Hi and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about the classical world classical things classical education and Stuff and stuff hi, okay, and we are your three funny teachers who love old stuff and come to you every week Yep, with things to talk about from the classical world In all seriousness classical education is a very exciting thing in the world of education through the world of Christian education There's actually I think like a Christianity today article that came out recently talking about about classical education I think the the clickbaity title was something like will classical education our classical education is transforming Christianity something like that Sadly, we were not quoted, but Anyway, my name is Graham Donaldson and I am here with my colleagues and beloved brothers Arthur. You're on AJ Thomas Fletcher This reference I apologize TFM does that acronym mean anything to you all nope the freakin moon This moment is probably passed that used to be a popular acronym total frat move TFM. Oh, no, I'm glad we passed Don't pass that moment.
Oh, yeah, this is not Great, wonderful. Good. Anyway, I'm from a place where fraternities don't exist in Canada. I don't know fraternities in Canada.
AJ is a man of culture Yeah, so he's a I'm sure he's part of a fraternal order. Yeah, no I didn't have the house that wanted to be a frat, but couldn't be a frat So we just gave ourselves Greek letters and pretend we were a frat. It doesn't exist in Canada at all really I mean, I'm sure there are like I use that put Greek letters in front of them But the people that join it were like I watched a movie about American College and I want to join that but at the University of Toronto It's like you and the other people who watch that same movie. It's pretty sad.
It's not a thing. Anyway But Thomas I feel they listen to this podcast. Oh, I haven't know. Yeah, Thomas I have an urge to rebuild a broken structure good and also to issue all worldly goods Oh, good Is there somebody that I could look to that would give me a way to structure that desire absolutely no one sorry This is gonna be a really short episode though.
Oh, well, no, no, actually of course there is so today This is what we're gonna be talking about St. Francis St. Francis. Okay, so I talked about this before on the episode on St.
Augustine But the at Verapace Academy the school where all three of us work There are four houses that all students are placed into when they enter the high school and so I'm gonna spend four episodes going into who these people are and like why they're important and why they're great So you can go back and listen to one on some guesstin It was probably six or seven episodes ago at this point today. We're gonna do st. Francis now Thankfully, we have the dean of this house Graham Balenson. So this this this fountain of knowledge on St.
Francis. So I'll just So actually I'll just pass it to you. So you take the first 40 minutes. I'll take the back 20 I have one funny French saying Francis story that maybe didn't make it into your research that I can share This is the one about taking his clothes off.
No, it's the one about him Going to Egypt Is that the crusade parking? Yeah, that's in there. Oh, sorry. You can tell it's already No, so that most of I guess if I most I mean all of this comes from G.
K. Testerton's biography of St. Francis A perfectly titled St. Francis of a CC.
Yeah, it's a great book. I recommend that this is not a book review because I've never done a book review But you should definitely go I feel okay Thomas. I apologize for saying your podcast or book reviews because you're right all of our podcast or book reviews I feel like this is but anyway, there was a comment from like 50 episodes ago But apparently it's made it's left an indelible impression. I hate books.
Is that all I'm trying to say great? I never do book reviews. Okay, so let's talk about St. Francis what Lightning we know it's a really Super professional we are okay, St.
Francis. Let's let's kick off with what we know about the guy who is this who is a man He was the son of a wealthy merchant true whom are wealthy like Who did clothing like he did fabrics? Yeah, silk. Yeah, he grew up in Italy.
Yeah Seriously, that's why later talk to really animals. Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah It was a soldier as a young man in the wars between the city states. I don't remember which city states Prusa and This is the Guelph ghibli thing.
That's that too really different. Oh, yeah, it's okay They named his city After how people would make fun of him Conversion had a vision of rebuilding a church took it literally, but then realize maybe God met it figuratively. Um, what else? And sort of inaugurated a new holy order into the church that Some of you I remember when I was first being taught about St.
Francis was that because if he had such a reformer mentality towards the corruptions of the church Or the excesses of the church that it kind of start continued or started the ball rolling of of Wanting to reform the church and then maybe that went poorly went poorly. Yeah, after he died and there was yeah, there was a bunch of hair Text yeah, the Fred Shelley Fred Shelley. Yeah, so which sounds like like when you're in a Italian restaurant and it's just you're like, oh, man I can't remember what the Fred Shelley looks like Is that the one that's a shell or the little swiggles? Yeah, yeah, I think all the time words end up sending like a food, but okay, cool.
Sure. Wow. Yeah, my favorite I'm I'm slowly very very slowly learning Italian through dueling. Oh, so that's my one observation Duolingo is getting Latin Duolingo is getting like the it's in the Latin.
It's in beta right now. Correct. It's on there. You can sign up.
I'm so stoked. Yeah, just do it All right, I'm gonna turn you out for a little bit. It's okay. You do that anyway, okay, so at least you'll be doing something productive Okay, so Saint Agri Colas I feel like I'm tuning out mean anyway, whatever.
