5 Comments

harry
July 12th, 2012 | 4:18 pm

There is no way to know with certainty that St. Francis never actually said, “Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.” So why assert that that is the case as though that can be known with certainty?

I think he probably did say that, expressing the same truth that Christ spoke of when He said, “Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Otherwise believe for the very works’ sake. Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do.”

While I don’t understand how it is that we will ever do works greater than those of Christ, I do understand that talk is cheap, and that the works we do in Christ are, like a picture, worth a thousand words. Christ insists that it is His works, not His words, that rendered unbelief in Him inexcusable: “If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin.”

Christ also said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” When doing works of love for each other we are caring for Christ in His brothers and sisters, which, without words, mightily bears witness to the presence of Christ in ourselves and others, and to the inestimable dignity and worth of all humanity, which Christ taught without words, by His incarnation, passion and death. This is especially true when the works we do are for the very least of His brothers and sisters in the eyes of the world.

Yes, Christ also taught with words. So should we. But our works, like those of Christ, are what renders unbelief inexcusable. St. Francis knew that words that didn’t spring from one who was able to say, or who was at least working at becoming one who was able to say with St. Paul, “It is not I who live but Christ Who lives in me,” that one’s words would be, even if one speaks with the tongues of angels, if that one has not the charity of Christ active within Him, as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Craig Payne
July 12th, 2012 | 9:20 pm

“If any obey not the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” 1 Peter 3:1.

Maybe I’m just getting older and crankier, but even as a Christian, I am increasingly finding a great deal of preaching to be more and more abrasive and off-putting. May our speech (and our actions) be seasoned with salt.

baconboy
July 12th, 2012 | 9:55 pm

Well, if certainty is the criterion, there are lots of things that we can’t know for certain that St. Francis said, like “Hey, I just discovered the Higgs-Boson!” or “I think Justin Bieber is overrated” or “Bacon is proof that God loves you and wants you to be happy.” Clearly we can’t be 100% certain that he didn’t say those things – perhaps he had a prophetic vision under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Francis would agree with you, and more importantly with Christ, that a holy life makes preaching more effective, but this quote that is misattributed to Francis does a real injustice to the historical record and to his ministry. Here’s what we do know for certain:
1. When Pope Innocent III gave him permission to start an order, it included a commission to preach.
2. When Francis was inspired to organize his earlier followers, it was under the inspiration of Matthew 10:1-15 (more precisely, an amalgamation of versus from Matthew and Luke), which was Jesus’ commission to his disciples to go out and preach — as well as to serve. (in other words, it was these verses, not the ones you cite, that shaped Francis’ ministry).
3. Francis was well known for his preaching and at various times preached before the Pope and a Muslim sultan, as well as in various towns in Italy. Plus he preached to animals.
4. In many of his communications with members of his order, he talks about the requirements necessary for preaching, not just serving.
5. He sent his followers out to preach, all over Europe.

There is an additional problem, which is that we do have a substantial collection of Francis’ own writings, about 150 English pages, and in none of them does he say this — so even if somehow he did say it, he certainly didn’t think it was important enough to write it down (the closest we get is to the passage from the Earlier Rule mentioned in the linked article). It would be odd to define the central message of his ministry by something that wasn’t important enough for him to commit to writing when there were so many things that were important to him, like penance and the Eucharist. Likewise, there is no medieval saint (or really any saint before about the 20th century) for whom we such a substantial body of hagiographic material. People immediately started collecting stories about him and continued writing biographies for the next two centuries (often because they had their own ax to grind). The translations run another 1500 pages or so. Not in one of those biographies, not a single one, does this quote appear. It is a fantasy quote.

So on one hand we have about 1,700 pages of testimony from Francis or those who knew him, without the quote appearing anywhere. And on the other hand we have an entire life that was at odds with the quote — Francis was a man of many words. He was also a great servant of the poor and oppressed and deeply holy and that is one element that contributed to his preaching, but he was well known for preaching the need for repentance. His entire life as we know it falsifies that quote. There is no way to get around the fact that he preached, with words.
And it matters too, because people hide behind this quote. Here’s an example of Aaron Rodgers using it to criticize Tim Tebow: http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2011/11/30/aaron-rodgers-on-tim-tebow-religion-controversy-i-believe-in-letting-my-actions-speak-about-the-kind-of-character-i-have/
Rodgers seems like a good guy, but Tebow both lives a holy life and happens to preach (even if he’s wrong about Catholicism), which is part of what makes his preaching effective. Francis boldly preached the gospel and to use this quote to criticize people who do the same is to treat St. Francis’ memory and modeling with disrespect.
So I’m 100% certain he didn’t say it.

harry
July 13th, 2012 | 8:27 am


Well, if certainty is the criterion, there are lots of things that we can’t know for certain that St. Francis said, like … “Bacon is proof that God loves you and wants you to be happy.”
– baconboy


We can’t know with certainty that Francis didn’t say that about bacon, but he should have if he didn’t. ;o)

… Francis would agree with you, and more importantly with Christ, that a holy life makes preaching more effective … There is no way to get around the fact that he preached, with words. …
– baconboy


Nobody denies that Francis preached with words. Since you and I and Francis and Christ all agree that a holy life makes preaching more effective, would it be all that surprising if Francis, to make that point in a memorable way to one of his Friars one day, made it in the way it is nearly universally attributed to him? There is no reason that is terribly unlikely, and the fact that that was indeed a memorable way to put it makes it very likely that the Friar would have mentioned it to others who would have repeated it and so Francis would eventually have been widely quoted as having said that, as has taken place. And after that has taken place and Francis has been quoted millions of times as having made that remark, certainty, while it is no longer the criterion for asserting that he did say that, becomes the criterion for flatly asserting that he didn’t.

And even though I hope Francis did indeed make that remark about bacon, since it is not widely attributed to him, certainty on my part would be required before I could flatly assert that he did so. ;o)

Craig Payne
July 13th, 2012 | 2:13 pm

I think we are in danger of confusing St. Francis with Francis Bacon. Quite different people.

(I am certain that Francis Bacon did not say this quote, either.)