In Palermo there was a hospital belonging to the knights of Saint John. Looking after the hospital were the Friars of the congregation whose members had consecrated their life to the cure of the sick. Anthony was brought in this hospital and was placed on straw…
Only the second day he opened his eyes and looked with awareness around himself.
He was in a large room as a Church, full of people of any kind. There were children, older and younger, mature people and old people. Some lay on the straw, others were walking. There were quite a few crippled without hands and without legs. In a corner a curtain divided one part of the room.
Just at the moment that Anthony woken up appeared a religious that evidently had functions of responsibility. He was going from one ill person to the next, delivered some recommendations. When he saw that Anthony was lying with opened eyes, he approached him.
"Do you understand me, man?" he asked.
"Yes." said Anthony.
"Where am I? How come I am here? I don’t remember anything."
"This is the house of the knight Hospitaller" the religious sat on the straw close to Anthony.
"You, Friar, are in Sicily, in Palermo. A Saracen ship brought you here, but they said that you are Christian and Priest. Is it true?"
"It is true. I am a Friar minor. I was navigating from Ceuta to Coimbra, where is our house."
"Then you have docked very distant from your destination. I have no idea where this Coimbra is."
"In the reign of Portugal."
"So it is certainly on the other side of the world. I have been living in Sicily since my birth and I do not know of any other reigns other than ours, which is governed by the Emperor, Frederick. He is a hard gentleman, but he likes the order. He commands all his guards to bring here every ill person. Behind that tent there are the lepers. It is forbidden to ask for alms. The guards arrest the ragged people and bring them here. If they are ill, they will remain in the hospital. If they are well, they must work in the construction of roads and of bridges. If they catch someone for the second time, they drawn them in the sea..."
"Cruel law."
"This is the way the Emperor is. And his soldiers are all Saracens. He appreciates them very much. He built a mosque for them. From the minaret, more than one times per day, the muezzin tunes up the heretical invocations, while we, Christians must listen to it… There are those who declare," he lowered his voice "that even the Emperor has become Muslim and that he lives the pagan way. He has promised to the Pontiff that he would leave to free Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels, but he is not in hurry to do it..."
The religious looked around himself and would have continued to speak if it hadn’t appeared in the room another religious, evidently his Superior, accompanied by a Priest. The Priest invited the sick people to recite the prayer and then the two young Friars brought the cauldron with the soup and the baskets with the bread. While the food was given, the Superior and the priest approached Anthony.
"What, are you then, a Priest?" exclaimed the Priest, when Anthony invited by the Superior to tell of himself, talked about his events... "and have you navigated till the Saracen land to suffer the death? Strange, strange indeed!"
Now they were all the three of them around Anthony. "And what are you going to do now?" asked the Superior.
"I think that I should go back to the Friars minor in Coimbra.
"Right decision. But you are quite ill at the moment, you won’t be able to recover your strength very soon. It is not even easy in winter to find a ship that rout towards West. Until you are not able to walk, we will look after you. But I don’t think that here it is easy for you to recover. Here is too crowed, too many shouts, chaos, and even brawls. There are people of different type here and it is only a few of us who take care of them. I have an idea. In Messina there is a house of your Friars. To say the truth, it is far; however there are merchants who go in that direction and they could take you with them. You would travel in a wagon. Our chaplain will speak to those people and he will certainly organize everything. There, amidst the Friars you will rest better, and in spring there will be a ship that would take you amongst your Friars."
Anthony nodded. It was a good proposal. In that room full of noise and of confusion he couldn’t imagine how he could get well.
However, until the time everything was organized, he had remain in hospital. The religious people were taking care of him even better than the others, and the chaplain was visiting him nearly every day. However he was not able to recover his strength. When for the first time he was able with difficulty to stand up, he was so trembling that he had to look immediately for a support.
That great weakness and the pains gave him the firm belief that God rejected his service.
"Have I done something against his will?" he thought.
From his pallet he observed the people that were around him. Initially he was full of disgust and of repulsion. These people were dirty, noisy, and ready to altercation and brawls.