Thank you for Sorry, we take a look at the board game. What does that word actually mean? Huh? Agri Cola farmer farmer that makes sense of working about farming I got it on my mind for being farmer because you are a farmer indeed Okay, so Saint Francis born in the late 12th century he we already talked about this He's born to a silk merchant that is Pietro Bernadone.
That's my wonderful Italian accent so We've already covered all this that he is born into this life of wealth and some kind of like presumed success might be the right word for it that He will father he will follow in his father's footsteps, but he has to kind of prove himself first And that's where we get into these like military stories that Graham is talking about there are so Just to mention Chesterton's biography of Saint Francis is not That's probably about half actually the story of Saint Francis in half like reflections on the story of Saint Francis Welcome to Chesterton. Yeah, I mean seriously. Yeah, does it meander quite deeply is he sort of all over the place? Yes, he repeats over and over the same like verbal Pattern of he will introduce a paradox to say Francis was not this but he was this but he does it like ten times Which is endearing and wonderful but just to say Francis was not a manly man, but he was a man of man You're like, oh, wow, and then yeah sounds like yeah, yeah, I thought it was gonna have one too But yeah, we love Chesterton just for those who are listening we love him, but Justin is like espresso I can only have one cup.
I want to have more. Yeah, but if I do I get weird Yeah, I think we talked about before I had a hard time getting through Orthodoxy when we read that as a Veritas book group however long ago that was and so for my first time through the Saint Francis biography was an audiobook and I'm kind of just delightful to listen to to have a British man read to me his thoughts on Saint Francis It makes sense to maybe try that if reading the book itself is too much for you dear dear listener. Okay, so So speaking of me entering Chesterton opens his biography not by like starting with the life of like or the birth of Saint Francis because that would make too much sense But he spends time drawing out what the he says that no biography of Saint Francis could actually start at that point because Francis was not just about himself it was about his time whatever that means so So what is happening around the life of Saint Francis that that matters to him? So what's the year 12?
What was his year? 1181 1181. Okay, 1182. Okay, that's when he's born.
Yeah, okay, so he was sort of kicking around doing a thing in the In like early 1200s. You're saying this was before cell phones before just a little bit. You think you're good We have oriented ourselves This is wonderful Okay, Chesterton says the reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very wild one and tell He understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory But a thing like a love affair will get into the details of what makes Francis like that is I'll save that quote for a while He spends time at Chesterton spends time talking about Just a kind of a sense of oldness that the church had at this time that any kind of authentic faith was not generally valued or important or necessary he has The creed was still being repeated after the victory or escape But it is not a natural to suppose that there was something a little monotonous about the repetition The church looked old then as now and there were some who thought her dying as now in truth orthodoxy was not dead But it may have been dull. It is certain that some people began to think it dull So that's this is the context he's born into and in this again Francis is born into a life where religion is around his life But it's not particularly important to him.
I'm gonna reference the story before one day Francis is walking by he's just like walking around and he walks by a church. Where did my Like a ruined church a rundown abbey or something. Yeah, exactly and so as he's walking by this he himself is not thinking anything of it But he hears a voice and that voice tells him Francis see us now not that my house is in ruins go and restore it for me So I guess we'll do this way. I have three stories about St.
Francis. We'll go through to these and then talk about what they So Francis sees this rundown church and he wants to fix it He again what Graham said takes literally that statement so he goes and he takes some of his dad stuff He takes some of his dad's horses and some of his dad's like still against his father's knowledge, right? There's no ideas happening and Francis goes and sells all those things and then With the intention of using that money toward buying stuff for this church Francis's father understandably is upset by this and so it has him like throwing into like a jail essentially I think it's like under the house. There's some details about it.
Yeah, wait He threw into a jail under their own house. Yeah, so he's you don't you didn't have that? Yeah, it's not normal He Francis is locked up for a few days Francis's father then pulls him out takes him in front of the little bishop and tells the bishop Hey, make my son apologize for what he did and the bishop does make him apologize for that mostly because what Francis did was in fact So the bishops says hey Francis you should apologize for this and Francis's response which Anyway, you all have heard me talk about this in assembly It's a thing that's been bouncing my around my head since I first came upon the story But this is Francis's response. He stood up before them all and said up to this time I've called Pietro Bernadoni father, but now I am the servant of God not only the money But everything that can be called his I will restore to my father even the very close He has given me and he rent off all his garments except one and I saw that it was a hair shirt So that yeah, so Graham sort of a version of the story Graham said is that he doesn't have anything on right?
Yeah, but this version that's told is the origin of where the Francis can outfit comes from that the ground looking robe thing You see that's what that's all he had left on. That's all he like had for himself as he Rent off his garments So he does that he piled the garments in a heap on the floor and threw the money on top of them So he does return the money then he turned to the bishop and received his blessing like one who turns his back on society And according to the account went out as he was into the cold world apparently It was literally a cold world at the moment and snow was on the ground a curious detail very deep in its significance I fancy is given in the same account of this great crisis in his life He went out half naked in his half in his hair shirt into the winter woods walking the frozen grounds between the frosty trees a man without a father He was penniless. He was parentless He was to all appearance without the trade or plan or hope in the world and as he went under the frosty trees He burst suddenly into song so as he is losing all of his success as he's losing everything that would guarantee for him a comfortable life His reaction isn't despair. His reaction isn't sadness.
