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In this episode, Trent celebrates the feast day of St. Francis by exposing the harm of famous “Fake Francis” quotes.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, so I thought it’d be helpful to sort out those fake St. Francis quotes from the ones he actually did say. So here’s the first fake one. “Don’t forget to subscribe to the Council of Trent podcast to help Trent reach more people and definitely support trent@trenthornpodcast.com.” It turns out St. Francis never said that, but it’s still a good idea, so I’m going to let that one slide. But some of these fake St. Francis quotes, they actually caused spiritual harm, because they either encourage us to ignore the good things in our faith, or they encourage us to trust ourselves instead of God.
A good example of a former attitude can be seen in the granddaddy of all fake St. Francis quotes, “Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.” How many posters in religious ed classrooms have that one up? But Mark Galli, the author of Francis of Assisi in his world, writes, “No biography written within the first 200 years of Francis’ death contains the saying. It’s not likely that a pithy quote like this would’ve been missed by his earliest disciples.”
Father Pat McCloskey, the Franciscan editor of St. Anthony Messenger writes, “I had been a Franciscan for 28 years and had earned a master’s degree in Franciscan studies before I heard the, “if necessary, use words” quote. That was during when Senior Kenneth Vellows homily at Cardinal Joseph Bernadine’s funeral in 1996. In fact, a lot of people who share this quote admit that it’s fake. Gary Kraus writes in his book, God’s Great Missionaries, “There’s no evidence that St. Francis actually made this statement, but it certainly fits the spirit of his teachings,” except it doesn’t.
You see, a lot of people have this idea that St. Francis of Assisi was just a kind of medieval hippie, but that completely glosses over the man who renounced his former sinful way of life and wanted to preach extensively about Jesus Christ. Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of St. Francis writes, “His words were neither hollow nor ridiculous, but filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, penetrating the marrow of the heart, so that listeners were turned to great amazement.”
You see, in St. Francis’ time, homiletic training at Europe’s universities, it stressed scholarship more than pastoral sensitivity. So the homilies were often dry or really harsh, but St. Francis didn’t attend one of these universities. When he preached, he drew primarily from his own conversion experience. His preaching was vibrant and energetic. In fact, St. Francis would often sing and dance with joy, and then, he would openly weep about God’s mercy.
Mark Galli says that, “Francis imitated the troubadours, employing poetry and word pictures to drive the message home. When he described the nativity, listeners felt as if Mary was giving birth before their eyes. In rehearsing the crucifixion, the crowd, as did Francis, would shed tears.” St. Francis himself said, “What are the servants of God, if not his minstrels, who must move people’s hearts and lift them up to spiritual joy?”
St. Francis’ focus on sharing the interior spiritual life is also seen in this advice. He gave other members of his order. “The preacher must first draw from secret prayers what he will later pour out in holy sermons. He must first grow hot within before he speaks words that are in themselves cold.” Ugolino Brunforte, who collected some of the earliest traditions about St. Francis, records what happened when St. Francis drew from that spiritual well, when he was preaching in his hometown of Assisi. “St. Francis ascended the pulpit and began to preach and sow wonderful away on holy penance, on the world, on voluntary poverty, on the hope of life eternal, on the nakedness of Christ, on the shame of the passion of our blessed savior, that all those who heard him, both men and women, began to weep bitterly being moved to devotion and compunction. And in all Assisi, the passion of Christ was commemorated as it never had been before.”
St. Francis would never have said, “Use words, if necessary.” For him, words were vital to preach the gospel of Christ, the good news and the bad news. St. Francis once said, “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 children of the devil whose works they do and they shall go into everlasting fire.”
Francis did not sugarcoat the reality of damnation, but he also preached the joy that comes from Christ liberating us from sin and its just punishments. He told his lay and religious followers, “Oh, how holy and how loving, gratifying, humbling, peace giving, sweet, worthy of love, and above all things, desirable it is to have such a brother and such a son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lay down his life for his sheep.”
Preaching was so important to St. Francis that he required his religious brothers to get permission to preach. And for those who could not formally preach, St. Francis told them to preach by their deeds. But this did not mean St. Francis thought evangelism should be restricted only to public displays of good deeds. After all, an unconverted person might see an example of piety or holiness that inspires him, but then, just doubt God would love a sinner like him. This person doesn’t just need an example of holiness. He needs encouraging words about God’s transforming love for him. He needs the gospel. He needs it explained to him in a way he can understand.
So now, you see what’s so bad about, “Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.” If that just meant you can evangelize with deeds as well as words, well, I could tolerate it even though it’s not authentic. But two words complicate that interpretation. If necessary. “Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.” Consider this advice. Love your spouse. Use words, if necessary. Now, most spouses appreciate acts of service or affectionate gifts, but they’d be really hurt if they never heard the words, “I love you.” Or imagine if I told you, “Build a fire. Use wood, if necessary.” You’d probably assume that I meant use wood as a last resort, or it would be great if you could build the fire without wood. Words are not an inferior tool we use to share the gospel when actions won’t suffice. Words are to the preaching of the gospel as wood is to the building of a fire.
