The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-10-10
A SAINT AND SOCIAL REFORMER
SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSIST AND
HIS INFLUENCE IN THE PoLITE
CAL AND SOCIAL SPHERE.

In view of the fact that October 4
was the feast of St. Francis of Assist,
the following appreciation of his
career as a social reformer by Rev.
Elliot Ross, c. S. P, will not be de-
void of interest to our readers. 1t
shows that true social reform is not
a product of modern times.
Paul Sabatier, a French Protestant
clergyman, was led in rather an odd
way to write a life of ST. Francis OF
Assist He was returning from the
little town one day in a carriage with
an ardent free-thinker. His com
panion enquired, sneeringly, if he had
secured any relics. Sabatier replied
that he had visited Assist more for
the sake of Giotto's frescoes than for
Francis. To his surprise, his com.
panion then launched into an enthusi-
astic panegyric of the Saint, and
among other things called him one of
the greatest social reformers that ever
| lived For the first time, Sabatier
understood that Francis was the real
attraction, not the art which had col
| lected round him, and he made a pro-
found and critical study of this 'trou-
badour of Cod
| After making all due allowance for
pious exaggeration, after subtracting
all that impartial scholarship de-
mands, he still found in st. Francis
one of the heroes of the world, one
of the epoch-making characters COM
parable to the greatest in history.
How large he looms can be gathered
| from the varied bodies that have
claimed him for their own. Protes-
tants have called him a precursor of
Luther, a preparer of the way for the
Reformation three centuries later.
| Auguste Comte, think, inserted him
in the Positivist calendar. Socialists
revere him as one of themselves.
| We are not concerned with Francis
as a religious reformer The object
of these sermons is to justify saint
ship from a practical, worldly stand
point, and for that reason we limit
the field to our Saints influence in the
political and social sphere.
Francis was not one of those who
was born a saint or had sanctity
thrust upon him. His father was a
well-to-do merchant, and as far as we
can gather, Francis lived a life very
| similar to young man of our own
day who has big bank account to
drawn on. Apparently he was as thor
ough-going in his pleasure-seeking as
| he afterwards was in his GOd-seeking
At any rate over-much gaiety with the
| youths of the town landed him in
| bed, and ultimately changed the cur.
rent of his activity. In the enforced
retirement of the sick-room, he learnt
| to look upon life differently. Even
after recovering, he did not regain
his former cheerfulness. His zest for
| life was gone, and he sank into de-
spondency The old interests no long
er appealed, the old companions no
| longer satisfied. He was alone with
| his own soul A dryness, tasteless-
ness, an Overpowering ennui OPP
pressed him. For three years he bore
the hardest of all trials-failure Of
creatures and apparent desertion OF
God.
But such desertion is only apparent,
and Francis found God at last. And
when no had found God, he found crea
lures, too, but TRANSPORTED. Once
more they could charm and delight
him, though not in themselves. He
| loved his brother the sun, and his
sister the moon, and the birds of the
air and the wolves of the forest, be-
cause Of God. And so he loved man
and the most loathsome of men, in
and for God.
Out of this ardent, all-embracing
| love there grew one of the most i'm
! portant social reforms of modern
| times. A monument has been erected
to the memory of the man who al
lowed mosquitoes to bite him in order
to prove a theory of malarial and yell
| low-fever transmission, and the physi-
clan who conceived the theory will
go down in history as one of human
| ity's heroes. What reverence will be
sufficient for the man who succeeds
in roofing out the white plague? What
a plethora there will be then of monu-
ments and magazine articles! But
we must not fail to remember, be-
cause it is no longer with us, that
there was once just as great plague
in leprosy, and we must not forget
that Francis of Assist was big factor
in enabling us to forget leprosy as
we cannot forget consumption. For
in the most horribly repulsive leper
Francis saw Christ, and kissed him.
And with that kiss Francis healed
not only that particular leper, as the
old legend says, but the whole race
of lepers in Europe. Some such SUI
preme, superhuman example Of devo-
ton was needed to rouse men to
deal with that great problem, to get
the thousand who were beginning to
follow Francis to work earnestly, in
caring for these unfortunates. If the
frightful disease has disappeared from
western civilization, we may thank a
saint and mystic.
That lesson of cleanliness and SAM
tation has become so fixed in our
traditions that it is hard for us to
to realize how hard it was to win
and how grateful we should be to the
man who handed down that legacy
to posterity. But another social les
son which Francis taught his age, ours
has not learned so well-the lesson OF
| vic