Letter to all the
Faithful
Being the servant of all, I am bound to
serve all and to administer the balm-bearing words of my Lord. Wherefore,
considering in my mind that, because of the infirmity and weakness of my body,
I cannot visit each one personally, I propose by this present letter and
message to
offer you the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Word of the Father and
the words of the Holy Ghost which are "spirit and life."
This Word of the Father, so worthy, so
holy and glorious, whose coming the most High Father announced from heaven by
His holy archangel Gabriel to the holy and glorious Virgin Mary in whose
womb He received the true flesh of our humanity and frailty, He, being rich above all,
willed, nevertheless, with His most Blessed Mother, to choose poverty.
And when His Passion was nigh, He
celebrated the Pasch with His disciples and, taking bread, He gave thanks and
blessed and broke saying: Take ye and eat: this is My Body. And, taking the
chalice, He said: This is My Blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed
for you and for many unto remission of sins.
After that He prayed to the Father,
saying: "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from
Me." "And His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down
upon the ground." But withal, He gave up His will to the will of the
Father, saying: Father, Thy will be done: not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Such
was the will of the Father that His Son, Blessed and Glorious, whom He gave to
us, and who was born for us, should by His own Blood, sacrifice, and
oblation, offer Himself on the altar of the Cross, not for Himself, by whom
"all things were made,” but for our sins, leaving us an example that
we should follow His steps. And He wishes that we should all be saved by Him
and that we should receive Him with a pure heart and a chaste body. But there
are few who wish to receive Him and to be saved by Him, although His yoke is
sweet and His burden light.
Those who will not taste how sweet the
Lord is and who love darkness rather than the light, not wishing to fulfill the
commandments of God are cursed: of them it is said by the prophet: "They
are cursed who decline from Thy commandments." But, O how happy and
blessed are those who love the Lord, who do as the Lord Himself says in the
Gospel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with
thy whole soul and . . . thy neighbor as thyself." Let us therefore
love God and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind because He Himself,
seeking that above all, says: "The true adorers shall adore the Father in
spirit and in truth." For all who "adore Him, must adore Him in
spirit and in truth." And let us
offer Him praises and prayers day and night, saying: "Our Father who art
in heaven," for "we ought always to pray, and not to
faint."
We ought indeed to confess all our sins
to a priest and receive from him the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who does not eat His Flesh and does not drink His Blood cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God. Let him, however, eat and drink worthily, because he who
receives unworthily "eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not
discerning the Body of the Lord," —that is, not discerning it from
other foods.
Let us, moreover, "bring forth
fruits worthy of penance." And let us love our neighbors as ourselves,
and, if any one does not wish to love them as
himself or cannot, let him at least do them not harm, but let him do good to
them.
Let those who have received the power
of judging others, exercise judgment with mercy, as they hope to obtain mercy
from the Lord. For let judgment without mercy be shown to him that doth not
mercy. Let us then have charity and humility and let us give alms because
they wash souls from the foulness of sins.
For men lose all which they leave in
this world; they carry with them, however, the reward of charity and alms which
they have given, for which they shall receive a recompense and worthy remuneration
from the Lord.
We ought also to fast and to abstain
from vices and sins and from superfluity of food and drink, and to be
Catholics. We ought also to visit Churches frequently and to reverence clerics
not only for themselves, if they are sinners, but on account of their office
and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which they sacrifice on the altar and receive and administer to others. And let
us all know for certain that no one can be saved except by the Blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ and by the holy words of the Lord which clerics say and
announce and distribute and they alone administer and not others. But religious especially, who have renounced the world, are bound
to do more and greater things, but " not to leave the other
undone."
We ought to hate our bodies with
[their] vices and sins, because the Lord says in the Gospel that all vices and
sins come forth from the heart. We ought to love our enemies and do good to
them that hate us. We ought to observe the precepts and counsels of our Lord
Jesus Christ. We ought also to deny ourselves and to put our bodies beneath the
yoke of servitude and holy obedience as each one has promised to the Lord. And
let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin or offence
is committed.
But let him to whom obedience has been
entrusted and who is considered greater become as the lesser and the servant of
the other brothers, and let him show and have the mercy toward each of his
brothers that he would wish to be shown to himself if he were in the like
situation. And let him not be angry with a brother on account of his offence,
but let him advise him kindly and encourage him with all patience and humility.
