and it burst out through the five wounds,
that all might see that it dwelt therein.
There has never been found a saint who bore such a sign,
A mystery so deep that if God had not revealed it,
it would be better to pass over it in silence, incapable of words.
Let those who have tasted it speak of it.
Wondrous stigmata, workmanship of God,
you demonstrate the great reality behind the awesome sign.
All will be clear at the end, when the last joust is over,
in the presence of those who follow the cross!
O my arid soul, dry of tears, run—
to swallow the bait, to drink at this spring,
to get drunk there, and never leave it again.
Let me die at the fount of love!
Laud 62: “O Francesco, da Dio Amato”
O Francis, beloved of God
Christ has shown himself in you!a
The deceitful Enemy, adversary of the Lord,
dreading that his lost state would devolve to man,
approached him and through fraud led him
to disobedience and the loss of paradise.
The Adversary gloried in his triumph,
for with man’s fall he was raised,
and became the Prince of the World.
Then God, seeing this fact, became man,
and wounded him mortally,
and wrested that dominion from him.
God’s humility reversed the Enemy’s fortunes,
and holy poverty checkmated him.b
A long time after his defeat,
the cursed Enemy tried again,
and the world fell into his snares.
- Nicholas III, Exiit, 6-7. Cf. supra 750-3.
- This article speaks in terms of the traditional office of “agents” allowed to receive money alms by the prescriptions of Nicholas III’s Exiit; significantly enough, it does not address directly the use of procurators appointed by the brothers, permitted by Martin IV’s Exultantes, who in practice were increasingly rendering the office of agent obsolete. Thus Clement V’s Exivi let this privilege stand. By using a procurator, however, the brothers could order how money alms were to be spent, contrary to what is stipulated in this paragraph. However, some abuses that arose through the use of procurators—e.g., accepting income-producing property—are addressed below.
