Chapter IX. How, having changed his habit, he rebuilt the church of S. Maria in Portiuncula; and how, on hearing the Gospel, he forsook all things, and invented and made the habit which the brethren wear

21. Meantime the Saint of God, having changed his habit, and repaired the aforesaid church, removed to another place hard by the city of Assisi, and here he began to rebuild a certain church that was dilapidated and well-nigh destroyed, nor did he leave of! what he had well begun until he had brought it all to completion. Then he betook him to another place which is called Portiuncula where in ancient days a church of the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God had been built, but now it was forsaken, and cared for by none. And when the Saint of God saw that it was thus brought to ruin, being moved with pity, for that he glowed with devotion to the Mother of all goodness, he began to dwell there [and was] diligent [in repairing it]. Now it was in the third year from his conversion when he had finished repairing the said church; and at that time he went about wearing a kind of hermit's dress, girded with a leather girdle, carrying a staff in his hand and having shoes on his feet.

22. But when one day the Gospel, how Christ sent forth His disciples to preach, was read in that same church the Saint of God who was present and had got some inkling of the Gospel words, after the solemnities of Mass had been celebrated, humbly begged the priest to explain the Gospel to him. And when the priest had set forth to him all things in order, S. Francis hearing that Christ's disciples ought not to possess gold, silver, or money, not to carry on their way scrip, wallet, bread or staff, not to have shoes, or two tunics, but to preach the Kingdom of God, and repentance, straightway he cried, exulting in the spirit of God: "This is what I wish, this is what I am seeking, this I long with all my inmost heart to do". Forthwith the holy Father, overflowing with joy, hastens to fulfil that saving word, nor suffers he any delay to pass before he begins devoutly to perform what he has heard. Straightway he puts his shoes off from his feet, and the staff out of his hands, and, content with one tunic, exchanges his leathern girdle for a small cord. Thenceforth he prepares him a tunic displaying the image of the Cross, that therein he may beat off all promptings of the devil; he makes it of the roughest stuff that therein he may crucify the flesh with [its] vices and sins; lastly he makes it most poor and mean, and such as by no means to excite the world's covetousness. But the other things he had heard, he yearned with the utmost diligence and reverence to perform: for he had been no deaf hearer of the Gospel, but, committing all he had heard to praiseworthy memory, he gave heed diligently to fulfil it to the letter.