Francis then dropped his “Party King” scepter, and in so doing, gave up his former life of selfish vanity. The beautiful and noble bride of whom he had spoken and whom he sincerely intended to marry was Lady Poverty.
Some reading this may laugh and shake their heads as if he were a fool, just as Francis’s friends did. But Francis was sure that he had finally found what he was looking for. Poignantly aware that all the pleasures of this world were ultimately fleeting and that all his stored-up possessions would mean nothing to him after he died, he chose to throw himself fully into the one treasure that would endure forever: the eternal love of God. He wanted to devote his life fully to this treasure alone. Like Jesus and his disciples who abandoned themselves completely to God’s care, he also wanted to abandon himself to the hands of the One who fed the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. It was this simple and yet radical faith that has made Francis a source of comfort and inspiration for countless people around the world. More than any priest or scholar at the time, Francis embodied this simple faith and, as a result, the earth was not lost to him, but was rather given to him anew. By marrying Lady Poverty, his heart was free to embrace the divine love that holds the world together with sheer delight so that he too could delight in the world with that same love and freedom.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 