DRIVEN away from Rivo Torto, the friars had to start looking for other quarters. "Dear children," said Francis to them, "since GOD seems to want to increase our numbers, we must find a church to say our Office in and bury our dead, and a little house of earth and wattles for us to be together in. So if it seems good to you, I will go see the bishop about it."
All approved, and Francis set off for the bishop's palace. Bishop Guido replied that, unfortunately, he had nothing to give him. The Canons of San Rufino gave the same answer, adding that the best thing for the friars to do was to keep working in the lazarets, where they were short of nurses. It was the Benedictine Abbot of Mount Subasio who met the desire of the Little Poor Man by giving him the Portiuncula chapel and the plot of earth around it. Francis would not consent to take it as a gift; and to make it clear that it was a loan, every year by way of rent, the friars brought the monks a hamper of loaches that they had caught in the stream. At the Portiuncula, Francis believed he would really be able to carry out his dream of living the Gospel. Located in the midst of a wood, the hermitage was made up of a chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, a large thatched-covered cabin which served as the community house, and as many huts as there were religious. The large cabin was of puddled clay; the huts were made of wattles; and the whole was surrounded by a hedge. And that is the way the Saint would have liked to see all his residences. Even the churches he always wanted to have "small and built of earth or wood." As for the kind of life lived in the brotherhood, whether at the Portiuncula or elsewhere, it can quite well be depicted by sketching the portraits of Brothers Bernard, Rufino, Giles, Masseo, Juniper and Leo. To speak of these first disciples, who all received their formation from Francis and tried to conform their lives to his example, is to demonstrate what Francis' ideal was, and at the same time evoke the golden age of the Franciscan epic. We have told of the vocations of Bernard & Giles. The others entered the Order in 1210. All merited to be set up as models for all the Brethren. "The good Friar Minor," said Francis, "ought to love poverty like Brother Bernard and prayer like Brother Rufino, who prays even when he is asleep. He ought to be lost in GOD as Brother Giles, as courteous as Brother Angelo and as patient as Brother Juniper, that perfect imitator of Christ crucified. He ought to possess the purity and innocence of Brother Leo, the good manners and common sense of Brother Masseo, and finally, by his charity and detachment from the world, resemble Brother Lucido who never stays more than a month in the same place, asserting that we have no lasting home on earth."
(Ibinahagi ni Kapatid Larry de los Santos/fra masseo charbel mula sa Thailand)
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