His reaction is first into song. He's a bit of a hippie. He's a good Francis A little bit I mean so like though there was a movie that was made in the late 60s or early 70s about the life of St. Francis but they're definitely like recasting him as Like a hippie the way that we have hippies in the 60s and 70s I would say brother son father sister moon or something like that.
That's the name of the movie interesting And I've never seen it, but I remember I've just heard people talk about it And it's it's less about St. Francis and more about like hippies and Like we can be hippies to Catholics I don't know it was more of a like a movie that was about its own time that was made as opposed to life I'm some sort of life of St. Francis. But I was like oh yeah, do you think we should dress less less flashy?
There we go. Do you think that I'm I used to classy a gentleman? No, no, I sometimes think about this sometimes I think like I should just only wear like white shirts and black pants or just have like a whole closet of the same simple clothes I think I think you're doing us all a favor when you dress that up. What does that mean?
I mean it makes it easier to look at Is a can help is a sanctifying force you reminded of like what age can do Anyway, should we dress simpler? Better your reason for wanting to yeah, right. Yeah, I know I know so Maybe this is great. So Graham your joking question off the bat was I want to live an aesthetic life Do I have an example for me and there's one way of telling the story of St.
Francis where you say yes There is an example of someone who turned back on all the success all the stuff and was happy and you can tell that story in Away to totally miss the point. Yeah, and that's what that's what you're saying in that movie that you're referencing So sure you could dress more simply why do you want to dress more simply right? Yeah, the most common version of it is that wasn't it I think was president Obama who only has one out one type of Outfit that he wears he has you know twenty version twenty sets of it But it's you know, it's the same suit that he has twenty times over one time you were that tan suit That tan suit that was a you deal doesn't work tan suit to like a meeting people were like what's he doing? But the reason you're a very boat captain gets more flies with honey, but that is but the Honey's about being flat.
I don't like this but the reason given for that is to The reason given for that is to limit your energy expended in making a decision. It's not like Yeah, the purpose of it is like make you happier not anything beyond that. Yeah, so that doesn't make it a bad choice to dress simpler though If we were I think you're doing it to draw attention it comes to the same like to your simplicity. Yeah, just It sounds to me like letting everyone know that you're fasting with an email blast, right?
Yeah, I mean that I'll stop doing that too That would mean you talked about your email blast. Yeah, but that doesn't but still the example is to leave those things behind him Mm-hmm again. There's something so it's the hardcoreness of Francis that always like right is appealing and always like freaking out Yeah, but that's and part of it is funny that you're the dean of the house of Francis because Francis was not particularly intellectual Right and you are that's what I say is the funny part you are whatever stuff So so with that a flounder of wealth Yeah, so you are immoral and all the time. Sorry, but yeah Francis was not like particularly well read He I think somewhat notoriously did not see the value in reading a whole lot when he had God and had the Bible Like he didn't need a lot more than that.
So there's a simplicity there anyway. You are very different from St. Francis. It's true.
It's all that to say Okay, all right, let's can I should have been that was of Thomas Koynes. I we why anyway? Aquinas would be wonderful. I'm Francis is great you Francis is great as well Some students make jokes about their being in house of Thomas Aquinas for how much I reference Thomas Aquinas.
So I think I'd be okay with that Okay, so what other stories do we see of St. Francis? So I Don't I guess I made references before in public formal in point of this to you Did you ever end up there's a story about him in a market? Did you ever end up looking at the story?
I'm not so this one I will attempt to bounce around in so that I don't otherwise it's a big block of text But one of the earliest glimpses we have of him shows him as simply selling bales of cloth from a booth in the market Which his mother may or may not have believed to be one of the habits of princes the first glimpse of the young man in the market is symbolic in more Ways than one an incident occurred, which is perhaps the shortest and sharpest summary that could be given a certain curious thing Which were a part of his character long before it was transfigured by transcendental faith while he was selling velvet and fine embroideries to some To some merchant of the town a beggar came imploring alms evidently in a somewhat tactless manner It was rude it was a rude and simple society that and there were no laws to punish the starving man for expressing his need for food Such as have been established in a more humanitarian age and the lack of any organized police permitted such persons to pester the wealthy without any great danger So anyway, he's talking with a merchant this fellow who has no money is asking for money It's viewed as rude that he's interrupting their conversation because he's hungry Anyhow, Francis was evidently torn to ways with the botheration of two talkers But finished his business with the merchant somehow and when he had finished it found the beggar was gone Francis left from his booth left all the bales of velvet and embroidery behind him apparently unprotected and went racing across the marketplace like an arrow from From the bow still running he threaded the labyrinth of the narrow encrypted streets of the little town looking for his beggar Whom he eventually discovered and loaded the astonished mendicant with money then he straightened himself so to speak and swore before God that he would never all his life refused to help Refuse help to a poor man the sweeping simplicity of this undertaking is extremely characteristic Never was any man so little afraid of his own promises his life was one riot of rash vows of rash vows that turned out right? So this is before he is like actually Christian or saved but there's just these glimpses of him being someone who is giving Who's willing to make bold promises like that? There's something I in this that I want to post you all so When we at a classical school talk about the liberal arts we call them that because they make a man free And there's something inferences that is free that he is not Slaved to wealth or his family and is willing to turn his back on those for a greater good He definitely has a temperament an extreme temperament. He has a 10 a temperament of Basically just not caring about what people think of him.
