The top was an enormous block of dense rock with cracks. Its naked massive structure, with the overhanging walls, emerged from the sea of the vegetation. It seemed the wall of a mighty fortress hidden between the shrubs.
A little below, on a small terrace there were some huts that represented the residence of the friars. Between them it raised a little chapel with stony walls. The donor of Verna, the count Orlando of Chiusi, had built it for Francis.
Elia was on his return from Rome. He celebrated the mass in tha chapel which was dedicated to Saint Mary Maggiore. On the altar there was the picture of the holy Virgin with the child in her arm. Then with the help of one of the friars pushed his way between the thorny shrubs till the wall. In its cracks blackened the entries to the caves. He chose one to live in it. A friar minor had to bring him every day a jug of water and a piece of bread. He didn’t want anything else.
In Rome in accordance to the pope invitation, Anthony had delivered the homily to the bishops of various countries. They had come to assure the pope that they sided him in the struggle against the treacherous emperor. They listened to him in great silence, while he spoke of the need of the great goodness the bishop must demonstrate towards the people tired of wars, aggressions, hunger, misery and of the arrogance of the stronger and of the richer.
"Reverends and venerable gentlemen" he said, "You have gathered here from every part of the world to demonstrate your loyalty to the Holy Father, vicar of the Lord Jesus. You are the authentic salt of the land that has the virtue to preserve things from deterioration. This salt is necessary, because the world around us gets spoiled, and guides towards perdition. The people are prey of passions: the avarice of the body, that drives toward the pursuit of voluptuousness; the avarice of the eyes, that makes man want all that his eyes see; and the pride of existence, the ambition to elevate oneself above others, to dominate others, to impose others his will.
... This corrupt world needs you not to perish. Man, says the prophet Jeremiah, 'that in the flesh places its support and moves away his look from the Lord is a tamarisk in the steppe; when the good come, he is not able to see it…' The deceiving heart and the passions drag him towards the lower part. They are as a stone that, even if we throw it up high, will fall always down. The best desires will grow weak; they transform in tepidness that God 'throws away from his mouth.' Ruining is the law of the world. But you, reverend gentlemen, know that there exist strength capable to reverse the course of the current in which all proceeds. This strength is the grace of the Lord, and at his expression is holiness. The more the times are difficult, the more the world is next to the final fall, so much better holiness it is needed.
... You are those who have to teach holiness to the people. And how to teach it better, if not with the example? To you, reverend gentlemen, is entrusted the task of being yourself saints. You are condemned to holiness. Only the holy pastors are capable to render holy the priests, only the holy priests are capable of render holy the common Christians…"
This idea was getting more and more important to Anthony: heresies and schism are born in the age in which is lacking the model of holiness. Because them too are a tentative of finding holiness, but a human holiness, deprived of God, deprived of the help of the grace. This constitute an unattainable ideal, that gives rise an unfillable regret, which drives toward doubt and desperation.
The lack of health was tormenting more and more Anthony. It was difficult for him to move because of the swollen body; he had attacks of asthma; at time he couldn’t see well. All the pains attached him in waves, similar to the tide that transports simultaneously all the wreckages that float on the waves. In those moments he had to lie down, looking with fatigue for air to breathe. His thought would stop; under the cranial skull, he had emptiness. And through that emptiness, similar to snowflake transported by the wind, were passing only the images seen some time ago, shreds of memories, faces that hadn’t seen for a while, the impetus of affections… Only when the attack had passed he was recovering the usual course of his reflections.
Always bigger was in him the certainty that his life was turning towards the end. God has shown him so much mercy. He had sent him difficult trials, but at the last moment had helped his out of them unharmed. He has ordered him to look for him always on different ways. When he seemed to have found his right way, God was taking him out of it, and was indicating him another one. In his life he had to start again many times!
