Customer Reviews

Salvation: Scenes From The Life Of St. Francis

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Martin describes the life of St. Francis of Assisi with short, vivid scenes rather than traditional narration. Martin, who is not Catholic, not particularly religious, and not a believer in miracles, gives us a story with real ramifications for Christianity - just as did the life of St. Francis himself.

Why is this book interesting, especially for nonbelievers and skeptics? In the first place, the vividness of the descriptions provides an engaging and fascinating look at medieval existence. In the second place, the stories in the book keep returning to an important but ignored concept: the power, spirituality and value of poverty.

This is not something which most Christians in contemporary America seem to really believe in any more - even though it was a standard belief for Christians in the middle ages.

I just finished Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis and found it to be a provacative read. Martin is a captivating writer, who handles a potentially biased topic with journalistic objectivity. But still, she manages to relay the deep emotion that surrounded and continues to surround St. Francis and his life. What I appreciated most about Martin's writing was that it gave small pictures of St. Francis, some which showed clearly his holiness and devotion to Christ, others that made you wonder if he was a complete lunatic.

For those of us who have studied the life of Christ, we find an interesting parallel. CS Lewis once said that Christ was either the Savior of the world or a raging lunatic. Too often, people shy away from the uncomfortable when they approach such topics. Because of that, people miss out on the complexity of the people. Too many people think Christ floated 3 inches off the ground and acted like he was stoned most of the time. They don't talk about anger, despair, humor and the like. They often make the same mistakes regarding saints.

Martin shows here that St. Francis was a man who took a radical stand in his faith. Who knows...maybe he was holy AND insane!

I was prepared to dislike this book, because I tend to distrust imaginative "biographies" of Christian saints. Too often, they tend to be sweetly sentimental. But my concerns were pointless in this case. Martin's "biography" of St. Francis is a wonderfully beautiful and reflective series of sketches. She takes scenes from his life--those related by the two earliest biographies by Thomas of Celano, but also later accounts such as Bonaventure's--and imaginatively weaves them into a cinematic-like procession that offers glimpses of the man Francis that shed light on our own spiritual journeys. The reviewer who carps about Martin's chronological lapses really misses the point of what she's trying to do. She doesn't intend to offer a straightforward account of the saint's life so much as a string of meditations that take their starting point from specific events in his life. And along the way she offers prose that is breathtaking in its beauty. Here's an example, taken from Martin's description of Francis early encounter with a leper--the episode that he himself, in his Testament, describes as his "conversion." Francis has just kissed the leper's hand (p. 241): "His ears are filled with the sound of wind, and he can feel the wind chilling his face, a cold, harsh wind blowing toward him from the future, blowing away everything that has come before this moment, which he has longed for and dreaded, as if he thought he might not live through it. He reaches up, clinging to the leper's tunic, for the wind is so strong, so cold, he fears he cannot stand against it. . . . The two men clutch each other, their faces pressed close together, their arms entwined. The sun beats down, the air is hot and still, yet they appear to be caught in a whirlwind. Their clothes whip about; their hair stands on end; they hold on to each other for dear life." Wow! With writing like that, how could one not love this book?

I was prepared to dislike this book, although for the life of me I can't quite remember why. Perhaps it's because I distrust fictional accounts of Christian saints, particularly when they're written by nonbelievers. But I was quite mistaken in this case. Martin's "biography" of St. Francis is a wonderfully beautiful series of sketches. She takes scenes from his life--those related by the two earliest biographies by Thomas of Celano, but also later accounts such as Bonaventure's--and imaginatively weaves them into a cinematic-like skein that offers glimpses of the man Francis. So the reviewer who carps about her chronological lapses really misses the point. Martin doesn't intend to offer a straightforward account of the saint's life so much as a string of meditations that take their starting point from specific events in his life. Along the way she offers prose that is breathtaking in its beauty. Here's an example, taken from Martin's description of Francis early encounter with a leper--the episode that he himself, in his Testament, describes as his "conversion." Francis has just kissed the leper's hand: "His ears are filled with the sound of wind, and he can feel the wind chilling his face, a cold, harsh wind blowing toward him from the future, blowing away everything that has come before this moment, which he has longed for and dreaded, as if he thought he might not live through it. He reaches up, clinging to the leper's tunic, for the wind is so strong, so cold, he fears he cannot stand against it. . . . The two men clutch each other, their faces pressed close together, their arms entwined. The sun beats down, the air is hot and still, yet they appear to be caught in a whirlwind. Their clothes whip about; their hair stands on end; they hold on to each other for dear life."