He saw them take from under their rags bottles of brandy that in some way or another was introduced in the hospital, and draw gulps between grunts of satisfaction. Since he had become a Friar minor, in particular since the period of waiting of Olivares, he had come into contact with poverty, and even with the misery of the villages that he visited.
It had been a new and unexpected discovery for a man like him educated amongst wealth. But here the misery appeared at the concentrated state. It revealed its links with criminality and even murder. The people around him considered him as one of them, because of that they didn`t bother in the way in their speech. He was shockingly listening to what they were saying:
"Damned Emperor" was stuttering a mendicant not yet old.
"He has ordered to close us here and he threatens to drawn us if they still catch us red handed. But what can a poor man do?" he was shaking the midge of his arm which was deprived by the hand.
"They have cut it by the order of the regal tribunal because I tried to pinch from a stall a bit of meat... In the country there is famine, there is nothing to eat..."
"If the Pope will send the emperor overseas, things could go even worst." said another.
"Before the expedition they will remove even the skin in the country."
"Our knights will go overseas to beat the Saracens, and here the Saracens will take it on us."
"They do not need to go overseas. They scowl at each other and they jump even for a trifle. They would slaughter one another for anything: for gold, for land, for livestock, for women..."
"And these religious knight of ours, are they any better? They hold us here, and come up with a heap of tall stories, but when they smell that someone has something they surround him with such a protection and they annoy him till the moment that he nominates them heir of what he has."
"And the Priests? Do any of them help people? Every one bothers about their own thing. To us they say that we much live in moderation, with only one woman, not to ask for anything thing, to forgive everyone, to answer with good to what is bad... Instead they...!"
"We know how they are made." They approved gloomily.
"We know..."
"In the North..." said another "the people are escaping the Priests. They re-united themselves in pious confraternity..."
"And what happen to the confraternities? What happens to devotion?" Exclaimed a man with the face signed by a mark.
"The Bishops, the Priests: all of these live thanks to what damage they do to men. They have betrayed God, of whom they tell us stories which we believe."
"And if God didn`t exist?" said someone with a low voice.
"Maybe the world is governed by a nasty God, as the 'perfetti' teach?"
"The 'perfetti' understand poor people." Anthony had to listen very carefully in order to be able to hear that man that was speaking with a whisper.
"They, themselves renounce to everything, but they allow people to live as they want..."
"It seems that they affirm that marriage is useless?" asked someone.
"And to have children is useless. If someone really wants them, they can have them. But if the child is a bother, he can take him in the forest. Or that an expert woman would pull him out from the stomach of his mother before he is born... This way there would be no problems to nourish him..."
"Seeing that the world is made this way, only that way one can live" delivered a voice.
"The priests want that people work all their live..."
"And look at others who enjoy it..."
"And yet to thank God for this..." Anthony listened dismayed all of this.
The years of his staying in the monastery between the books and the meditations didn’t reveal to him much about the true aspect of life.
Then, when he was working in the villages around Olivares, he had learned a little of the human suffering.
But what he had seen then, could not be compared to the desperation that emanated from those recriminations. It has passed twelve centuries since when Jesus had arrived bringing love amongst men, and the men were continuing in being sheep without a shepherd, abandoned by all those that had to infuse the love of Jesus.
Anthony re-thought about what he had heard of the Pope’s dream, when he seen the basilica of Saint John in Laterano on the point of collapsing and Francis was supporting the walls with his arm.
"And I," he gave a start "was judging him a buffoon and an ignorant... I imagined that was enough to go and die... and these people that are struggling in the desperation? And the people that are struggling in the error?"
He had heard of the sect of heretics that had placed its foot in Provenza and had spread even in Lombardy and Romagna. It was exactly that, that those people were speaking about. When he was still a canonical regular, he had reflected on the error of that doctrine that had flared up as a big flame and could seem that had burned the whole Christianity.
