🧵1! Happy #StFrancisofAssisi day. Here's my annual list of #FACTS about the medieval saint that blows up pretty much every myth about this holy man.
2/ In his famous encounter with the Muslim Sultan al-Kamil, #SaintFrancis told the sultan that he was there to explicate the truth of the Christian faith and save the sultan’s soul. He was not there for diplomatic pleasantries, or to sign yet another interfaith statement. .
3/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi was “fiercely orthodox” on faith and morals: he thought that friars guilty of heresy or liturgical abuses should be remanded to higher church authorities.
4/The Peace Prayer of #SaintFrancisOfAssisi can’t be traced further back than a French magazine published in 1912.
5/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi articulated no legal or social reform program whatsoever. Such projects were “alien” to him.
6/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi believed that his followers should engage in manual labor to procure necessities. Begging was seen as a secondary alternative.
7/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi believed one’s most direct contact with God was in the MASS, and not in serving in the poor or in the natural world.
8/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi rejected abstinence from meat and wasn’t a vegetarian.
9/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi loved animals but regarded vermin and mice as the devil’s agents.
10/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi believed the Mass required careful preparation, use of the finest sacred vessels, and proper vestments.
11/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi's final words to his followers were concerned with proper reverence for the Eucharist, not poverty.
12/ #SaintFrancisOfAssisi "was a 13th century orthodox Catholic, not a modern spiritual individualist . . .”
13/ There was “not a hint trace of pantheism in Francis’s approach to nature”. #SaintFrancisOfAssisi's references and allusions to nature in his writings, preaching, and instruction were overwhelmingly drawn from the Scriptures rather than the environment itself.
14/ #StFrancisofAssisi regarded the beauty in nature and the animal world as something that should lead to worship and praise of God—but not things to be invested with god-like qualities.
15/ The Source for all these FACTS about #SaintFrancisOfAssisi? Augustine Thompson OP’s meticulously researched “Francis of Assisi: A New Biography” (2012). #FratelliTutti amazon.com/Francis-Assisi…
16/ The FACTS about #SaintFrancisofAssisi matter. Whether you like them or not is, I’m afraid, irrelevant. Thank you for reading. Have a nice day!
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