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1Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord,
who have come together from many parts and provinces.a
2Live always in truth,
that you may die in obedience.b
3Do not look at the life outside,
for that of the Spirit is better.c
4I beg you through great love,
to use with discretion
the alms which the Lord gives you.
5Those who are weighed down by sickness
and the others who are wearied because of them,
all of you: bear it in peace.d
6For you will sell this fatigue at a very high price
and each one [of you] will be crowned queen
in heaven with the Virgin Mary.e
- “Little poor ones,” poverelle in the Italian original, contains an echo of what Francis himself was called: “Il Poverello.” No doubt Francis saw proof of the role of grace in that within the twelve years following Clare’s embrace of religious life, candidates from various parts of Italy entered San Damiano.
- The phrase implies living in “truthfulness” or “sincerity” rather than living in doctrinal orthodoxy. In this sense obedience, frequently seen as expressing the whole of Franciscan life (e.g., Early Rule II 9), may well refer to attentiveness to the prompting of the Spirit (cf. SalV 14-15) and the never ending desire to do God’s will (ER XXII 9).
- This may be seen as paralleling Francis’s counsel in his Later Rule (LR II 13): the gospel image of the plowman who is distracted from giving his full attention to his work and looks backward. In this instance, it is an interior openness to the promptings of the Spirit, not the physical enclosure as such, that is contrasted with “the life outside.”
- This passage becomes more meaningful in light of the difficult, constricted quarters of San Damiano, the poor diet and rigorous fasting of the Poor Ladies, and the inevitable sicknesses, especially tuberculosis and maleria, to which they were susceptible. For excellent background, cf. K. Haines, “The Death of St. Francis of Assisi,” Franziskanische Studien 58(1976): 27-46; also, the bibliography provided by O. Schmucki, “Infermità,” Dizionario Francescano (Padova, 1983), 769-770.
- Two interpretations of this passage have been offered: (a) the present one which follows that of O. Schmucki, cf. “Das wiederentdeckte ‘Audite’ des hl. Franziskus für die Armen Frauen von San Damiano,” Fidelis 68(1981); and that of G. Boccali, “Parole di esortazioni alle ‘poverelle’ di San Damiano,” Forma Sororum 14 (1977): 54-70; “Canto di esortazioni di San Francesco,” Collectanea Franciscana 48 (1978): 5-29. The latter offers “You will see that such fatigue is precious …” The imagery of selling can also be found in Thomas of Celano’s Desire of the Remembrance of a Soul 12 in which Francis met his brother, Angelo, who could not understand his spiritual ways and sarcastically remarked to a companion: “Tell Francis to sell you a penny’s worth of sweat.” To which Francis replied: “Indeed, I will sell my sweat more dearly to my Lord.”