Chesterton characterized St. Francis in this way:
As Chesterton explains the purpose of his book, he advises:
"The reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very wild one, until he understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair." He also reveals his personal motivation: "...my only claim even to attempt such a task is that I myself have for so long been in various stages of such a condition..."
God bless you Mr. Chesterton!
He was, to the last agonies of asceticism, a Troubadour. He was a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really and truly a lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical vocation.In describing "the problem of St. Francis" he gives the clue to resolving that problem: "the clue to the asceticism and all the rest can best be found in the stories of lovers..." All of St. Francis' seeming contradictions are "resolved in the simplicity of any noble love; only this was so noble a love that nine men out of ten have hardly even heard of it."
As Chesterton explains the purpose of his book, he advises:
"The reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very wild one, until he understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair." He also reveals his personal motivation: "...my only claim even to attempt such a task is that I myself have for so long been in various stages of such a condition..."
God bless you Mr. Chesterton!
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