Liberation from wealth, embrace of death, love of poverty: Gospel truths for few true Christian preachers. No plaster birdbath figurine on display. Dramatized vignettes from this most Christ-like "perfect failure" spark shocks that Francesco Bernadone jolted to a nascent capitalism, as brutal and as alluring as our own system.

By such parallels, we may too quail at Francesco's story, even as we're drawn to his almost Buddha-like idealism, its insistence that we too can be heroes. This is a narrative shorn of hagiography suited for skeptics as well as believers. Martin locates our common human desire to find freedom from what we accumulate, and our fascination with those few of us who take on the Christian challenge literally.

Destitution brings virtue; God does not want us to get rich; abandoning one's inheritance, we find salvation in folly. These evangelical messages, of course, may appeal more to those born not as lepers, beggars, or peasants, but those who, tempted by riches, chose to vow their surrender so as to more painfully seek salvation along with Assisi's playboy, still crazy as a wandering fool but convinced he'd found treasure beyond his father's peddled soft cloths.

Valerie Martin takes us backwards, from his death to his shattering decision to embrace the leper on the road two decades before he became a living saint, even his dying body protected by the city who mocked him-- lest he die in rival Perugia. The price of fame and the hypocrisy of an Order already bitterly bickering over possessions long before its founder's passing sharpens Martin's eye, but she does not point to easy villains, rather humans who, inspired and perplexed by Francesco, must confront their own path after his intersects with their own in eerily apostolic repetition. Once you meet Francesco, it seems, as with Christ, you cannot forget him.

"Farewell, farewell, Brother Body. Farewell, farewell, beautiful world." Stripped of romanticism by the brutality of a cave where he and his loyal friars skulk to avoid scavengers and opportunists eager to cash in on a saint's relics, already tallying the pilgrim trade to be boosted for the local economy, the last hours of this saint appear more harrowing than hallowed. Those two simple sentences, combining wonder with truth, seem such words as Francesco would have tried to speak on his deathbed. Loving what he viewed, he tormented himself into cutting himself off from the natural beauty that sustained his mystical raptures. No less contradictory than in his famous prayer, full of reversals and opposites, he did believe totally and terribly, as Martin shows on every page, that "in dying, we find eternal life."

He ravaged himself, so at 45 he practically killed off his energy, He thwarted his acceptance of nature's guidance towards the Creator. He fought to win the battle against his own flesh; his fanatical asceticism set a fearful example for his followers-- perhaps not to imitate at their own peril. He took the lessons of Jesus so literally he wound up bleeding through his wounds, hands, feet, and side pierced with the first stigmata. Consider this early scene, one of his last on this earth:

"He is naked now, for his brothers have removed his breeches to keep them from irritating his skin, which is so thin he can be bruised at a touch. Free of the robe, he sits gravely for a moment, clutching the edge of the bed, his blind eyes staring at nothing. Rufino points out the room is cold. He and Leone stand watching Francesco almost warily, as if he might be dangerous. Angelo studies the exposed wound in his side, red but closed, the raw flesh puckered into a circlet, like a tiny mouth. Francesco pats the stone floor with his bandaged feet, as if feeling about for something lost; then, abruptly, he lurches forward and throws himself facedown." (27-28)

Midway through his career, as the Lesser Brothers squabble about who owns what, "these children who will not love another unless they have a law to protect them from one another," Francesco resists vainly the incorporation and expansion of his message, as it must become codified and approved by already thousands of friars. "Like children, though they call him Father, they want to be free of him; they want their inheritance. Many of them are educated; he is unlettered; they think him a fool." (173) Can such compromises ever please radicals who contend with appeasers? Given the legacy of Christ and Buddha, I read this account wondering at the parallels between bold reformers and weary admirers lacking the founder's stamina but still, however weakened, clinging to some remnant of a divinely charged preacher's dream of a better life that's found by giving up life and facing death.

This telling may confuse: I'd recommend Adrian House's "Francis: A Revolutionary Life" for the details in linear fashion, pitched at a contemporary reader's sensibility. (I reviewed it on 10-24-04.) Martin's story unfolds in reverse, except for one powerful chapter when, as the Poor Clares cannot leave the Church of San Damiano that Francesco had repaired so early on, he must come to them, in a fashion I will leave the reader to discover. Martin arranges her stories deftly, prefaced by quotes and supported by endnotes from early chroniclers, as well as intellectuals such as William James, Norbert Elias, Phillipe Aries, and E.M. Cioran. She has a knack for the perfect citation to match later sensibilities with medieval ones. Also, you find yourself imagining the breaking of the siege of Damietta in the Middle East during the Crusades, the unimaginable scene today of a pope's plundered and stripped body decaying on a plinth inside a desolate sanctuary, or the dirt and dust and filth of Assisi, in details that translucently allow you to, alongside Martin, step aside from modern perceptions and re-enter the Middle Ages sensibilities.

