The Firmness of Saint Francis
October 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 517 THE FIRMNESS OF ST. FRANCIS the thought of old...
...FRANCIS the thought of old romance...
...disease shall be surmounted...
...But men who carried it on must have loved the brotherthe various things which Saint Francis did and hood of the birds, the stars and the multiform trees...
...The of Christ...
...A definite great masculinity breathed in its second rule was an almost wild dispensing of en- them...
...Why should the will gird itself with steel, Natchitoches, and Manchac (Galveston...
...Was there ever a more Quixotic undertaking than that lavish expenditure of A 1 GREAT many things will be said about Saint effort, by Junipero Serra and his companions, for the Francis during the present week, when the espe- right development of a native Indian civilization...
...Perhaps, however, tious fidelity to religious sentiment...
...In 1632 the first Capuchin acting upon the belief that the world is excellent at missionaries arrived in Acadia, which included the heart...
...they attached to emphasis upon one aspect of the holy Franciscan each church a place of monastic refuge to which career may not be valueless...
...ticular attention to Franciscan action in the new world...
...Therefore, he could go on constantly, Irish Capuchin by the name of O'Flynn...
...so that in the end the movement which he had brought Men of this stamp were, it is salutary to remember, into being was identified with action...
...and in the end he knew that it is the rhythm When Bishop Flaget arrived in Bardstown, Kentucky, of the universe-the unending, unmodified shout of the in 18o8, he met among the pioneer missionaries an cosmic family...
...May it be that, as the papal encyclical letter says, "in We suppose the story will always hinge round the this year . . . the world should receive, through the missions of the Californian country, where the sacri- intercession of Saint Francis, so great an abundance of fices and triumphs of the friars abide in memory like blessings that it will remain . . . a year memorable...
...But admiration the following terse summary by a Franthe pure flame of his own spirit was of a different ciscan historian character...
...Saint Francis was, by tempera- States, one may quote with a legitimate feeling of ment, fully able to appreciate valor of this sort...
...cial days of the centenary will be at hand and the Within seventy-five years they baptized a throng conthrong of the Poverello's professed disciples will servatively estimated at ioo,ooo...
...A French Franciscan, Father Denys Baron, fight well listening to the drums of defeat, but Francis was the first priest to offer Mass in western Pennalways battled excellently because the music of victory sylvania in 1753...
...He heard it among the birds and O.M.Cap., built the first Catholic church in Pittson the winds...
...Nothing-neither bodily pain nor ignominy- who, fully conscious of evil, realize that darkness and could ever stop the tumultuous going of the friars...
...preached are immediately dependent upon the utterly But in their souls there was, first of all, the stuff of unparalleled courage with which he stood for them...
...he was deafened by its clamor in his burgh in the early years of the nineteenth century...
...they built a score of gather as pilgrims in New York City...
...Without extending the panorama of titude of a martyr patient in the siege which is laid their activities beyond the borders of the United round his conviction...
...A man can still St...
...A few English Franciscans joined the Jesuits in the Upon the hills near i^ csisi, he learned the art of early days in Maryland...
...great men...
...It was, of course, always a fragmentary uni- northern part of the present state of Maine...
...It was a magnificent dream, getfulness of the poor, and indifference to the person but it was also a breathlessly courageous effort...
...The soul of Francis swung like a bird above came to that territory in 1720...
...But Duplessis de Mornay, Coadjutor-Bishop of Quebec the endless imperfections of the place never destroyed and Vicar-General of Louisiana, that French Capuchins his hope...
...And so they are exemThe vast assemblage of the Third Order in the plars for the present day-most desperately needed, metropolis of the Americas cannot fail to attract par- illuminating, saving us all from the misery of ourselves...
...The old stories have myriads of poor natives went for physical and spirbeen charmingly retold...
...Louis...
...All of this is perfectly good and true...
...own heart...
...Father with bitterly hard renouncement, when the will had Bernard de Limpach was the first canonical pastor of been made for joyous surrender...
...and they established schools of various about the direct relationship which the cause of the kinds more numerous and effective than those which Lady Poverty bears to multitudinous causes in our today take their places, after three-quarters of a cenown time-to the modern love of material things, for- tury of American rule...
...We have no beautiful churches, not even yet surpassed in the hope of adding words of outstanding importance to the United States for loveliness of design and unpreteneulogies which grace the occasion...
...and Father Peter Helbron, rang in his ears...
...It was verse to him-a city of broken arches and unfinished upon the invitation of the Capuchin, Louis Francis spires, of men who had never learned their trade...
...His was not the mere dashing bravery of a young California was not the only place to which the Fransoldier nonchalantly scorning death, or the stern for- ciscans came...
...The first rule poets and doctrinaires, but not merely poets and docof the Franciscan spirit was solitude and prayer, but trinaires...
...and by 1772 the friars the impassive acquiescence in fate which had poisoned had charge of sixteen stations, among them New many of his contemporaries, even as it sickens the mod- Orleans, Mobile, St...
...One has heard a great deal itual help...
...Louis, Pensacola, Natchez, ern time...
...October 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 517 THE FIRMNESS OF ST...
...Theirs was the unconquerable joviality of those ergy...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 22