Until when God imposed to him to become a preacher, whose fame had spread all over Italy. The Pope in his speech of praise, after his homily to the bishops assembly, called him 'arc of alliance, in which was contained the Holy Scripture.' Till that moment he had fought tenaciously against any reaction of gratification provoked by the praises. But in Rome he had listened with calm the words of the Pope: for the first time he had realised that the praises has slipped on top of him as if they had been given to someone else. They had not raised an echo in his heart. "Would this be the sign" he thought "that finally I have reached the limit of changing and of researches, that I finally shouldn’t have to start again?"
Here, on that mountain, a few years before Francis had received an extraordinary gift. The friars were talking about it in a whisper. Those who knew more than the others, as friar Leon or friar Angel, although usually they were talkative, this time had maintained the silence.
But these first companions of Francis loved Anthony and once friar Lion told him these things. When Francis concluded on the mountain La Verna the fasting of Saint Michael and on the back of a donkey, because he couldn’t walk, was descending towards the valley, were accompanying him endless crowds of farmers of the place. Everyone wanted to kiss his hands or at least touch his habit. He didn’t stop them, as he usually had done previously. He was cheered by the love of those people. He was stretching our his hands, or better the point of his fingers, because he had the hands enveloped in handkerchiefs and bandages of fabric marked by stains of rust colour. Even the people didn’t have the courage of touching nothing more but his fingers. When they stopped in their pilgrimage, they brought him some ill people. The first was a woman in tears, who held in her arms a little child of a few years old. The child was so swollen that he seemed as a shapeless form. Francis placed his hands enveloped in his rags full of blood on the child’s stomach. He prayed for a little while and when he finished all saw that the swelling had gone… So was telling friar Leon and while he was speaking he was smiling enraptured and was crying of emotion, as if he was continuing to see what had happened that time…
Francis is dead, thought Anthony. He didn’t place his hands over my body. Even if he would be life and here, I wouldn’t ask him to do it. The suffering that he born appeared so precious. He wouldn’t give them us in change of anything. When they tormented him, he knew that he had something that he couldn’t offer to anybody else.
At a certain point in the obscurity of the cave, it seemed to him that appeared faces of people dead or alive, to which he wanted to give, what he hadn’t been able to give during his life. He recognised the faces of his parents: the severe face of his father, the anxious one of his mother; the face of his brothers and of his sisters. Going through as in a lighting was the smiling face of Berardo.
Like a splendid multicoloured butterfly he saw in a sunspot the face of Emily. The same that he had seen when they had said goodbye to one another. But in her black eyes there were no tears any longer. From a certain point, behind that face, there appeared others: the fascinating and beautiful face of Chiara, the pale face of Helen, the childish face of Julia, the face of Graziani`s daughter framed by her golden hair…
There were more and more shades, more and more faces. The crampt cave seemed full of people. He recognised with difficulty some faces. He remembered them obscure, and now he was seeing them full of light. Passed close to him Elia. Then he saw the merchant Graziani. He was full of blood, yet he was smiling joyously…
And then he saw Francis. He was stretching towards him, his hands with the stigmata. He said:
"Friar Anthony, we are together… Forever."
He whispered with fatigue:
"Friar Francis. Then you really welcome me in your group? I have come last. I haven’t lived as you did, those early days. I am afraid to ruin your work."
"Yet you didn’t spoil it, friar Anthony. You have been very useful. See, I, all my life have been forgetful. I used to forget. I used to loose many things. You have always been able to find a lost thing, forgotten. You must remain this way now. You must help me to remember. God in giving me his advices said that it would always be granted at the anniversary of my death to ask a grace for those that have loved me and have tried to follow my way. You then must stay close to me, so that I won’t forget of anybody…"
The voice kept silent. It melted in the silence, in which one could hear only the darting of the grasshoppers and the rustle of the slipping out lizards. The shadows had disappeared. He was again alone in the cave. He had an attack of asthma. He laid gasping for air, he felt suffocating, as a hanged man. Now the known faces slid around him as in a flash of lightening. In the cave entered the perfume of the blooming corolle and the echo of some far away voices. Certainly were the friars that while singing were going to work in the village at the feet of the mountain.
