Pope: St. Francis’ Rule is a compass that guides the way

By Edoardo Giribaldi

Francis, "everyone's brother," 800 years ago wanted to give his children a Rule to walk together toward the same goal: to embrace and kiss Christ present in the suffering flesh of the discarded.

In the preface of the new book written in Italian by Zdzisław Józef Kijas “Brulicante di vita” (“Teeming with life”) Pope Francis offered a reflection on the Rule of life instituted by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223.

Following Jesus' footsteps

A Rule that, at its heart, sees the Gospel and its teachings. “To those who ask him,” the Pope wrote, St. Francis “shows that Jesus is the only Master; the heart of the choice consists in ‘following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ’."

St. Francis is defined as a “craftsman of human lives” as he addressed the life of his companions “toward the fullness of joy and love.”

He is also “an artisan in discernment,” as the Legend of the Three Companions testified how “he insisted in prayer so that the Lord would point him to his vocation.”

The Rule's simplicity

The Pope exalted the “simplicity and the spirit” of the Rule, as “Everyone can undertake these steps without renouncing the diversity of their origins of places and cultures.”

From the Gospel, Francis drew “the strength and fragrance” of a Rule destined to communities open to “a neighbor without borders.”

A compass guiding the way

Pope Francis illustrated the concept of the Rule not as “an obstacle course” but, instead, as “a compass that guides and accompanies the way.”

In his text, St. Francis affirmed that “it is not so much the obsession with details that makes the person.” On the contrary, a “joyful and supportive life project matures” when we accept “the challenge to reinterpret one’s history.”

Following the discovery of Jesus’ universal, strong and attractive love, the Rule does not separate, divide, or contrast differences but opens to a shared journey.

Rebuilding the Church

The Pope underlined our call to be “scaffolding,” in order to form a bigger scaffold to repair the Church, “the same mission accepted by Seraphic Father Francis from the Lord.”

Francis’ Rule urges both the heart and the mind to “cultivate our humanity, to cultivate relationships with God and others,” and gradually, along the way, “brings out the joy of being called by Love and to love.”

The Rule is also “the force of the spirit that exhorts us to strip away everything that can weigh us down.”

A living form of the Rule

The Pope recalled Thomas of Celano’s description of St. Francis as he was already "completely changed in heart and close to becoming so also in the body.”

It was, according to the Pope, Francis’ life trajectory, “who himself became a living form of the Rule.”

That is, "to encounter God, to encounter the discarded whom he called ‘Christian brothers,’ to develop a renewed gaze of supportive and co-responsible care for the common home.”

Flesh and freedom

The Rule was not meant to chain or force “under the weight of orders abstracted from reality.”

Instead, it “takes into account the concrete flesh of each individual, so that it can be freed from that thin and almost transparent filament that keeps us captive, closed and isolated just as it happens to a small bird, tied by the ankle and forced to be locked in a cage.”

It is a way of “openness to God and to others in order to be able to fly to the Heaven that welcomes the whole human family, to live in peace and gladness, with a heart that is free and open to the world, with the salt of Jesus' love. This salt is the true fruit of the Rule,” Pope Francis concluded.