Franciscan
Fakes!
One night as Assisi lay
asleep under a beautiful starry sky and a radiant full moon, the silence was
shattered by the loud ringing of bells. All the people got out of their beds
and ran to the big plaza outside San Rufino Cathedral. Had fire broken out?
Invading army below? Suddenly a young man was seen way up on the church belfry
pointing to a magnificent sky: “my brothers and sisters”, he said “I wanted you
all to see the beautiful moon, God has given us tonight”!
A delightful story but
spurious as there is no record of this in the authentic Franciscan sources. So
too with the words attributed to St Francis: “Preach the Gospel, and if
necessary, use words”. The Capuchin Archbishop Chaput ofm Cap said “there
is no evidence that St Francis ever said these words”. (1) Dr Scott Hahn agreed
saying that “it is a common misconception and a potential excuse for inaction”.
While Hahn acknowledges that St Francis lived a life that embodied the Gospel,
he notes that there is no historical evidence that St Francis ever actually
said this.
Key
Points on Hahn’s Position:
·
Misattributed
Saying: in his work, particularly around 2014, Hahn debunked
the myth that this was a direct quote from St Francis, calling it a “modern
urban legend” or apocryphal saying.
·
Both/and
Approach: Hahn supports the idea that actions must back up
words, but he rejects using this quote as an excuse to avoid verbal proclamation.
·
Necessity
of Words: As a proponent of the “New Evangelisation”, Hahn
emphasises that the Gospel requires both witness of life and explicit
proclamation. He agrees with the sentiment that our lives should be a sermon,
but argues that words are indeed necessary.
Hahn, along with other
scholars, points out that the quote is often misused to justify a “silent”
Christianity, whereas true evangelism involves making the faith audible as well
as visible.
The American Protestant
pastor, Ed Stetzer, in a three-page article in the South African Joy
Magazine, a few years ago writes of this spurious quote attributed to St
Francis: ˝as Christians, we should live in such a way that our lives point to
the person and work of Jesus. However, good intentions cannot overcome two
basic problems with this quote and its supposed origin. One, St Francis never
said it, and two, the quote is not Biblical.
˝Mark Galli has pointed
out that there is no record of St Francis, [an Italian Catholic friar] and
member of a preaching order, uttering anything close to this. In fact,
everything we know about the man suggests he would not have agreed with his
supposed quote. He was well-known for his preaching and often preached up to
five times a day!
A
post-modern assumption
˝The idea may not have
resonated with St Francis, but for many today, wordless ministry is a
compelling approach. “Words are cheap”, we like to say, and “actions speak
louder than words”.
˝Galli explains that
the sentiment complements our culture rather well: “Preach the Gospel, use
words if necessary” goes hand-in-hand with a post-modern assumption that words are
finally empty of meaning. It subtly denigrates the high value that the
prophets, Jesus, and Paul put on preaching. Of course, we want our actions to
match our words as much as possible but the Gospel is a message – news about an
event and a Person upon which the history of the planet turns!
An
incomplete understanding
˝And this is the real
problem – not from whom the quote originally came, but just how it can give us
an incomplete understanding of the Gospel and how God saves sinners. Christians
are quick to encourage each other to “live out the Gospel”, and to “be the
Gospel” to our neighbours. The missional impulse here is helpful, yet the
Gospel isn’t anything the Christian can live out, practice or become.
˝The Apostle Paul
summarised the Gospel as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
through whom sin is atoned for, sinners are reconciled to God, and the hope of
the resurrection awaits all who believe. The Gospel is not habit, but history.
The Gospel is the declaration of something that actually happened. And since
the Gospel is the saving work of Jesus, it isn’t something we can do, but it is
something we must announce. We do live out its implications, but if we are to
make the Gospel known, we will do so through words.
The
Gospel is spread through words
˝It appears that the
emphasis on proclamation is waning even in many churches that identify
themselves as Evangelical. Yet proclamation is the central task of the Church.
It is not the only task God has given us, but it is central.
˝While the process of
making disciples involves more than verbal communication, and obviously the
life of a disciple is proved counterfeit when it amounts to words alone, it is
critical to “proclaim the excellencies” of our Saviour. A Godly life should
serve as a witness for the message we proclaim. But without words, what can our
actions point to but ourselves?