Yeah the I don't know if it's not a criticism because you wouldn't criticize him for this because of ultimately what he did but It is incredibly difficult to also think about the abandoning him abandoning his family Or incredibly sad to think that he saw himself in this position where loyalty to family and loyalty to God were now incompatible That's a that's a rough that's a rough decision to make. I don't think he can necessarily cook that up though I don't think he cooked it up either his father I mean if my kid stole I don't know stole my truck and sold it to help repair a church I'd be probably a little hacked, but at least it was for he's not going to basement No, I'm not gonna put him in basement jail. I'm gonna say look man next time you want to help out at church Just give me a hollard. You know tell me before you sell my share forever, right?
I think his father was had an idea of what he wanted Francis to turn out to be and Francis had Contour ideas. I think it seems like he had a lot of ideas contrary to the Practical wisdom of the age don't give a whole bunch of money to a poor man. Don't do all these things, right? Yeah, I really like that he is not burdened with the moors of his time.
Yes, but what I'm what I'm I'm what I'm curious about is Would we appreciate people following this example? So he is stepping on I think I always appreciated in retrospect But when it's a guy in the moment and you're not you don't appreciate it. At least I don't appreciate There are maybe two ways to phrase it. There's that but maybe the other way is so I gave a so we have a monthly Chapel for our students and during the chapel I brought in that story of Francis Cutting ties with his father, and I was talking with someone else at the school about that before getting up on stage to do that And he was saying he was like worried about you are gonna put this example in front of students, right?
You're gonna give students an out for them like disrespecting their parents by being able to say I'm actually doing it. I'm like serving God by dishonoring my parents. Does that make sense? I'm just wondering if there's something dangerous in Francis that actually shouldn't be replicated.
How old is Francis? Because I feel like that's a big so when would it be okay for him to attend that I think that Val might be Rash when you're 16, but reasonable when you're 24 like to lead to leave parents because at I feel that in those early years 16 17 18 you you tend to have little mercy for your elders You feel like you know what's right and wrong and you haven't lived long enough to see your own failings really take root and Recaput in the world and so you I don't know I think as you grow you have a little bit more mercy for the failings of people older than you because you have begun to see your own as you grow And so when you hit 24 your family has really had a chance to give you give you the room to go out and do what you want to do Yeah, if you're 24 and they're still not letting you follow God how you want to follow God It seems like that's an appropriate time to break ties But to rationally break ties with your family at 16 because maybe you understood what your dad is trying the virtues your dad is trying to instill And you that seems a little bit rash to me if I'm looking at these days correctly it would he would he has at least 22 He's probably 23 or 24 at the youngest and could be slightly older than that Yeah, that sounds to me like you know, you're you're supposed to be graduated college, right? It's it's it's time it's time to sort of pave your own way and if your parents are still Resisting your desire to follow God as a vocation I think at that point it might be appropriate to say like well It's time to go do something else. Yeah, and I cut some of the sections from Chester 10's account where it's made more clear that Pietro Bernadona is not not only not Christian, but like opposed to supporting Christianity.
Yeah. Yeah, it's more Yeah, there are reasons for the split between the two but we can see this with 800 years later and able to like discuss what the story means But again, is there a danger to following after this example if a student goes through the school and says actually I'm gonna like sell all my stuff and not Follow the worldly path of success. I don't know. I'm all for that You would have no worries of like you sure about that?
Oh, I'm sure we would have a you are you sure about that conversation Not because you want to like are they doing it because they saw like hashtag van life on Instagram? I thought that sounded great something like no because they're there to the wrong reasons It's sort of this aspirational like I don't want nobody to tell me how to live in my life I'm gonna you know, that's that's sort of the wrong reason, but it's if it's actually because of Not only a sanctification of self, but also a life of service Then I don't think we I wouldn't freshman year during our very first day of class when we talk about the reason for education I reiterate that like if you if you decide to leave this high school and sell everything you own and spend the rest of your life in poverty serving The poor I would like is that a failing of your education? They eventually say no and I'm like so I don't really care if that's what you do I will feel as though I have been a success did they start out saying that it would be a failure like they take convincing to come to that position No, usually they recognize that that is a virtuous thing Living living your life in service of others even if it means you don't have a big car and big house But when you ask them what is the definition of education success is one of the first words that comes up on the board Yeah, and so I'm like so clearly success might not mean material goods It means something else and education must serve something else and so to prove that I present in front of them this life of servitude that They know is good that usually doesn't take convincing. Yeah, and I like not like that So that's maybe there are levels here So at one level to say I'm free of the need for wealth and the need for luxury is a good and that is separate from the religious life of St.
