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As a young man, Francis knelt in front of this cross every day and prayed,
Most high,
glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me, Lord,
correct faith,
firm hope,
perfect charity,
wisdom and perception,
that I may do
what is truly your most holy will.
Dr. Howell is completing a book right now on St. Francis, and it includes this section (still in rough draft form!) on “The Will of God.”
If Francis can teach us about the will of God, we might consider where he prayed what he prayed. Not just anywhere, but in a church, the small stone chapel called San Damiano, crumbling, unimpressive, but yet a sacred space. Francis took time to get himself bodily to such a place, to invest the time in the precincts where the Eucharist was blessed and served, where the Word was read and proclaimed, where Baptisms and penance and even last rites were performed. What is God’s will? Francis says kneel with me, but kneel in a church. “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
And what was the focal point in this Church? A large wooden cross, Romanesque in style, painted a few decades before Francis was born, adorned with complex iconography, featuring small figures of Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, soldiers, onlookers, angels, and even saints like St. Michael, John the Baptist, St. Paul, and hovering above them all is the hand of God the Father, protruding downward out of heaven, in a gesture of blessing.
But dominating the cross, at the heart of it all, is Jesus. We see his body pierced with nails, his head crowned with thorns, the soldier’s lance in his side, little streams of blood seeming to squirt from his body. Yet this Jesus seems strong, placid, almost luminescent, his eyes angled so very slightly upward, not fierce but shedding love.
Perhaps to get this precious icon to a more trafficked location, church authorities moved this cross to the much larger church in the city, Santa Chiarra, only about a ten minute walk from my hotel. I decided this would be the way to start my day – and might not be a bad way to start any day.
After sleeping at the hotel, I gathered my things to walk straight to Santa Chiara to pray before that cross. Right outside my hotel, in every shop window, and at the entrance to every Church in Assisi, there are little cards with Francis’s prayer printed. I bought a few, planning to stick them in letters to friends, to have some in my desk to hand to people trying to divine where the water is. Then I went in the Church. The cross is not visible in the nave, but hangs in a small chapel within, the Oratorio del Crocifisso.
The cross isn’t a photo opportunity. The sanctity of the room lures you down onto your knees. I knelt (was Francis there?), bowed my head, then gazed up at the face of Jesus, took it all in for a long time, then retrieved the prayer I’d copied out, and began to speak to Jesus, first silently, then a murmured whisper, and finally, when I noticed no one else was in the room but me, right out loud.
Most high,
glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me, Lord,
correct faith,
firm hope,
perfect charity,
wisdom and perception,
that I may do
what is truly your most holy will.
I was moved. I remembered that, after praying this prayer over and over in front of this Jesus, Francis heard Jesus say something from the cross. I found myself wishing Jesus would speak, half believing he might at any moment, or even that perhaps he just did but I was too thick in the soul to grasp it. Since that visit, I have kept little cards with this prayer in my top desk drawer at the office, in my sock drawer at home, and in the little junk compartment that sits under my right elbow when I drive. Has Jesus talked back? Maybe. But my interest in God’s will has matured a little, and now and then I find myself thinking – and acting – differently.
I wonder what Francis would say if we gave him a blackboard and chalk and asked him to unpack the prayer. What did his mind gravitate toward when he uttered each phrase, each word?
Most high, glorious God
Francis knew the height, the grandeur, the sheer massiveness of God, even though his scientific grasp of the universe was paltry. He slept out under the stars, and did so when there was virtually no ambient light, no artificial halogens, and so as he lay on his back, drifting off, he could see what we can no longer see: a dense array of pinpoints of light, a flurry of meteors streaking, the deep darkness that is not dark to God at all. He would have known the Psalm by heart:
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is thy name in all the earth!
Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted…
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars which thou hast established,
what is man that thou art mindful of him,
and the son of man that thou dost care for him?
Yet thou hast made him little less than God,
and dost crown him with glory and honor (Psalm 8).
Later we will explore the exuberant delight Francis took in the works of God’s fingers. But when Francis asked “What is man… and the son of man?” he would have thought, not of himself, so small against the canopy of space and the openness of the fields, but of Jesus. What Francis understood about Jesus is that the Most High, Glorious God was not content to hover so high, to remain aloof. That Most High, Glorious God exhibited his glory by coming down, in the humble form of a man, Jesus – and so the height of God is only measured by the smallness of Christ come down in the infant Jesus, and the prayer for God’s will then is, like some zoom lens, focused down on something small, tender. God came down from his most highness because God loved, God loves – and so God’s will is always about love, bending down, humble, serving.
We might miss this starting point of the pursuit of God’s will because we start too low. We think of God in too narrow of terms. God is high, God is more mind-boggling than the scope of stars in the Milky Way. But that God became small for us, and bends down to listen to those who begin their prayer with “Most high, glorious God.” Out in the dark, the one who looks up into the darkness really wants just one thing.
