Saint Francis Read Online Free PDF

as a support for his back. I had begun to part my lips to ask him what was wrong, what had frightened him so, but he reached out his hand and placed it over my mouth.

    "Quiet," he whispered, and he thrust himself into the feather pillow. He was shivering. The pupils of his eyes had disappeared; the eyeballs had rolled downward and were gazing fearfully into his very bowels. His jaw was trembling.

    At that point I understood at once. "You saw God," I cried. "You saw God!"

    He seized my arm and gasped in anguish: "How do you know? Who told you?"

    "No one. But I see how you're shaking, and I know. When a person shakes that way it means he's either seen a lion in front of him, or God."

    He pulled his head forcefully up from the pillow. "No, I didn't see Him," he murmured. "I heard Him."

    He looked around him with frightened eyes. "Sit down," he said to me. "Don't put your hands on me, don't touch me!"

    "I'm not touching you. I'm afraid to touch you. If I had been touching you at that moment my hand would have been reduced to ashes."

    He shook his head and smiled. The pupils of his eyes had reappeared. "I have something to ask you," he said. "Has my mother returned from Mass?"

    "Not yet. She must be chatting with her friends."

    "So much the better. Shut the door." He remained silent for a moment, but then repeated: "I have something to ask you."

    "I'm at your command, sir. Proceed."

    "You told me that your whole life you've been searching for God. How have you done this? By calling, weeping, singing songs, fasting? Each man must have his own special route to lead him to God. What route did you take? That is my question."

    I lowered my head in thought. Should I tell him or shouldn't I? I had meditated on this many times and knew which my route was, but I was ashamed to reveal it. To be sure, I was still ashamed before men at that period, because I was not yet ashamed before God.

    "Why don't you answer me?" Francis complained. "I am passing through a difficult moment and seek your aid. Help me!"

    I felt sorry for him. With agitated heart I made the decision to tell him everything.

    "My route, Sior Francis--and don't be surprised when you hear it--my route when I set out to find God . . . was . . . laziness. Yes, laziness. If I wasn't lazy I would have gone the way of respectable, upstanding people. Like everyone else I would have studied a trade--cabinetmaker, weaver, mason-- and opened a shop; I would have worked all day long, and where then would I have found time to search for God? I might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack: that's what I would have said to myself. All my mind and thoughts would have been occupied with how to earn my living, feed my children, how to keep the upper hand over my wife. With such worries, curse them, how could I have had the time, or inclination, or the pure heart needed to think about the Almighty?

    "But by the grace of God I was born lazy. To work, get married, have children, and make problems for myself were all too much trouble. I simply sat in the sun during winter and in the shade during summer, while at night, stretched out on my back on the roof of my house, I watched the moon and the stars. And when you watch the moon and the stars how can you expect your mind not to dwell on God? I couldn't sleep any more. Who made all that? I asked myself. And why? Who made me, and why? Where can I find God so that I may ask Him? Piety requires laziness, you know. It requires leisure--and don't listen to what others say. The laborer who lives from hand to mouth returns home each night exhausted and famished. He assaults his dinner, bolts his food, then quarrels with his wife, beats his children without rhyme or reason simply because he's tired and irritated, and afterwards he clenches his fists and sleeps. Waking up for a moment he finds his wife at his side, couples with her, clenches his fists once more, and plunges back into sleep. . . . Where can he find time for God? But the