A Condition of Complete Simplicity. Rowan Clare Williams

A Condition of Complete Simplicity - Rowan Clare Williams


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our utter dependence on God sets us free to be ourselves.

      Francis’ gift is to make such absolute commitment seem attractive to the ordinary person. He shows that it is possible to give up everything one has been taught to value, and yet remain totally oneself. Francis himself emerged from this process as someone very human and certainly fallible, yet uncompromised in his attempt to live his faith to the full. Living without props, with no protection and no evasion, seems suddenly possible for the rest of us.

      The way of Francis is intensely earthy and real, full of joy and celebration of life as it is, and eager to improve what it could be. A living faith needs to equip us for real life. To walk in the way of Francis gives us the opportunity not to escape the painful parts, nor yet to wallow in suffering when it comes to us, but to try to integrate it and find whatever meaning there may be in it. As we struggle with the hard questions of human existence, Francis is alongside, offering us as a model his own unchanging priority: ‘My God and my all.’

      The way of Francis is, or should be, the way of Christ. The point of exploring Franciscan spirituality (a term of which Francis would certainly not have approved) is therefore not to focus on Francis himself, but to use him as a lens to God. However, in order to understand Francis’ particular impact, or his potential as a guide for our own pattern of discipleship, we do need to know something of his history.

      Background

      Conversion Experiences

      Like most Christians who take their faith seriously, Francis underwent not one single conversion but a series of conversion experiences. For him there was not just one blinding flash, but a revelation of different layers of truth and conviction. A number of different visionary experiences over a period of years pushed him deeper and deeper into the search for God. The exact chronology of these experiences is difficult to determine, but it is certain that their cumulative effect was to change Francis’ life for ever. His sense of mission developed gradually as each was absorbed into the fabric of his relationship with God.

      Like Ignatius of Loyola, Francis’ first urge to change direction came through an episode of illness and dependence. He had taken the path of many young men of his class by seeking fame and fortune in a military campaign: Italy at that time was divided into separate city states, and Francis had joined in the battle between Assisi and Perugia, only to be wounded and captured. During that period of imprisonment, he began to experience unease and dissatisfaction with the direction his life was taking. It was not, yet, enough to provoke him to radical change, but it was the first in a series of warning bells which it eventually became impossible to ignore. Perhaps this experience of enforced simplicity, having nothing which his captors did not choose to give him, was his first indicator of the possibilities of a life of dependence on a generous God.

      After a year in prison in Perugia, Francis was ransomed by his father and went home, first to convalesce and then to work in the family cloth business. It is not uncommon that families who have paid a ransom to free one of their members from imprisonment come, consciously or otherwise, to feel that they have in some way bought the person’s loyalty. This could only have served to emphasize the growing clash of values between Francis and his father. Francis was not to be bought. Ties of commerce, and even ties of affection, had to give way to the call of God, which was becoming too compelling to withstand.

      Francis then withdrew into a time of intense prayer and meditation. It is during this period that the tension between activity and contemplation in the Franciscan tradition first becomes apparent. On the one hand, Francis was burning to do something to indicate his eagerness to serve God in whatever capacity he was called to; on the other, he seems always to have known that only long periods of prayer and solitude would produce the answers on which he was to act.


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