Francis So that again that would line up with a classical Which is to say pay an understanding of like a good person is one who is free from slavery to money wealth luxury Whatever, so I think at that level that is a true thing that you can take from Francis life But there's a next step to it. Well, the difficulty with kids with teenagers is that They expect that when we give a example, we mean it as the only example Yes So there is the example of the well-lived Christian life of somebody who has the extremes of Francis Yeah, and there is somebody who has the well-lived Christian or the well-lived Christian life who has the extremes of George Mueller Right Mueller is another version of an extreme kind of of Believer if you want to put that sort of stupid way to phrase it But then there are also examples of the Christian life of that that have more of a conventional Way about their life. I'm trying like like a I don't know Like the examples don't have to just be these these extreme actions of radical poverty Because so then the education needs to be one that can that can educate and fill up the life of the child who's gonna go off in free Francis and fill up the life of the child who's gonna go off and be a good Christian father and husband and small business owner or whatever, right and The heart of Texas, you know, so like there's a and and then the other and then it also needs to be an education that goes and humanizes The person who is gonna go off and be incredibly worldly successful because that's gonna happen with some of these kids And and they need to be they need to be virtuous as well. So When we hold up the model, yeah, we don't want to hold it up as like this is the only this is sort of like They for those you like like Christianity.
This is like how you do it And those you don't well, you know like just do your own thing like that's helpful So to say that the example of St. Francis is not only for those who will sell all of their possessions leave their family and found a religious order Right. Yeah, his example is not only for them. Even the wealthy person needs to have a right view toward that wealth And that's Francis was still accumulating money for the purpose of rebuilding a church.
So anyway, this is helpful I like this. That's a good way of looking at it. The next step I was gonna take that to is that I think again It's fine to take any of those points away from it to again to be free from being controlled by money It's a good thing But there's a next step of like why Francis himself was actually doing any of this stuff and that's I'll just read the quote. It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes that the man who really knows he cannot pay his debt Will be forever paying it.
He will be forever giving back what he cannot give back and cannot be expected to get back You'll be always throwing things away into a bottomless pit of unfathomable things men who think they are too modern to understand this are in fact Too mean to understand it. We are most of us too mean to practice it We are not generous enough to be a sedics one might almost say not genial enough to be a sedics A man must have magnanimity of surrender of which he commonly only catches a glimpse in first love like a glimpse of our lost Eden so Yes, Francis was free of those desires but he's also giving it because of something he wanted of he would When he gave up all of his wealth, he got more in that moment than he gave up And so I think there's an example in that and this is more a religious point So let's get ahead if you don't want to talk about this but I just think the example that's given of sacrifice here is so helpful to see that Francis is not just giving things up because Like he should he's giving things up because what he gets is more he again He bursts into song the moment he walks away from everything I think that is a model for what we get out of that sacrifice And we have we have like secular versions of this right like those movies of The guy who's got the high-paying job and he's got all of the all of the pressures and then and then he other gets fired Or he has some sort of epiphany and he realizes like the simple life of family is is what I've wanted all along very Christmas Right like we have the secular version of that type of of realization that oh my goodness the game I'm playing or the system that I'm in is not a healthy happy one and it's not giving me the life that I wanted But Francis has the added layer of this which is So yeah, I mean those movies they hold up another good my sort of tongue-in-cheek reference to being like family I think a family man Right, so then the idea being that living living for family even those crazy and chaotic is more meaningful But Francis has the ultimate answer which is the life the life lived holy for God And to giving up everything that sort of hinders that is one that ultimately is fulfilling now and forever Yeah, that's the bursting in the song Yeah, this this all ties in with what we talked about those two back-to-back episodes of praise and praise of folly and discipline We're very helpful for me to understand again The point of the discipline episode is that discipline is not an end in and of itself discipline is like toward and for something and And praise of folly was to one of many points was that There used to be some like amount of action in a person like you must be pulled out of yourself towards something You pull toward things you want that make like that's a better motivation than to say I'm running away from things I don't want so yeah I think that's similar to the point that you made about the student right if the student is giving up everything to because they don't Want to be a part of the system anymore and they're tired of everything They don't like people and they want to be doing like that's maybe not the best reason to sell all your stuff and Go live on the land But if you are running towards a life of servitude because you know That's what you want and that all the things that you have are hindering you from this this life of servitude Then that's probably better reason. Yeah, actually times we've been talking about this before the podcaster We do our students a disservice by only painting for them one possibility of the Christian life And we could put as fine a point we wanted on it I'm sure people who have grown up in the same kind of Protestant circles that we've grown up in no sort of what we're talking about when we say there's there's like this Christianese way of Expectation of living and I don't even want to get into it But but I think we do yeah, we we do our students and we also do the modern church of the service by saying there's really only one way to live and be Christian In your lifetime So there are other ways there are other ways to do it and be faithful Anyway Pardon me. Wonder what you mean when you say I feel like someone could listen to this very easily and say well a bunch of Relatives sitting around talking about how you can do whatever you want to No, I mean I guess maybe to sort of just thinking about very basically like Intentional communities right like a new monasticism that sort of propped up and came around the early 2000s I don't really know how it's doing these days But there's people there's people in our church that I remember in Toronto that we're successful People who you know college educated had sort of You know paths to the middle class and they all sort of said what we're gonna do is we're gonna buy houses in a really poor neighborhood We're all going to basically do everything except take a valley We're going to dedicate ourselves to being in there and we're going to be we're gonna take more of a life of poverty living and then Establishing roots in a neighborhood in order to live life together Sancta and then that harder road will be sanctifying and will also be a benefit for the city So there's examples like that and I remember being at the time being like that's hard, right?
