Those of you who are Catholic know about St. Francis, who was a very wealthy young guy before he gave it all up and founded the Franciscans (who, inter alia, brought the Faith to Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, ....you get the idea) and who operate a number of churches in the SE Wisconsin area.
GKChesterton wrote a bit about him:
FOR most people there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of St. Francis.
He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger; he was perhaps the happiest of the sons of men.
Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think of the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience he denied to himself, and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty.
Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and not a troubadour?
We have a suspicion that if these questions were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.
...Twelve Types
HT: Chesterton and Friends
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