What was the use to have in Paris and in other universities wise philosophers who reflected on the great truth of Christianity if the people followed the ‘perfetti’ and in admiring them would accept their teachings?
Finally there was the occasion of going to Messina. A column of wagons that had to transport food and wine to the regal palace, was going there. The wagons had tall wheels painted red. Mules with multicoloured harnesses and with head ornated by coloured plumes drew them. A brigade of Saracen soldiers, wearing a uniform accompanied the wagons. For Anthony was organized a place on one of the wagons, and, once the religious had said good-bye to him, they left.
They proceeded on the shores of the blue sea, framed to the right by high mountains. The rock walls transformed themselves in slants and then in high peaks. From one of them, covered with snow, Anthony saw a small column of smoke raising up. It was the Etna. While they were proceeding Anthony couldn’t take his eyes off from the beauty that he saw. He felt touched, since the local landscape reminded to him the native Lisbon.
From time to time the column paused. Then the soldiers were getting off their horses and, kneeling over small carpets, looking towards Orient, recited their prayer.
They raised high their hands, they prostrated themselves in sign of adoration. The drivers took advantage of the pause to eat and drink wine of their leather bags of goatskin. They were happily speaking between themselves. Anthony, getting down from the wagon, and sitting on the ground was thinking:
"Why do the infidels pray, and our people don’t? It is us that should give the example. If we want to be testimony of the truth that we know, we must be more zealous of them. Are the words enough, the affirmation that our truth is the authentic truth, if in the meantime we are not able to put it into practice in life? We go to announce that truth to foreigners, and in the meantime ours fall prey of desperation and move away from it. Jesus talked about the good shepherd that abandons everything to look for the lost sheep. We have lost a great part of our flock... The faith of the Muslims is false, yet they serve God. We have the authentic truth, and how do we serve it badly..."
About the Emperor he was told that he was making fun of the Christian faith and that he refused the obedience to the Pope. That he practiced magic and that he had sold his soul to the demon.
"How much truth is there in these terrible accusations?" thought Anthony. "Was there any truth in these accusations against the Christians."
Chapter 13
Finally there was the occasion of going to Messina. A column of wagons that had to transport food and wine to the regal palace, was going there. The wagons had tall wheels painted red. Mules with multicoloured harnesses and with head ornated by coloured plumes drew them. A brigade of Saracen soldiers, wearing a uniform accompanied the wagons. For Anthony was organized a place on one of the wagons, and, once the religious had said good-bye to him, they left.
In Palermo there was a hospital belonging to the knights of Saint John. Looking after the hospital were the Friars of the congregation whose members had consecrated their life to the cure of the sick. Anthony was brought in this hospital and was placed on straw…
Only the second day he opened his eyes and looked with awareness around himself.
He was in a large room as a Church, full of people of any kind. There were children, older and younger, mature people and old people. Some lay on the straw, others were walking. There were quite a few crippled without hands and without legs. In a corner a curtain divided one part of the room.
Just at the moment that Anthony woken up appeared a religious that evidently had functions of responsibility. He was going from one ill person to the next, delivered some recommendations. When he saw that Anthony was lying with opened eyes, he approached him.
"Do you understand me, man?" he asked.
"Yes." said Anthony.
"Where am I? How come I am here? I don’t remember anything."
"This is the house of the knight Hospitaller" the religious sat on the straw close to Anthony.
"You, Friar, are in Sicily, in Palermo. A Saracen ship brought you here, but they said that you are Christian and Priest. Is it true?"
"It is true. I am a Friar minor. I was navigating from Ceuta to Coimbra, where is our house."
"Then you have docked very distant from your destination. I have no idea where this Coimbra is."
"In the reign of Portugal."
"So it is certainly on the other side of the world. I have been living in Sicily since my birth and I do not know of any other reigns other than ours, which is governed by the Emperor, Frederick. He is a hard gentleman, but he likes the order. He commands all his guards to bring here every ill person. Behind that tent there are the lepers. It is forbidden to ask for alms. The guards arrest the ragged people and bring them here. If they are ill, they will remain in the hospital. If they are well, they must work in the construction of roads and of bridges. If they catch someone for the second time, they drawn them in the sea..."
