St Francis of Assisi
(1181-1226) and the Demonic
Here are some stories from Franciscan sources
about St. Francis and the demonic.
One of
the brethren was afflicted with such a horrible disease as that it was asserted
of many to be rather a tormenting from
demons than a natural sickness. For ofttimes he was quite dashed down on
the ground, and wallowed foaming, with his limbs now drawn up, now stretched
forth, now folded, now twisted, now become rigid and fixed. At times he was
quite stretched out and stiff, and with his feet on a level with his head, would
be raised into the air, and would then fall back again in dreadful fashion. The
servant of Christ, Francis, full of compassion, pitied him in his so lamentable
and incurable sickness, and sent unto him a morsel of the bread wherefrom he
had been eating. When the sick man had tasted the bread, he received such power
as that never thenceforward did he suffer trouble from that sickness.
(St. Bonaventure,
Major Legend, Chapter. 12)
A Brother freed from the Attack of a Demon:
A
certain brother happened to be vexed for a long time by a temptation of the
spirit, which is worse and more subtle than prompting of the flesh. At last he
came to St. Francis, and humbly threw
himself at his feet; overflowing with bitter tears, he could say nothing,
prevented by deep sobs. The father was moved with piety for him, realizing that
he was tormented by wicked impulses, “I
command you,” he said, “by the power
of God, from this moment demons, stop attacking my brother, as you have
dared to do up to now.” At once the gloom
of darkness scattered and the brother rose up free, no more bothered than
if it had never happened.
(2 Celano, Chapter
LXXVI)
Demons over Arezzo:
It
happened once that St. Francis came to Arezzo at a time when the whole
city was shaken by a civil war that threatened its destruction. Given
hospitality in the outskirts, he saw demons over the city leaping for joy and
arousing the troubled citizens to mutual slaughter. In order to put to flight
those seditious spiritual powers, he sent Brother Sylvester, a man of dove-like
simplicity, before him as a herald, saying: “Go in front of the city gate and,
on behalf of Almighty God, command the devils to leave at once!” The genuine
obedient man hurried to carry out his father’s orders and, caught up in praise before the face of the Lord, he
began to cry out boldly in front of the city gate: “On behalf of Almighty God
and by the command of his servant Francis, get away from here, all you demons.”
At once the city returned to peace and all the citizens reformed their civil
law with great tranquillity.
Once
the raging pride of the demons, which had surrounded the city like a siege, had
been driven out, as the wisdom of a poor man entered in, that is, the humility
of Francis, it brought peace and saved the city. For his lofty virtue of humble
obedience, he had gained such powerful control over those rebellious and
obstinate spirits that he could repress their ferocious brashness and drive
back their savage violence.
The
proud demons flee from the lofty virtues of the humble, unless occasionally the
divine goodness allows them to be
buffeted to protect their humility, as the Apostle Paul writes about
himself, (2 Corinthians 12:7) and as
Francis learned through experience.
On one
occasion Francis was invited by Lord Leo, the Cardinal of Santa Croce, to stay
with him for a little while in the City, and he humbly accepted out respect and
affection. The first night, when he wanted to rest after his prayer, demons
came upon the soldier of Christ, attacking him fiercely. After they beat him
long and hard, they finally left him
half-dead. When they left, the companion he had called came. The man of God
told him what had happened, adding; “Brother, I believe that the devils can do
nothing, unless God’s providence allows it. Therefore, they have now attacked
me fiercely in this way, because my staying at the court of the great doesn’t
offer good example. My brothers, who stay in poor places, hearing that I am
staying with cardinals, might suspect perhaps that I am involved in worldly
affairs, puffed up by honours and living
in luxury. And so, I think that one who is set up as an example is better
off avoiding courts and living humbly among the humble in humble places, that
he might bring about a strengthening of
those who suffer want, by putting up with the same things.” In the morning
then, they went to the cardinal, offered a humble excuse, and said good-bye.
(St. Bonaventure,
Major Legend, Chapter 6)
Thorn in the Flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7f):
We read
above that God can allow the virtuous to be ‘buffeted’ by demons. Andrew Wommack says: “In verse 7 after the
thorn in the flesh is mentioned there is a phrase set off by commas which says
‘the messenger of Satan to buffet me.’ This is an explanation of what the thorn
was. It was not a thing but rather a demonic messenger and refers to a created
being. So Paul’s ‘thorn’ was literally a demon from Satan to buffet him. The
word ‘buffet’ means to strike repeatedly
as waves would buffet the shore.”