That sounds crazy. I don't want to do that and And a lot of people sort of look sort of said oh, what's wrong like you're weird. This is a weird way of like that's not You don't have to do that something you have to do my question is it right, you know that kind of fear, right? But then to flip that and say it's a thing you again Francis did not have to give up his wealth Francis did not have to Get this own your father's that's right.
He didn't have to walk away from all that but he did and he got something out of that It was it was better for him to have done that than to not have done that to have that open view toward the life We're offered that also the Christian life isn't this like I have to pray I have to be my Bible. I have to do these things that we get to know God or maybe it's like there's not just one There's not just like one way to be to live your Christian life And you just need to figure it out and if you don't you sort of live a crap your Christian life You're gonna be like here's what you could have done this would have been better I know I feel like a lot of Christians have the the same fear that people are the same sort of hesitancy that people have when they start playing like a very long and involves Game like a role playing game like I want to min max this thing Like I want to have the best optimal path of playing this game that you can have Whereas like Francis made decisions and about how he was going to live and got God because he was seeking after God And you could conceive that Francis if he had sort of kept his wealth and Used it to use to his wealth to to have an influence for God in the city And then also decide that he was gonna play a long game of reconciliation with his father Like that could have been a Christian life to God or what could have been of you know So like that if you were honestly seeking after God that choose your own adventure life is going to have happy and like Not happy you may not be happy the whole way through But it is going to be a life of satisfaction and a life of worse That way sure but what he did not have to be the only way It's not the only example for Christians not everyone has to do what Francis did that I think there's something deeper going on again of an of a an openness with those things not clinging to what a person has But that doesn't mean you have to follow these choices that he makes We're kind of dancing around a quote that Lewis makes these are the opening lines of the way to glory So there's no context or missing a promise if you ask 20 good men today what they thought the highest of virtues 19 of them would reply unselfishness But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied love You see what has happened a negative term has been substituted for a positive and this is a more than philological importance The negative ideal of unselfishness carries with it The suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others but of going without them ourselves as if our abstinence and not their happiness Was the important point? I do not think this is the Christian virtue of love the New Testament has lots to say about self-denial but not about self-denial as an end in itself Anyway, there you go for a Francis one. Okay, so we will move toward a final story This is kind of maybe intermission is the story that Graham wants to tell is this the story where he goes to damn yet Oh, you can tell that one and then the final one is is that the modus like oh gotcha So damn yet So there was a crusade going on and we're gonna be talking about the crusades in the next podcast Where you talk starting a series maybe a two-parter on the life of the Templars Well, there's a two-parter two-parter Is it gonna be a plantagenet?
25 parterings? We plantagenet is ended because King Henry IV is now King and he's not technically a plantagenet We can do the world roses if you want to I do Well buckle up for blood, but so we're gonna talk a little bit about the Templars Yeah, fair point and so the crusades terrible thing and there was a siege going on in a city called a damn yet Oh, which is right on the coast of Egypt on the Mediterranean and So the Templars were there and they're fighting the whoever they were fighting in Egypt at the time and Francis goes And he's like I'm gonna end the crusade by converting the Muslims And so he goes and in his poor outfit with his bare feet He goes he travels all the way to Egypt and he goes to the sort of headquarters of the leading You know the leading with the serrisons Yeah, the serrisons whoever it was I can never keep all of the different Just pretend is called in the Sultan. Yeah, I can never keep all the different sex in in in my head but he goes to ever was the other opposing force in the crusade at the time and he asks to speak to the Sultan to the head and his men kind of you know Laughingly say yes or think but he come on in and they let him in It's close we exactly and then Francis gives it like a two-day long in passion speech about sort of virtues of Christian life and the Sultan was very conciliatory and was very kind and you know treated Francis very well and gave him a place to sleep and and listen to him and Entertain to him and then when Francis was done so Francis is like so are you in baptism? Yeah, and so I was like no thank you we'll continue the crusade and then Francis on home But just Francis just had his mind if I just talk to him if I just talk to him and present Christ, maybe we can Have this whole blood shed there's a chance didn't work didn't work, but even a good culture I recall try and it was probably the better way than like what the Templars were doing Right, but also the crazy part of the story to me is that Francis was not killed as a part of this exactly right So there you know the way that sort of the tradition has taken hold is that you know despite the religious difference there There was still a recognition of Francis not just his simplicity, but his sort of purity of heart It's like why should why do I need to kill this person right?
