Book Review #17 – “St. Francis of Assisi” by G. K. Chesterton (this post is in process and incomplete at this time)

Book Review #17 – “St. Francis of Assisi” by G. K. Chesterton, published in 1924 by Doubleday.

 

G. K. Chesterton, in his biography of St. Francis, wrote that Francis considered himself “God’s Troubadour,” a “sort of court fool of the King of Paradise.” He referred to his brothers as jugglers or jesters of God. Commenting on this Franciscan spirit at work, Chesterton noted, “There was to be found ultimately in such service a freedom almost amounting to frivolity… It was compatible to the condition of the juggler. The whole point about St. Francis is that he certainly was ascetical, and he certainly was not gloomy.”  (Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi).

“A characteristic of the great saints is their levity. Angels can fly, because they can take themselves lightly. There was a deep levity in the Middle Ages. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One settles down into a sort of selfish seriousness, but one has to rise to a (merry) self-forgetfulness. Seriousness is not a virtue. Seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because  it is the easiest thing to do. For solemnity flows out of people naturally, but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. Satan fell by force of gravity.” (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

G. K. Chesterton once commented that saints like Paul and Silas could sing in jail (Acts 16) because they had a “cosmic contentment.” They remembered that they “live in a gloomy town but a (merry) universe.” (Orthodoxy).