Chapter 35
This idea was getting more and more important to Anthony: heresies and schism are born in the age in which is lacking the model of holiness. Because them too are a tentative of finding holiness, but a human holiness, deprived of God, deprived of the help of the grace. This constitute an unattainable ideal, that gives rise an unfillable regret, which drives toward doubt and desperation.
The top was an enormous block of dense rock with cracks. Its naked massive structure, with the overhanging walls, emerged from the sea of the vegetation. It seemed the wall of a mighty fortress hidden between the shrubs.
Chapter 35
A little below, on a small terrace there were some huts that represented the residence of the friars. Between them it raised a little chapel with stony walls. The donor of Verna, the count Orlando of Chiusi, had built it for Francis.
Elia was on his return from Rome. He celebrated the mass in tha chapel which was dedicated to Saint Mary Maggiore. On the altar there was the picture of the holy Virgin with the child in her arm. Then with the help of one of the friars pushed his way between the thorny shrubs till the wall. In its cracks blackened the entries to the caves. He chose one to live in it. A friar minor had to bring him every day a jug of water and a piece of bread. He didn’t want anything else.
In Rome in accordance to the pope invitation, Anthony had delivered the homily to the bishops of various countries. They had come to assure the pope that they sided him in the struggle against the treacherous emperor. They listened to him in great silence, while he spoke of the need of the great goodness the bishop must demonstrate towards the people tired of wars, aggressions, hunger, misery and of the arrogance of the stronger and of the richer.
"Reverends and venerable gentlemen" he said, "You have gathered here from every part of the world to demonstrate your loyalty to the Holy Father, vicar of the Lord Jesus. You are the authentic salt of the land that has the virtue to preserve things from deterioration. This salt is necessary, because the world around us gets spoiled, and guides towards perdition. The people are prey of passions: the avarice of the body, that drives toward the pursuit of voluptuousness; the avarice of the eyes, that makes man want all that his eyes see; and the pride of existence, the ambition to elevate oneself above others, to dominate others, to impose others his will.
... This corrupt world needs you not to perish. Man, says the prophet Jeremiah, 'that in the flesh places its support and moves away his look from the Lord is a tamarisk in the steppe; when the good come, he is not able to see it…' The deceiving heart and the passions drag him towards the lower part. They are as a stone that, even if we throw it up high, will fall always down. The best desires will grow weak; they transform in tepidness that God 'throws away from his mouth.' Ruining is the law of the world. But you, reverend gentlemen, know that there exist strength capable to reverse the course of the current in which all proceeds. This strength is the grace of the Lord, and at his expression is holiness. The more the times are difficult, the more the world is next to the final fall, so much better holiness it is needed.
... You are those who have to teach holiness to the people. And how to teach it better, if not with the example? To you, reverend gentlemen, is entrusted the task of being yourself saints. You are condemned to holiness. Only the holy pastors are capable to render holy the priests, only the holy priests are capable of render holy the common Christians…"
The lack of health was tormenting more and more Anthony. It was difficult for him to move because of the swollen body; he had attacks of asthma; at time he couldn’t see well. All the pains attached him in waves, similar to the tide that transports simultaneously all the wreckages that float on the waves. In those moments he had to lie down, looking with fatigue for air to breathe. His thought would stop; under the cranial skull, he had emptiness. And through that emptiness, similar to snowflake transported by the wind, were passing only the images seen some time ago, shreds of memories, faces that hadn’t seen for a while, the impetus of affections… Only when the attack had passed he was recovering the usual course of his reflections.
Always bigger was in him the certainty that his life was turning towards the end. God has shown him so much mercy. He had sent him difficult trials, but at the last moment had helped his out of them unharmed. He has ordered him to look for him always on different ways. When he seemed to have found his right way, God was taking him out of it, and was indicating him another one. In his life he had to start again many times!