There's no reason I mean, what are you gonna take from yeah? Unless you sit some here anyway unless you have this view of the opposition exactly right But that's not really how but that's not about that next podcast That's sort of our popular conception of the Crusades is that it was a war of hatred between religious differences and that's not where it was and I mean if you kill Francis all you're gonna do is like create a martyr for the other side Yes I feel like that is the worst decision you could make as a leader you gain nothing from it like he's not leading any troops He's not he doesn't have any secrets that you can torture out of him The only thing you do is make everybody really mad because this guy was really nice Right, that's the only possible thing you could do so hearing him out and then saying no thanks baptisms Isn't my style seems like a better decision sure makes sense all right So that's a story from close to the end of Francis's life the final big story of his life. I'll read through here this These next series of quotes might anyway, you might hear me quoting for a while Subject however to truly sacred doubts I will confess that to me personally this one solitary and indirect report Which he's about to say that has come down to us reads very like the report of something real of some of those things that are more real than what we call Daily realities even something as it were double and bewildering about the image seems to carry the impression of an experience shaking the senses As does the passage in revelation about the supernatural creature full of eyes Okay, you would see that St. Francis beheld the heavens above him occupied by this is occupied by a vast winged being like a seraph spread out like a cross There seems some mystery about whether the winged creep figure was itself crucified or in the posture of crucifixion or whether it merely enclosed And its frame of wings some colossal crucifix But it seems clear that there was some question of the former impression for Saint Bonaventura distinctly says that St.
Francis doubted now How a seraph could be crucified since those awful and ancient principalities were without the infirmity of the passion Saint Bonaventura suggests that the seeming contradiction may have meant that St. Francis was to be crucified as a spirit since he could not be crucified as a man But whatever the meaning of the vision the general idea of it is very vivid and overwhelming St. Francis saw above him feeling the whole heavens some vast immemorial unthinkable power ancient like the ancient of days whose calm men had conceived Under the forms of winged bowls or monstrous chair of them and all that winged wonder was in pain like a wounded bird This sort of this seraphic suffering as it it has said pierced his soul with a sword of grief and pity It may be inferred that some sort of mounting agony accompanied the ecstasy Finally after some fashion the apocalypse faded from the sky and the agony within subsided and silence and the natural air filled the morning twilight And settled slowly in the purple chasms and cleft of abysses of the I don't know the name of the mountain Sorry the head of the solitary sink amid all that relaxation and quiet in which time can drift by with the sense of something Indid and complete and as he stared downward He saw the marks of nails in his own hands That's the end of one chapter the very beginning just two sentences of the next chapter The tremendous story of the stigmata of St. Francis Which was the end of the last chapter was in some sense the end of his life In a logical sense it would have been the end even if it had happened at the beginning But truer traditions refer it to a later date and suggest that his remaining days on the earth has something about them of the lingering of the shadow So he has this incredible religious experience and then crazy vision and then it's almost there's no point to anything else in his life after having seen that to have been like to come face-to-face with again the ancient of days is the There's the way that Justin is describing it there and then it and then the the vision manifests itself bodily on him And he has the wounds of Christ the wounds of Christ, which is I mean Not crazy.
I think that crazy is the exact. I mean, that's my reaction to hearing that story Yeah, just maybe you two are too polite to be like that doesn't sound like a thing that happened Oh, I I had to because this story deserves reverence. I had to keep back the joke I wanted to say at the end of it, which was I'm not saying it's aliens It's wonderful because this like if you've ever watched the history channel I think they it's this sort of thing that they pull out and they say well What is it he could have possibly seen it must have been aliens right? It's it sounds totally crazy, but I don't know I am we talked about how the world itself is a magical place and The only reason we think it's not magical is because we've gotten too used to the magic that we have planned to see in the ground A tree comes forth is total insanity and I I try my absolute very best to Not disbelieve the magic of the old world simply because I haven't seen it with my own eyes and not remove magic from the world simply Because I am incredulous.
