May Francesco de Assisi, man of the millennium teach us to build a world made of this free and passionate joy, fruit of divestment, sobriety, simplicity and endless capacity of feeling dazzled Maria Clara L. Bingemer

Maria Clara L. Bingemer

 

The perfect joy Río – Joy has been disappearing from human lips and hearts. The scenario of the world is so sad and distressing; the every day life struggle for survival and for the daily bread is so insane. It’s so disappointing to see the permanent and eternal effort for human relations which, just round the corner, will reveal themselves treacherous, dishonest and fruitless. Whereas joy, that springs with freshness and clearness seems so distant, far off and unreachable. October 4 is the celebration of a saint that teaches us that joy, that rare article, can be found very near, almost right beside everybody. Francesco de Assisi, bourgeois, the son of a rich merchant, stripped himself of his clothes one day in the town square to declare his love to Jesus Christ. And he then started on a path that took him to the arms of true joy. Overjoyed and marveled with life, his testimony still speaks out loud to men and women of the new millennium. One day Francesco gave a leper alms and a kiss. That gift of goods and affection introduced him as a novice in the school of perfect joy which, however, would take him to a very different road from that which human logic presumes. His feelings and his corporeality were tuned in with the beauty of things created in such a way that he felt he was the brother of everything and everybody. Living a universal brotherhood, Francesco fell in love with everything that existed or breathed: from the wolf to the lamb, from water to the land, from life and death. His marveled look made every experience of life into a song of praise, no matter how simple it was. Everything was transfigured and revealed itself imbued with the divine Spirit of his ecstatic heart. On the other hand, his wish grew in fervor and intensity because of the poverty that deprived him gradually and radically of any possession and anything. Lady Poverty, seductive as a beautiful woman, softly lead Francesco to the descending road of divestment until the deepest human condition, where he was greeted by the face of his Lord made poor with the poor in his Incarnation and Cross. Francesco’s life was marked by several breaking-ups: he was rich and he broke up with richness; he broke up with his father in order to free from any bond, even the most legitimate ones; he broke up with pride and avarice and assumed a way of life based in charity and humbleness. In a hierarchical world, he proposed horizontal solidarity in the most complete simplicity. Francesco has discovered the joy in this “not having” nor “being” nobody in this world. Was he sick? A masochist? Crazy? It would seem not, because there has not been on earth another man as joyful as Francesco de Assisi. Francesco caused one or several ruptures in order to embrace his great love. His great love was Jesus Christ, of whom the Poor of Assisi so deeply that he ended up resembling him even in the wounds of his Passion. Teaching Fray Leon what perfect joy was, Francesco showed him the road of humble charity that “believes in everything, expects everything and bears everything”. The only sadness of his life was that Love was not loved. In order to love that which is the source of Love, Francesco resigned everything and broke up with everything. At the end of this road, a marvelous communion with the entire creation was expecting him. And also the perfect joy of knowing that poverty, humbleness and charity in the midst of all sufferings, is what really makes man free. Perfect joy stems from this freedom made of the resignation of everything that isn’t God, a joy that nothing or nobody can eradicate. May Francesco de Assisi, man of the millennium teach us to build a world made of this free and passionate joy, fruit of divestment, sobriety, simplicity and endless capacity of feeling dazzled.
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Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer Theologian, professor and dean of the Centro de Teología y Ciencias Humanas of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Río. She is the author of Simone Weil - A força e a fraqueza do amor [Simone Weil – The Force and the Weakness of Love] (Ed. Rocco) .