We ought not to be "wise according
to the flesh" and prudent, but we ought rather to be simple, humble, and
pure. And let us hold our bodies in dishonor and contempt because through our
fault we are all wretched and corrupt, foul
and worms, as the Lord says by the prophet: "I am a worm and no man, the
reproach of men and the outcast of the people." We should
never desire to be above others, but ought rather to be servants and subject
"to every human creature for God's sake." And the spirit of the Lord
shall rest upon all those who do these things and who shall persevere to the
end, and He shall make His abode and dwelling in them, and they
shall be children of the heavenly Father whose works they do, and they are the
spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are spouses when by
the Holy Ghost the faithful soul is united to Jesus Christ. We are His brothers
when we do the will of His Father who is in heaven. We are His mothers
when we bear Him in our heart and in our body through pure love and a clean
conscience and we bring Him forth by holy work which ought to shine as an
example to others.
O how glorious and holy and great to have
a Father in heaven! O how holy, fair, and lovable to have a spouse in heaven! O
how holy and how beloved, well pleasing and humble, peaceful and sweet and
desirable above all to have such a brother who has laid down His life for His
sheep, and who has prayed for us to the Father, saying:
Father, keep them in Thy Name whom Thou hast given Me.
Father, all those whom Thou hast given
Me in the world were Thine, and Thou hast given them to Me. And the words which
Thou gayest Me I have given to them; and they have received them, and have
known in very deed that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that
Thou didst send Me. I pray for them: not for the world: bless and sanctify
them. And for them I sanctify Myself that they may be sanctified in one as We
also are. And I will, Father, that where I am, they also may be with Me, that
they may see My glory in My kingdom.
And since He has suffered so many
things for us and has done and will do so much good to us, let every creature
which is in heaven and on earth and in the sea and in the abysses render praise
to God and glory and honor and benediction; for He is our strength and power
who alone is good, alone most high, alone almighty and admirable, glorious and
alone holy, praiseworthy and blessed without end forever and ever. Amen.
But all those who do not do penance and
who do not receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but who give
themselves to vices and sins and walk after evil concupiscence and bad desires
and who do not observe what they have promised, corporally they serve the world
and its fleshly desires and cares and solicitudes for this life, but mentally
they serve the devil, deceived by him whose sons they are and whose works they
do; blind they are because they see not the true light,—our Lord Jesus Christ.
They have no spiritual wisdom, for they have not in them the Son of God who is
the true wisdom of the Father: of these it is said: "their wisdom was
swallowed up." They know,
understand, and do evil and wittingly lose their souls. Beware, ye blind,
deceived by your enemies—to wit, by the world, the flesh and by the devil—for
it is sweet to the body to commit sin and bitter to serve God because all vices
and sins come forth and proceed from the heart of man, as it is said in the
Gospel.
And you have nothing of good in this
world or in the future. You think to possess for long the vanities of this
world, but you are deceived; for a day and an hour will come of which you think
not and do not know and are ignorant of. The body grows feeble, death
approaches, neighbors and friends come saying: "Put your affairs in
order." And his wife and his children, neighbors and friends, make believe
to weep. And looking, he sees them weeping and is moved by a bad emotion, and
thinking within himself he says: "Behold, I place my soul and body and my
all in your hands." Verily, that man is cursed who confides and exposes
his soul and body and his all in such hands. Wherefore, the Lord says by the
prophet: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man." And at once
they cause a priest to come and the priest says to him: "Wilt thou do
penance for all thy sins? "
He answers: "I will."
"Wilt thou from thy substance, as far as thou canst, satisfy for what thou
hast done and for the things in which thou hast defrauded and deceived
men." He answers: "No."—And the priest says: "Why
not?"—"Because I have put everything into the hands of my relatives
and friends." And he begins to lose the power of speech and thus this
miserable man dies a bitter death.
But let all know that wheresoever or
howsoever a man may die in criminal sin, without satisfaction—when he could
satisfy and did not satisfy—the devil snatches his soul from his body with such
violence and anguish as no one can know except him who suffers it. And all
talent and power, learning and wisdom that he thought to possess are taken from
him. And his relatives and friends take to themselves his substance and
divide it and say afterwards: "Cursed be his soul because he could have
acquired and given us more than he did, and did not
acquire it." But the worms eat his body. And thus he loses soul and body
in this short life and goes into hell, where he shall be tormented without end.
By Saint Francis of Assisi
Photo taken from Wikimedia Commons
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