Chapter CLV. How he would have the brethren behave themselves toward them

Of the Poor Ladies

204. It is not meet to leave unmentioned the spiritual building (much nobler than the earthly one) which the blessed father, guided by the Holy Ghost, founded in that place¹ for the increasing of the city on high, after he had repaired the material church. It is not to be believed that it was for the repair of a tottering structure, destined in any case to perish, that Christ spoke to him from the wood of the Cross, and that in a manner so astounding as to fill those that hear of it with awe and grief: but, even as the Holy Ghost had foretold in the past, the Order of Holy Virgins was to be established there; which Order (like a polished heap of living stones) was one day to be brought thither for the replenishing of the house in the heavens. But after that the Virgins of Christ began to assemble in that place, and to be gathered together from divers parts of the world, vowing most perfectly to observe the deepest poverty, and to adorn themselves with every virtue; though their father gradually withdrew his bodily presence from them, still he extended to them his affectionate care in the Holy Ghost. For when by many tokens of perfection he knew them to be approved and ready to bear the loss of all things for Christ, and to endure toil, and never to decline from the holy commandments, he promised ever stedfastly to bestow the help and counsel of himself and his brethren on them and on others who should profess poverty in a similar way of life; which thing he diligently performed as long as he lived, and, when nigh unto death, commanded to be evermore performed, and that not negligently, declaring that it was one and the same spirit that had led the brethren and those Poor Ladies forth from this world.

205. When the brethren sometimes wondered why S. Francis did not more frequently visit such holy Handmaids of Christ with his bodily presence, "Think not, dear brethren," said he, "that I love them not perfectly; for if it were a fault to cherish them in Christ, was it not a greater fault to have united them to Christ? And, indeed, it had been no wrong not to call them, but not to care for them when called were the utmost unkindness. But I am giving you an example, that as I am doing, so ye should also do. I will not that any of you should of his own accord offer to visit them; but I order that unwilling and most reluctant men, provided they be spiritual and approved by a long and worthy life, be appointed for their service."