Enlighten the darkness of my heart
There is darkness out there, and in me. Even the most holy, even those intimate with God have to admit that “we see through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). My heart is divided, muddled, and compromised. I have propped up ugly blockages that cast long shadows across my own soul. I cannot see where to go, or even how to go. I need light.
We may think we are fairly bright, and that we know many things. But it is only when I look closely and realize my heart is dark, that I cannot see where to go, or even how to go, that I open myself to the light of God’s will. My brokenness is where I begin. “Everything has a crack in it. That’s how the light gets in” (Alan Jones).
And how much light am I seeking? How much do I really need? When I seek God’s will, sometimes I foolishly want a brightly illuminated map, with lots of flashing lights, a brilliant clarity, the entire way laid out without the slightest uncertainty. But the light God gives is what Francis would have used walking around in the dark of Umbria, when there were no streetlights: a candle, maybe a small torch. How far can you see with a candle? Not far at all.
But perhaps just far enough. Even a flickering candle banishes the darkness, or sheds just enough of the darkness that I can take a step or two, and then I can see a bit further and take another step or two. I avoid crashing into trees and rocks, I see just far enough, I keep going, keep looking. God’s will is like that. Oh God, enlighten the darkness of my heart. I am not asking for the gleaming brilliance of noon. Just give me sufficient light to take a step or two, then show me what you want to show me next.
And give me true faith
What is faith? And what did Francis mean by “true” faith? Can there be a false faith? When I was in college, without the faintest interest in God or any kind of spirituality, I took a philosophy course on existentialism. The professor assigned me a paper topic: Paul Tillich. I’d never heard of him, but I started researching and discovered him to be a German theologian who came to America and taught in Chicago. The first book I read toward my term paper was The Dynamics of Faith. I’d thought faith was something you either had or you didn’t, and having it might be a good thing, lacking it might be bad, at least to people more interested in religion than I was. But Tillich suggested we all have faith in something. Faith is what we trust, what we invest ourselves in: faith is my “ultimate concern.” And that ultimate concern can be directed to what is false, to what cannot deliver, to what will only delude me and leave me desolate.
Give me a true faith. Having faith might be dangerous if that faith isn’t true, if it isn’t passionately committed to what really is God. And is this faith something I conjure up inside myself? No, faith – if Francis is right – is a gift. “Give me true faith.” On my own I may have no faith, or I may get duped into fawning after all kinds of bogus idols. Again, remember where Francis is praying: in a Church, and in front of Jesus. Faith can drift into confusion without the loving correction of the Church, its Scriptures, and its Lord. I will only discover God’s will when I ask for it as a gift, and when I expect God’s will as a byproduct of a true faith, as I have cultivated a relationship with the true God and his Son, Jesus, in the place God has willed for him to be known, and for God’s will to be revealed.
But we are not alone pursuing God’s will via a true faith with Jesus in the Church. The painted cross Francis was obsessed with depicted disciples, angels, saints, a holy company of others who also wanted to know God’s will. Partly, we learn God’s will when we let ourselves be swept up in the tide of their prayers, their living out of God’s will. God wills that we relish and benefit from the communion of the saints, God’s friends who have asked after God, heard God, failed God, kept seeking God, served God, and now have been ushered into God’s presence. They want to help us. They can help us. We rely on God’s friends, our brothers and sisters who are veterans of the faith, to inspire and teach us. We cannot see them – but Francis knew that a true faith always involves hope, “the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Certain hope
Hope is the most stellar of the virtues, and the most distinctively Christian. Hope isn’t a sunny optimism that everything will be better tomorrow – although Francis did have that kind of optimistic personality. Hope is a long-term belief in God’s ultimate future, which can weather the storm tomorrow if things get worse. Francis endured the worst, and even sought suffering in pursuit of God’s will, and in unbounded certainty of God’s good future.
Hope doesn’t depend on you and me getting our act together – although Francis and his friends labored hard to do better each day. Hope depends not on us, but on God, and Francis was buoyed by an unsinkable hope in God, unshakeably confident that God would do good, that God would bring everything to its good end, that the future rests securely in God’s hands.
If hope is our trust in God’s ultimate future, then we can live boldly today. We don’t measure our efforts by productivity or the lack thereof; we can do good whether it stands a chance of succeeding or not; we can understand today’s small effort as part of God’s larger project. Hope liberates us from all calculation, and lives with abandon for God, for those with hope fear nothing. Those with hope can love.
Perfect charity
The word “charity” for us denotes something like giving spare change to the needy. But “charity” derives from a Greek word meaning love, grace, free mercy. Francis prayed for love, and he loved with a resplendent passion. God’s will is about love. God’s will isn’t an abstract speculation; God’s will is that I love, that I am loved, that God loves – and that love is real, practical, sacrificial, tangible, lasting.
God’s will, which is all love, requires forgiveness. God’s will, love, catapults me into situations where I am not the center of the universe. I love, and when I love I am very close to God’s will. If I do not love, and to the degree to which I fail to love, then I am tumbling away from God’s will.
