St. Francis of Assisi

thing that it was to the real Francis of Assisi. He can find an austere joy, so to speak,in parading the paradoxes of asceticism and all the holy topsy-turvydom ofhumility. He can stamp the whole history with the Stigmata, record fasts like fightsagainst a dragon; till in the vague modern mind St. Francis is as dark a figure as St.Dominic. In short he can produce what many in our world will regard as a sort ofphotographic negative, the reversal of all lights and shades; what the...
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thing that it was to the real Francis of Assisi. He can find an austere joy, so to speak,in parading the paradoxes of asceticism and all the holy topsy-turvydom ofhumility. He can stamp the whole history with the Stigmata, record fasts like fightsagainst a dragon; till in the vague modern mind St. Francis is as dark a figure as St.Dominic. In short he can produce what many in our world will regard as a sort ofphotographic negative, the reversal of all lights and shades; what the foolish willfind as impenetrable as darkness and even many of the wise will find almost asinvisible as if it were written in silver upon white. Such a study of St. Francis wouldbe unintelligible to anyone who does not share his religion, perhaps only partlyintelligible to anyone who does not share his vocation. According to degrees ofjudgment, it will be regarded as something too bad or too good for the world. Theonly difficulty about doing the thing in this way is that it cannot be done. It wouldreally require a saint to write the life of a saint. In the present case the objections tosuch a course are insuperable