It's here Justin so he presents the story kind of just objectively says this is a thing that happened and then explores AJ seems like what you just said of so Do we trust the story do we trust that this story happened and his he opened the story with this? It sounds real is one of thing He says and others that he is willing to trust the words of Bonaventure, but it says here Bonaventura anyway, so to trust the words of Saint Bonaventura in one paragraph But not trust the words the next paragraph seems inconsistent right to say you know This is where he's like telling the truth and this is where he's lying or whatever the right term would be he's unfair to mm-hmm Two those things were counting it and then I'll this ties in with that. This is a quote from I think I think it's the first chapter it's much earlier in the book but references this scene This is when Chesterton was talking about how people have trouble telling the biography of Francis and this is why these distinguished writers found things like Because to them a religion was a philosophy. It was an impersonal thing It is only the most personal passion that provides here an approximate earthly parallel a man will not roll in the snow for a stream of Tennessee by which all things fulfill the law of their being you will not go without food in the name of something not ourselves that makes For righteousness he will do things like this or pretty like this under quite a different impulse He will do these things when he is in love The first fact to realize about Saint Francis is involved with the first fact with which the story starts that when he said from the first That he was a troubadour and said later that he was a troubadour of a newer and nobler romance He was not using a mere metaphor But understood himself much better than the scholars understand him So this what we again a thing we've danced around is to say the deeper point of Francis is that he was driven by a love a radical love Toward the things that were important to him God primarily obviously, but he was drawn toward things He was not scared of that wealth and had to leave it behind But he was constantly running before him.
He was confident of the receiving the object of his love. So yeah, that is Francis I appreciate your focus on sort of a spiritual narrative there are plenty of other stories about Francis There's one where he's preaching and to the animals right there Well, there's one where he's preaching to people and the birds will not shut up And so he just says essentially like hey, can you keep it down? I'm preaching here and the birds are silent the rest of the time There's another one where there's a wolf that has been harassing a town eating kids and stuff and or goats or whatever You know, it's just just not a great wolf And so they call Francis and he goes and he has a sit down chat with the wolf and just says amen You gotta leave these people alone It's just not it's not chill what you're doing and the wolf never harasses them again Just why are the Francis of Veritas our mascot is the wolf Yeah, cuz he talked to wolves and he used to talk to animals all the time and seemed to have a easy Congress with them I guess I probably didn't say that during our previous episode So the the animal associated with the house of Santa Guston is the phoenix so then this so then Francis is the wolf So I guess I should mention that one through that too. Good call.
Yeah, there are many more stories to tell about Francis again The biography Chesterton writes the audio book of it is four and a half hours and here We spent fifty three minutes and his is a short biography So there's so much more to tell of the life of St. Francis This is what again my context is in student life in Putting four heroes being first for myself, but then also for the students I work with so that's yeah The spiritual tradition of Francis is what appeals to me most of my friends with all that and the city now is beautiful I mean, it's mostly you've been right tourism. Yeah, it's tourism just around St. Francis and his his large cathedral there And it's a fun question to ask how do you think he would have felt about this massive cathedral is it in his name?
Is it elegant is it or is it with the word on the board opulent or it is kind of popular? There's a lot of paintings and frescoes now, but it still houses the continuing Franciscan order which I think is great Yeah, and it maintains a city right a CC still kind of runs because of a lot of tourism centered around him Yeah, it's a beautiful city with some really nice restaurants So if you want to go and have an incredible view and a really nice, what was the what was the word that? I'm telling you don't want to talk about fragile. Yeah.
No, she's either Where were the fragile you remember what there he was so that's in Francis had this life of poverty And he did that again because of the good that he had received and wanted to get back That was the quote from earlier well the French Ellie come after Francis's death and they essentially take that the stuff further to say Actually, property is immoral actually property is bad and no one should have any of it and so I Don't know if I don't know if he's the right word for it. It was an order that was Actually, I don't know what the damn I was gonna say excommunicated. I don't actually know if that's anyway They were deemed like not To probably if you read the name of the rose by yeah, I go they talk about the The ending is a bummer but it's not the point anyway So yeah, they talk about the fragile part of that they and but the name of the roses also about the I guess they were heresy trials Cuz that's they recount them in kind of vivid detail So French Ellie not good dudes, even though they were kind of based on the ideas of Francis But they took it for just to cover them at the very end and says that they're like killing they're like a slaughtering property Yeah, that's I mean that's pretty weird to take a saint's ideas too far I don't know if I said this before with the Gaston's theology is used to justify the crusades which I guess we'll talk about next episode So anyway stuff yeah, all these four saints being taken out of context why I'm proud to be part of Mueller where he didn't present a theology Oh, yeah, just prayed a lot and helped kids. Yeah, that's why having done having a lot of biography I think his will be the hardest episode to spend 50 minutes on because like for sure man his autobiography is literally just I needed something I prayed for it.
I got it. I got it. It's like the Amazon of prayer to make it is but it is It's great story is great. That is a brief brief introduction to Saint Francis.
I'm so easy. Thank you Thomas Thank you Graham So this has been classical stuff You should know if you have any questions or concerns or things you want us to cover or Any more submissions to classical stuff bingo you can email us at classical stuff at veritas academy net you can tweet at us at classical stuff CLSSCAL stuff on Twitter, you can find our episodes on classical stuff net and Quick note if you are looking for some of our earlier episodes those can still be found on our website We have rolled off of iTunes. I think we're starting around episode 7 now just keeps growing and so it's gonna Keep on going that way we can only have about a hundred episodes listed But you can find our early stuff on our website. It's still there.
That's it. Well, well, and this is the classical stuff guys signing off