Such love is hard. So why did Francis then add the adjective “perfect”? My love isn’t perfect. But then neither was Francis’s – although his love was astonishing, exemplary, as perfect as we might dream possible. But “perfect” doesn’t have to mean flawless, never veering, with crystal, pristine purity. We “perfect” a motion – which means we try something, and then together we try to improve upon it. And love, after all, enjoys its own peculiar perfection. Try telling a young lover his devotion to the beloved is less than perfect. We might chuckle at its silliness or immaturity; but in his heart, he loves totally, zealously, and will not sleep until he is able to do some little thing the beloved asks. Francis had this kind of love for Jesus.
Maybe perfect love what Jean Vanier, after a lifetime of serving severely the severely handicapped, spoke of so eloquently: “to love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude, ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.’ We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.” Francis saw beauty in everyone, he crushed no one, he revealed capacity in each person – and that was the fulfillment of God’s will.
Wisdom and perception
Was Francis smart? Perhaps, and in chapter ? we will examine how educated he might have been. But was he wise? Exceedingly so. We may be smart; we see people with dazzling IQs, a knack for turning a buck, or terrific ability at playing the piano or fixing broken things. But where is wisdom? Wisdom can be had by someone with a low IQ, or someone who lives out in the country and whittles on a porch. Brain brilliance might actually block wisdom; titans of success might be tempted to brush off wisdom as trivial. Ralph Waldo Emerson mocked Harvard as having “all the branches of knowledge, but none of the roots.” Wisdom is deep underground, not just lying around on the surface.
We’ve made progress technologically since Francis’s day; but wasn’t Henry David Thoreau right when he called most modern inventions “improved means to unimproved ends”? Wisdom thinks about the end, the purpose of life. Wisdom can step out of the moment to understand broader implications. Wisdom keeps perspective on things, and can act in ways that are beneficial over the long haul. Wisdom is patient, centered, not easily thrown off balance, a kind of serenity.
Wisdom takes time, some pondering, and a good bit of conversation with others who want to go deep into life and God. Wisdom must be cultivated, won over the length of life. Wisdom is conservative by nature, believing what is ancient survived for a reason. Wisdom is born out of the cauldron of experience: hard times, grief and sacrifice. You can’t just pick up an idea and suddenly become wise, the way you crack open a fortune cookie. You live it, wait on it, test it, let it seep into the good earth through the soles of your feet; you begin to notice you are becoming one with God, who is Wisdom.
Wisdom is perception – seeing life, the world, other people from God’s perspective. “It is only with the eyes of the heart one can see rightly,” as the Little Prince teaches us. To know God’s will, to do God’s will, is all about assuming the divine vantage point, developing the vision to see beneath the surface of things, to catch sure glimpses of what God is doing in a world where God isn’t in the flashing neon beacons, to take the long view, to have the eye cocked, looking about for not merely what to think but most importantly what to do.
That I may do what is truly your most holy will
We typically think it is important to know God’s will, to understand God’s will, to make sense of God’s will, to question God’s will. For Francis everything was much simpler. His prayer was not to do anything mental or intellectual with God’s will. His passion was, simply, to do God’s will.
God’s will is something we do. “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (James ???). God’s will is that we do something. God’s desire is that you get in motion, that you act, reach, touch, walk, embrace, lift. For Francis, God’s will wasn’t a self-absorbed rumination about himself: God’s will was about somebody else, a leper, a pauper, a pope, a friend, a stranger. God’s will isn’t speculative, something to be endlessly debated, forever deferring changes in the pattern of our real lives. When I first read Nicholas Lash’s well-known essay, “Performing the Scriptures,” I penciled Francis’s name in the margin in large letters. Lash (quote from article?)
We may be tempted to counter and say something shrewd theologically, like “We are saved by grace, not our deeds.” Indeed. Francis, as much or more than any human being about whom we have a witness, was overwhelmingly grasped by the grace of God. It was this extravagance of God’s mercy and free largesse that drove Francis to do, to act, to seek relentlessly what God wanted him to do. We are going to do something today, tonight, tomorrow – so why not be determined to make it God’s will?
So we are now a long way from the kind of speculation some Christians make between what God causes and what God merely permits. I wonder what Francis would think? As I have explored the lives of the great saints of history, my senses is that they perceived their lives to be so firmly hinged to God that nothing was conceivable apart from God. The door can open or shut, it can creak ajar or slam shut, the light can be streaming through or blocked out – but the door is inseparable from God. So Francis could thank God for little delights, and also for pains and struggles. Francis suffered much, but to our knowledge he never asked why. He embraced whatever he faced, he learned, letting his soul be refined, purified, retooled for further action.
He had plenty of work to do. When Francis prayed before that crucifix, Jesus spoke. But what did Jesus say? “Francis, rebuild my church, for as you can see it is falling into ruin.” As we pray for God’s will today, could it be Jesus is again asking us to rebuild the Church? It is falling into ruin, isn’t it?
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