"Cruel law."
"This is the way the Emperor is. And his soldiers are all Saracens. He appreciates them very much. He built a mosque for them. From the minaret, more than one times per day, the muezzin tunes up the heretical invocations, while we, Christians must listen to it… There are those who declare," he lowered his voice "that even the Emperor has become Muslim and that he lives the pagan way. He has promised to the Pontiff that he would leave to free Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels, but he is not in hurry to do it..."
The religious looked around himself and would have continued to speak if it hadn’t appeared in the room another religious, evidently his Superior, accompanied by a Priest. The Priest invited the sick people to recite the prayer and then the two young Friars brought the cauldron with the soup and the baskets with the bread. While the food was given, the Superior and the priest approached Anthony.
"What, are you then, a Priest?" exclaimed the Priest, when Anthony invited by the Superior to tell of himself, talked about his events... "and have you navigated till the Saracen land to suffer the death? Strange, strange indeed!"
Now they were all the three of them around Anthony. "And what are you going to do now?" asked the Superior.
"I think that I should go back to the Friars minor in Coimbra.
"Right decision. But you are quite ill at the moment, you won’t be able to recover your strength very soon. It is not even easy in winter to find a ship that rout towards West. Until you are not able to walk, we will look after you. But I don’t think that here it is easy for you to recover. Here is too crowed, too many shouts, chaos, and even brawls. There are people of different type here and it is only a few of us who take care of them. I have an idea. In Messina there is a house of your Friars. To say the truth, it is far; however there are merchants who go in that direction and they could take you with them. You would travel in a wagon. Our chaplain will speak to those people and he will certainly organize everything. There, amidst the Friars you will rest better, and in spring there will be a ship that would take you amongst your Friars."
However, until the time everything was organized, he had remain in hospital. The religious people were taking care of him even better than the others, and the chaplain was visiting him nearly every day. However he was not able to recover his strength. When for the first time he was able with difficulty to stand up, he was so trembling that he had to look immediately for a support.
That great weakness and the pains gave him the firm belief that God rejected his service.
"Have I done something against his will?" he thought.
From his pallet he observed the people that were around him. Initially he was full of disgust and of repulsion. These people were dirty, noisy, and ready to altercation and brawls.
He saw them take from under their rags bottles of brandy that in some way or another was introduced in the hospital, and draw gulps between grunts of satisfaction. Since he had become a Friar minor, in particular since the period of waiting of Olivares, he had come into contact with poverty, and even with the misery of the villages that he visited.
It had been a new and unexpected discovery for a man like him educated amongst wealth. But here the misery appeared at the concentrated state. It revealed its links with criminality and even murder. The people around him considered him as one of them, because of that they didn`t bother in the way in their speech. He was shockingly listening to what they were saying:
"Damned Emperor" was stuttering a mendicant not yet old.
"He has ordered to close us here and he threatens to drawn us if they still catch us red handed. But what can a poor man do?" he was shaking the midge of his arm which was deprived by the hand.
"They have cut it by the order of the regal tribunal because I tried to pinch from a stall a bit of meat... In the country there is famine, there is nothing to eat..."
"If the Pope will send the emperor overseas, things could go even worst." said another.
"Before the expedition they will remove even the skin in the country."
"Our knights will go overseas to beat the Saracens, and here the Saracens will take it on us."
"They do not need to go overseas. They scowl at each other and they jump even for a trifle. They would slaughter one another for anything: for gold, for land, for livestock, for women..."
"And these religious knight of ours, are they any better? They hold us here, and come up with a heap of tall stories, but when they smell that someone has something they surround him with such a protection and they annoy him till the moment that he nominates them heir of what he has."
"And the Priests? Do any of them help people? Every one bothers about their own thing. To us they say that we much live in moderation, with only one woman, not to ask for anything thing, to forgive everyone, to answer with good to what is bad... Instead they...!"