Until when God imposed to him to become a preacher, whose fame had spread all over Italy. The Pope in his speech of praise, after his homily to the bishops assembly, called him 'arc of alliance, in which was contained the Holy Scripture.' Till that moment he had fought tenaciously against any reaction of gratification provoked by the praises. But in Rome he had listened with calm the words of the Pope: for the first time he had realised that the praises has slipped on top of him as if they had been given to someone else. They had not raised an echo in his heart. "Would this be the sign" he thought "that finally I have reached the limit of changing and of researches, that I finally shouldn’t have to start again?"
Here, on that mountain, a few years before Francis had received an extraordinary gift. The friars were talking about it in a whisper. Those who knew more than the others, as friar Leon or friar Angel, although usually they were talkative, this time had maintained the silence.
But these first companions of Francis loved Anthony and once friar Lion told him these things. When Francis concluded on the mountain La Verna the fasting of Saint Michael and on the back of a donkey, because he couldn’t walk, was descending towards the valley, were accompanying him endless crowds of farmers of the place. Everyone wanted to kiss his hands or at least touch his habit. He didn’t stop them, as he usually had done previously. He was cheered by the love of those people. He was stretching our his hands, or better the point of his fingers, because he had the hands enveloped in handkerchiefs and bandages of fabric marked by stains of rust colour. Even the people didn’t have the courage of touching nothing more but his fingers. When they stopped in their pilgrimage, they brought him some ill people. The first was a woman in tears, who held in her arms a little child of a few years old. The child was so swollen that he seemed as a shapeless form. Francis placed his hands enveloped in his rags full of blood on the child’s stomach. He prayed for a little while and when he finished all saw that the swelling had gone… So was telling friar Leon and while he was speaking he was smiling enraptured and was crying of emotion, as if he was continuing to see what had happened that time…
Francis is dead, thought Anthony. He didn’t place his hands over my body. Even if he would be life and here, I wouldn’t ask him to do it. The suffering that he born appeared so precious. He wouldn’t give them us in change of anything. When they tormented him, he knew that he had something that he couldn’t offer to anybody else.
At a certain point in the obscurity of the cave, it seemed to him that appeared faces of people dead or alive, to which he wanted to give, what he hadn’t been able to give during his life. He recognised the faces of his parents: the severe face of his father, the anxious one of his mother; the face of his brothers and of his sisters. Going through as in a lighting was the smiling face of Berardo.
Like a splendid multicoloured butterfly he saw in a sunspot the face of Emily. The same that he had seen when they had said goodbye to one another. But in her black eyes there were no tears any longer. From a certain point, behind that face, there appeared others: the fascinating and beautiful face of Chiara, the pale face of Helen, the childish face of Julia, the face of Graziani`s daughter framed by her golden hair…
There were more and more shades, more and more faces. The crampt cave seemed full of people. He recognised with difficulty some faces. He remembered them obscure, and now he was seeing them full of light. Passed close to him Elia. Then he saw the merchant Graziani. He was full of blood, yet he was smiling joyously…
And then he saw Francis. He was stretching towards him, his hands with the stigmata. He said:
"Friar Anthony, we are together… Forever."
He whispered with fatigue:
"Friar Francis. Then you really welcome me in your group? I have come last. I haven’t lived as you did, those early days. I am afraid to ruin your work."
"Yet you didn’t spoil it, friar Anthony. You have been very useful. See, I, all my life have been forgetful. I used to forget. I used to loose many things. You have always been able to find a lost thing, forgotten. You must remain this way now. You must help me to remember. God in giving me his advices said that it would always be granted at the anniversary of my death to ask a grace for those that have loved me and have tried to follow my way. You then must stay close to me, so that I won’t forget of anybody…"
The voice kept silent. It melted in the silence, in which one could hear only the darting of the grasshoppers and the rustle of the slipping out lizards. The shadows had disappeared. He was again alone in the cave. He had an attack of asthma. He laid gasping for air, he felt suffocating, as a hanged man. Now the known faces slid around him as in a flash of lightening. In the cave entered the perfume of the blooming corolle and the echo of some far away voices. Certainly were the friars that while singing were going to work in the village at the feet of the mountain.