(Andrew Wommack Ministries
www)
St.
Francis calls the demons God’s bailiffs or constables: “The devils are God’s
constables, for just as the authorities send a constable to punish a wrong-doer,
so does God correct and punish those whom He loves through the devils who are
his constables and acts as His servants in this office.” (Mirror of Perfection, 67). Many liberal churchmen dismiss Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’ as just an illness
when St. Paul definitely calls it a demon (a
‘messenger from Satan’)
St. Bonaventure Describes these Demonic Attacks:
“That
he might receive the infusion of spiritual consolations more quietly, he went
at night to pray in solitary places or abandoned churches. Although even there
he experienced horrible struggles with demons who, fighting as it were hand to
hand with him, tried to distract him from his commitments to prayer... these
demons retreated from the unrelenting power of his prayers.”
(St. Bonaventure,
Minor Legend, Chapter 4)
It is
worth noting here that other great exorcists and saints were also buffeted by
demons e.g. St. John Vianney and Padre Pio. (see
Paul Thigpen, Saints who Battled Satan, Tan Books).
Another
time, at Cittá di Castello, there was a woman who had a demon. She was led to the house where Francis was staying and
stood outside gnashing her teeth, disturbing everyone with her barking. Many
people had in fact humbly asked the saint of God to free her, since they had for
so long been disturbed by her madness. Blessed Francis sent out to her the
brother who was with him, since he wished to check whether it was a demon or
the woman’s deception. But she knew that he was not the holy man, Francis, so
she mocked and belittled him. The holy father was inside praying, and once his
prayer was finished, he came outside to the woman. She could not bear his
presence, and she shook and rolled on the ground. God’s saint commanded the
demon to leave her by virtue of obedience. It departed immediately and left the
woman unharmed.
(Treatise on the
Miracles of St. Francis, Celano, Chapter 16)
By Virtue of Obedience:
In the
village of San Gemini, God’s servant Francis received hospitality from a
devoted man whose wife was troubled by a demon. After praying, he commanded the
devil to leave by virtue of obedience, and by God’s power drove him out so
suddenly that it became evident that the obstinacy of demons cannot resist the
power of holy obedience.
In
Cittá di Castello, an evil spirit, which had taken possession of a certain
woman, departed furious when commanded under obedience by the holy man
Francis, and left the woman who had been possessed free in body and in mind.
(St. Bonaventure,
Major Legend, Chapter 12)
Even in Death His Works Were Marvelous:
(2
Kings 13:20-21 cf. Ecclesiasticus 48:12f)
Pietro
of Foligno went one time to visit the shrine of blessed Michael, but was not
making the pilgrimage very reverently. He drank from a fountain and was filled
with demons. From then on he was possessed for three years, he was physically
run down, vile in speech, and dreadful in expression. But as he had some lucid
moments, he humbly called on the power of the blessed man Francis, which he
heard was effective in driving away the powers of the air. On reaching the tomb
of the pious father, as soon as he touched it, he was marvellously delivered
from the demons that cruelly tormented him.
In a
similar way the mercy of Francis came to the aid of a woman of Narni who was
possessed by a devil, and of many others, but the details of their sufferings
and the different ways in which they were cured would be too long to tell
one-by-one.
(St. Bonaventure,
Major Legend, (Miracles), Chapter 8)
Conclusion:
In the
writings of St. Francis there is a prayer called the Malediction (or curse) of St. Francis:
“By Thee, O most Holy Father, and by the
whole court of heaven, and by me poor little one, may they be cursed, who by
their bad example confound and destroy what Thou has built up and does not
cease to build up by the saintly Friars of this Order.”
In the
article Curse in Bauer’s
Encyclopaedia of Biblical Theology, referring to the power of the apostles to
deliver people over to a curse (1
Corinthians 5:3; 1 Timothy 1:20) it states: “Such a curse, however, did not imply eternal damnation; the demonic
forces of destruction would change
their effect on the one concerned, until he was moved through suffering to
contrition and conversion.”
The
Catholic Ignatius Bible says of Paul’s command “deliver this man to Satan” (1 Corinthians 5:5): “A call to action for
the Corinthians, who must execute Paul’s ritual curse upon the offender by
driving him out of the Church and into the province of Satan. The anticipated
destruction of the sinner’s body is an extreme form of remedial punishment that
Paul expects will benefit his spirit (cf. 1 Timothy 1:20)... ‘The man is
separated from the community of the faithful and from the sacraments of the
Church, by which things a man is protected from the assaults of Satan’
(Aquinas)”