For example, take the encounter with the leper, after Francesco has left his father's luxury, courted abandonment, but still must face the enormity of his irrevocable decision. Francesco sees him "like a weatherbeaten statue, and Francesco has the sense that he has been standing there, in his path, forever." (239) He finally summons up the courage to overcome his disgust. "Then the two men clutch each other, their faces pressed close together, their arms entwined. The sun beats down, the air is hot and still, yet they appear to be caught in a whirlwind. Their clothes whip about; their hair stands on end; they hold on to each other for dear life." (241) That's how Martin finishes, suddenly and memorably, her poignant tale.

Salvation is a very articulate and documented story of the life of St. Francis of Assisi. The book was ordered, along with several others, for a Secular Franciscan group for their continuing formation in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Several members felt the author's overall description of St. Francis of Assisi gave them the humanness that was missing from the spirit that they knew of him. Her documentation using Franciscan resources gave further credence to the events of this saint's life. However, because it is a novel, the scenes are subject to the author's imagination. On the other hand, because of this imagination and the short segmented chapters, the book was an enjoyable read with the introduction being prophetically provocative.

In the introduction, the author tells the story of St. Francis in chronological order, and this is the part of the book that makes the most sense. Several reviewers have stated that this book is written in reverse chronological order, but it is not. Major sections of the book are in reverse order, but confusingly, the chapters within each major section are in chronological order. Adding to the confusion is that the first major section of the book is supposedly about the death of Francis, but it is actually only about his last days. His death does not occur until the next to last chapter of the book, and is followed in the final chapter by the earliest scene we are to see: when Francis encounters a leper in the road. If you think my review is confusing, just wait until you read the book. Is the author trying to say that the sequence of events is unimportant? In the case of Francis, who started off as the son of a wealthy merchant and ended up barefoot and penniless by choice, the sequence of events would seem to be all-important. Readers should know that the scenes from the life of Francis focus almost entirely on the physical: what he wore, where and how much he bled, how doctors branded him with hot irons, etc. Seldom if ever are we given any understanding of his inner life or spiritual motivations.

This book is a brief survey of the life of Franceso di Pietro Bernardone, who became known shortly after his life as St. Francis of Assisi. Franceso was a young man growing up in an extremely wealthy family. He had everything he could ever wish for, and his parents furnished whatever he might need to suit his desires. He however was still a problem child, causing his parents much grief and embarrassment.

One day while reading with a priest various scriptures he comes across the gospel passage in Mark 6:7-13. This passage really leaves an impression on young Franceso. Soon after he renounces his life, his family, his wealth, and his inheritance to persue the life of a begger. God then tells him that he is to "repair the church". Had this been Erasums, John Huss, or Martin Luther, chances are St. Francis would have been one of the early reformers, and would not wear the title of Saint as he does today. Instead of trying to reform the church, he literally picks up hammer and nail and begins to repair run-down churches.

Franceso eventually starts his own monastary after urges to have him join the famous Benedictien order failed. His rules are very strict, and very simple. One is not touch any money, and live the life on the streets begging for, and preaching in return for food. The message that was preached was one of repentance and calling people to deny worldliness. Another rule was that one was not to own any books, because they were the cause of many sins.

Finally, St. Francis attempts to preach to animals in the woods (as all "Saints" of the day were expected to do) and ended up in deep meditation for some period. St. Francis after his deep meditation was found to have the stigmata (the crucifixion wounds of Christ) upon his body. This was a "sign" of his sainthood, and deep commitment to Christ. Shortly after, St. Francis died a slow, and very painful death at the age of 45. Two years later after his death, he was canonized.

St. Francis' life aside, I found this book to be an unsatisfactory read. Valerie Martin had a ingenious idea as far as I'm concerned, for she did not write the book in chronological order. She should be applauded for this. However, she fails to execute what she attempts to do. It starts off well, but the book becomes very difficult to follow because of this backwards chronology, and reveals parts of his early life when she should not, killing the drama of the book. The book struggles to give the reader a greater understanding of St Francis' life. Martin writes this book as a descriptive narrative cover to cover and it becomes quickly annoying. Her "descriptive phrases" are far from impressive, and the book is chalked full of them.

I give this book a 2 out of 5 stars. 1 because it looks at key scenes of the life of St. Francis. The other because the idea of Valerie Martin to write this book in reverse chronology is a great idea in my opinion- although she does fail her attempt. If you are looking to learn a lot about the life of St. Francis, do not turn to this book.

Describtions in this book were too depressing and austere for modern reading.