"We know how they are made." They approved gloomily.
"We know..."
"In the North..." said another "the people are escaping the Priests. They re-united themselves in pious confraternity..."
"And what happen to the confraternities? What happens to devotion?" Exclaimed a man with the face signed by a mark.
"The Bishops, the Priests: all of these live thanks to what damage they do to men. They have betrayed God, of whom they tell us stories which we believe."
"And if God didn`t exist?" said someone with a low voice.
"Maybe the world is governed by a nasty God, as the 'perfetti' teach?"
"The 'perfetti' understand poor people." Anthony had to listen very carefully in order to be able to hear that man that was speaking with a whisper.
"They, themselves renounce to everything, but they allow people to live as they want..."
"It seems that they affirm that marriage is useless?" asked someone.
"And to have children is useless. If someone really wants them, they can have them. But if the child is a bother, he can take him in the forest. Or that an expert woman would pull him out from the stomach of his mother before he is born... This way there would be no problems to nourish him..."
"Seeing that the world is made this way, only that way one can live" delivered a voice.
"The priests want that people work all their live..."
"And look at others who enjoy it..."
"And yet to thank God for this..." Anthony listened dismayed all of this.
The years of his staying in the monastery between the books and the meditations didn’t reveal to him much about the true aspect of life.
Then, when he was working in the villages around Olivares, he had learned a little of the human suffering.
But what he had seen then, could not be compared to the desperation that emanated from those recriminations. It has passed twelve centuries since when Jesus had arrived bringing love amongst men, and the men were continuing in being sheep without a shepherd, abandoned by all those that had to infuse the love of Jesus.
Anthony re-thought about what he had heard of the Pope’s dream, when he seen the basilica of Saint John in Laterano on the point of collapsing and Francis was supporting the walls with his arm.
"And I," he gave a start "was judging him a buffoon and an ignorant... I imagined that was enough to go and die... and these people that are struggling in the desperation? And the people that are struggling in the error?"
He had heard of the sect of heretics that had placed its foot in Provenza and had spread even in Lombardy and Romagna. It was exactly that, that those people were speaking about. When he was still a canonical regular, he had reflected on the error of that doctrine that had flared up as a big flame and could seem that had burned the whole Christianity.
What was the use to have in Paris and in other universities wise philosophers who reflected on the great truth of Christianity if the people followed the ‘perfetti’ and in admiring them would accept their teachings?
They proceeded on the shores of the blue sea, framed to the right by high mountains. The rock walls transformed themselves in slants and then in high peaks. From one of them, covered with snow, Anthony saw a small column of smoke raising up. It was the Etna. While they were proceeding Anthony couldn’t take his eyes off from the beauty that he saw. He felt touched, since the local landscape reminded to him the native Lisbon.
From time to time the column paused. Then the soldiers were getting off their horses and, kneeling over small carpets, looking towards Orient, recited their prayer.
They raised high their hands, they prostrated themselves in sign of adoration. The drivers took advantage of the pause to eat and drink wine of their leather bags of goatskin. They were happily speaking between themselves. Anthony, getting down from the wagon, and sitting on the ground was thinking:
"Why do the infidels pray, and our people don’t? It is us that should give the example. If we want to be testimony of the truth that we know, we must be more zealous of them. Are the words enough, the affirmation that our truth is the authentic truth, if in the meantime we are not able to put it into practice in life? We go to announce that truth to foreigners, and in the meantime ours fall prey of desperation and move away from it. Jesus talked about the good shepherd that abandons everything to look for the lost sheep. We have lost a great part of our flock... The faith of the Muslims is false, yet they serve God. We have the authentic truth, and how do we serve it badly..."
About the Emperor he was told that he was making fun of the Christian faith and that he refused the obedience to the Pope. That he practiced magic and that he had sold his soul to the demon.
"How much truth is there in these terrible accusations?" thought Anthony. "Was there any truth in these accusations against the Christians."