Now, the ladder cannot be done well without the former. You could make a fire with fabric by burning it, but it wouldn’t be as good as using firewood. You might be able to present our faith through actions alone, but it wouldn’t be as effective as carefully chosen words that describe the gospel, that St. Paul says is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who has faith. In fact, St. Paul recognized the need for preaching when he wrote the Christians in Rome a message that is just as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. It’s a message you should always bring up when someone suggests that you should preach the gospel apart from words. Paul writes, “For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news?”
So we need to dump, “Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.” A better replacement is this quote from St. Teresa of Avila. “We must all try to be preachers by our deeds.” Notice that this quote, unlike the fake Francis one, it does not say we should only preach with deeds or that we should add words only when necessary. It’s just a simple reminder that our actions can speak as loud as words, so we should preach with our deeds just as we would preach with our words. Also, we should make sure that what we preach with words matches what we preach in our deeds.
Inconsistent Christians have been around since the very beginning. You can see this, for example, in this advice from St. Jerome. He writes, “Do not let your deeds belly your words, lest when you speak in church, someone may mentally reply, ‘Why do you not practice what you profess?'” The other problematic fake St. Francis quote is this one. “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred. Let me bring love. Oh master, let me not seek as much to be consoled is to console. It is in pardoning that one is pardoned. It is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.”
Now, I’m not going to sing this, but you’ve probably heard it sung at mass at some point. I mean, it’s not on eagle’s wings, but it’s still pretty popular within that circle of hymns. And many people think this comes from St. Francis, but that’s not true. This quote in him first appeared in a 1912 issue of a French Catholic magazine, La Clochette. It was just called A Beautiful Prayer to Say During the Mass. Christian Renu, who wrote a book length study of this prayer of St. Francis, he says, “The pieces in that magazine were anonymous, but they might have been written by the magazine’s editor, Father Esther Bouquerel. It’s not known, however, if Father Bouquerel wrote What would Later Become known as the Prayer of St. Francis.
This prayer’s identification with St. Francis of Assisi probably happened around 1918. A Franciscan priest named Father Ethan Benoit printed the prayer on a holy card, and on the backside, had a picture of St. Francis. According to Renu, the first translation in English that we know of appeared in 1936 in Living Courageously, a book by Kirby Page, a disciple of Christ’s minister, pacifist, social evangelist, writer, and editor of The World Tomorrow. Page clearly attributed the text to St. Francis of Assisi. During World War II, and immediately after, this prayer for peace began circulating widely as the prayer of St. Francis.
“In 1967, Sebastian Temple, himself a third order Dominican, set the prayer to music in a song now known as The Prayer of St. Francis, or Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.” But is this fake quote, is it really so bad? Well, my concern is that these kinds of prayers reinforce a me-centered spirituality. It focuses on God’s role as just filling up our spiritual gas tanks so we can go and make a difference, go and make a difference, instead of offering worship to God, and being in awe of his majestic glory.
Augustine Thompson writes the following in his biography of St. Francis. “Noble as its sentiments are, Francis would not have written such a piece, focused as it is on the self with its constant repetition of the pronouns I and me, the words God and Jesus never appearing once.” In some cases, this attitude borders on pelagianism when the fake quote focuses exclusively on human efforts. You can see this in this fake quote of St. Francis. “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you’re doing the impossible.” See that God is nowhere here. This sounds like something you hear at a cheesy motivational workshop.
I prefer what st. Josemaria Escriva said. He said, “With God’s grace, you have to tackle and carry out the impossible because anybody can do what is possible.” Or, if we want a better attitude. Look to the thought of St. Francis that was preserved in the words of his disciple, St. Giles who said, “Blessed is he who loves and does not therefore desire to be loved. Blessed is he who fears and does not therefore desire to be feared. Blessed is he who serves and does not therefore desire to be served. Blessed is he who behaves well toward others and does not desire that others behave well toward him. Because these are great things, the foolish do not rise to them.
Before I end today’s episode, I want to mention one more fake St. Francis quote. At least this one is on the right track because it asks God for help instead of just ourselves. You’ve probably heard this one. “Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.” You probably associate this with Alcoholics Anonymous, and for good reason, because that’s the context where the quote originated, not St. Francis of Assisi. The person who wrote this prayer, called the Serenity Prayer, was actually a Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. The earliest version of the prayer comes from a 1927 Christian student newsletter. It attributes this prayer to neighbor, “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.” The prayer increased in popularity after a secretary at Alcoholics Anonymous noticed it in a 1941 New York Herald Tribune obituary.
All right. I hope this is helpful for you. And if you’d like to learn more about what The Saints never said, you can check out my book, What the Saints Never Said. So thank you all so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.
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