Jesus
came to proclaim!
˝A Godly life cannot
communicate Jesus’ substitution for sinners, or the hope of Redemption… We
can’t be good news, but we can herald it, sing it, speak it and preach it to
all who listen.
˝In fact, verbal
communication of the Gospel is the only means by which people are brought into
a right relationship with God. The Apostle Paul made this point to the church
in Rome when he said: “For everyone who calls
on the Name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on Him they have
not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how
can they hear without a preacher”? (Romans 10:13-14)˝
Stetzer writes that St
Francis “was well-known for his preaching, and often preached five times a
day”.
In fact, St Francis
composed a “simple formula that was easily memorised by the Friars and could be
used by those who had no patents or permission for preaching”. (2) It goes as
follows:
Fear and honour, praise and
bless, give thanks (1) and adore the Lord God Almighty in Trinity
and in Unity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit the Creator of all.
Do penance, (2)
performing worthy fruits of penance (3) since we will soon die.
Give
and it shall be given to you.
(4)
Forgive and you shall be forgiven.
(5)
And if you do not forgive men
their sins, (6) the Lord will
not forgive you your sins. (7)
Confess all your sins. (8)
Blessed are those who die in penance,
for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven.
Woe
to those who do not die in penance, for they shall be the children of the devil
(9) whose works they do, (10) and they shall go into the
eternal fire. (11)
Beware
and abstain from every evil and persevere in good till the end.
1. 1
Thessalonians 5:18
2. Cf. Matthew 3:2
3. Cf.
Luke 3:8
4. Cf.
Luke 6:38
5. Cf.
Luke 6:37
6. Matthew 6:14
7. Mark
11:26
8. Cf.
James 5:16
9. Cf.
1 John 3:10
10. Cf. John 8:41
11. Matthew 18:8
Stetzer says
above we can ‘herald’ the good news. St Francis said of himself:, “I am the
Herald of the Great King”. (3)
Francis said to his brothers that God “has sent you all over
the world, that by words and deeds you might bear witness to his message
and convince everyone ‘that he, and no other, is God all powerful’”. (4)
Jesus came
to preach the Gospel to the poor, speak liberty to the captives and proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18). So too should we!
Finally, “Pope Paul VI also reminds us that we must avoid the
temptation of thinking that the witness of our lives alone is sufficient to
evangelise. As he says, “the Good News proclaimed by the witness of life,
sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the word of life” (EN, no. 22). This is
a very important principle for us today, as it emphasises the proclamation or
kerygmatic dimension of Paul VI’s definition. There is much confusion today
about the necessity of using words to achieve the goal of evangelisation. We
have all heard that saying attributed to St Francis of Assisi: “Preach the
Gospel at all times and if necessary, use words”. In spite of the popularity of
this phrase, it appears to be a kind of ecclesiastical urban myth. A search of the
Franciscan Omnibus of Sources will not turn up this quote. St Francis appears
never to have said this, and, in any case, it is erroneous. St Paul tells us,
“Faith comes from what is heard” (Romans 10:17). Certainly, however, there is a
primacy to the witness of life. We instinctively cringe when we encounter
someone who is not living it but is spouting it. However, it is not an either/or situation, it is both/and, and both/and is a sound Catholic principle. The witness of life must
come first, but it must lead to the word of life being proclaimed. Without
actions, our words are not believed by our cynical post-modern, post-Christian
society, but without words, our actions are not understood. St Peter says,
“Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you and
accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and so does Pope Paul
VI, when he insists that evangelisation must be “made explicit by a clear and
unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus”.
There is no true evangelisation if the name, the teaching,
the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the
Son of God are not proclaimed (EN, no. 22).
Although he gives a broad definition of evangelisation
throughout the document, he makes it clear, then, that evangelisation will also
always contain – as the foundation, centre and at the same time, submit of its
dynamism – a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man,
who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all men, as a gift of
God’s grace and mercy (EN, no. 22)”.
References
1. Speech at
the New York University 25/4/2014
2. Francis
& Clare, Paulist Press, 1982, p. 126
3. 1 Celano,
Ch. 7
4. ST
FRANCIS, LETTER TO THE ENTIRE ORDER 2nd paragraph.
5. Fr James
Mallon, Divine Renovation, St Paul’s, 2016 p.p. 35/36
