Original subtitles

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-These are stories of the saints.

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Before francis of assisi stepped into god's light,

He was a wastrel,

Fond of partying,

The very pampered son of a wealthy umbrian merchant.

When francis was 20 years old,

Escalating tensions with the neighboring city of perugia

Threatened to erupt into a major war.

Like most young men from prosperous families at the time,

Francis longed to prove his manhood

And his bravery

On the battlefield.

-Fellow citizens,

They took what they liked

From our harvest,

The stocks from our shelves.

They took what they liked from our earnings,

And we stood up to them.

Let us never forget that.

And we won!

We were granted what was rightfully ours.

Now these vermin are coming back for us again.

We will fight them again and we will beat them again!

To battle! -To battle!

-To battle! -To battle!

[ all shouting indistinctly ]

-Now, the fighting was nothing like what francis imagined.

Medieval warfare was chaotic,

Unsparingly brutal.

Men were hacked apart, speared, gutted,

Left to die where they lay.

It turns out,

Assisi was routed by the perugians.

Francis survived,

But he was taken prisoner

And he was held for ransom.

-I can't get warm, I can't.

-Please... -Don't you touch me!

Don't you touch me! -Help! Help!

There is a diseased man among us.

Are you all right, francis?

This man, francis, is sick!

-Tell his father to pay the ransom.

[ breathing shakily ]

-You're burning up.

When will your ransom be paid?

-I don't know.

My father is stubborn.

What about you?

-My mother would have to do a year's washing to pay,

A soldier's ransom.

My master wouldn't pay a dime for me.

He's a man of assisi.

Who? Which family?

-His.

His father is my master.

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-After a year of suffering and misery,

Francis's family finally paid his ransom.

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-My son.

What have they done to you?

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-He returned, but he was broken in body and spirit,

So he worked at his father's fabric business,

But he was a changed man.

Francis went searching.

He went wandering the countryside.

What was he searching for?

Meaning in his life.

What he found was a rundown chapel on the outskirts of town.

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[ door rattles ]

[ bird chirping ]

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You could say that francis spent the rest of his life

Interpreting the message of god,

Which he received in the abandoned church of san damiano.

The first step was to return the place to a house of worship.

But that cost money.

And francis got it by stealing imported fabrics

From his father's exchange

And selling them for gold.

[ door creaks ]

[ door opens ]

-Father.

-Thank you for coming.

I'm francis, from assisi.

-I know who you are.

The son of bernardone, the fabric merchant.

-Yes, that's me.

-Why have you brought me to this place?

-I am giving this gift to you,

To begin repairs of the church

And to keep a lamp burning before the image of our savior.

Will you do this?

-Why?

-[ chuckles ]

I was...

I was visited by the lord.

And he instructed me to rebuild the church.

So, please, you must do this. Please.

-I won't touch this money.

And I'll make sure to tell your father

That he's raised a scoundrel.

-What?

You will not accept money for mother church,

After the lord spoke to me?

-I don't know who's been speaking to you,

But it's certainly not the lord.

[ money clatters ]

-Pick up the money.

You know you'll go hunting for it

After I'm out of sight.

-An abomination!

Thievery is an abomination!

Repent!

-To francis's father,

His son's theft was an insult and a betrayal.

So much so that he brought the matter

Before the bishop of assisi.

-Your father, pietro di bernardone,

Has accused you of stealing from him.

Do you admit this or deny it?

-I admit it freely.

I gave that money to a priest

For the repair of the chapel of san damiano.

-My son, your father is rightfully

Angry and scandalized.

Give him back what you stole from him

And ask for his forgiveness.

-I will gladly return to my father

What is rightfully his.

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From here on, I will serve god and only god,

And all of his children in need.

Here before me are goods, rightfully mine,

Valued at exactly the amount

You seek from me in compensation.

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Your forgiveness, I will not seek.

Forgiveness is not a legal matter.

It lives in the soul.

It lives in god.

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-Someone bring something to cover this child of god.

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I would give you my own cape, my son,

But I am afraid you will refuse it.

-Thank you.

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[ door creaks ]

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-Francis centered

And grounded himself

By spending time in nature.

He found divine inspiration in every facet of god's creation.

-My brother birds.

Praise your creator.

Love him always.

He clothed you with feathers

And gave you wings to fly.

Among all his creatures he made you free.

And gave you the purity of the air.

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-Where do you want these?

-Oh, just put them there.

There. Thank you.

-What a marvel.

What a joy.

God be praised, you truly have done

As god asked you to do, francis.

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[ bell jingles ]

-Out of my way, please.

-I didn't mean to stand in your way.

-If you have something for me,

Then throw it to the ground.

-I have nothing, I'm sorry.

-If you have no arms for me,

Then please, move on.

-Why?

-You didn't hear my bell?

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[ crying ]

It's been 16 years

Since I was embraced.

-You've found a brother now.

-Yes.

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-Yes.

Come. Come.

Is this your house?

-The church,

Not a building made of stone,

Not a hierarchy of priests and deacons,

But the way of jesus.

That became the basis of a new order.

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Word of francis's belief spread throughout the countryside,

And more and more brothers joined.

The order kept growing.

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-The kingdom of heaven is near.

Heal the sick ones.

Raise the dead.

Wash the lepers.

Just cast out all the devils...

And give.

Give as freely as we receive.

Never wear gold or silver.

Never hoard money away.

We don't need it.

Make these the words of the lord.

More than just words.

-Francis rejected the very idea of a hierarchy or a leadership.

He thought, and spoke of himself, and he acted

As the equal of his fellow brothers,

And his only directive

Was to follow the way of jesus.

But as the order continued to grow,

Different temperaments came into play.

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-[ labored breathing ]

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-No, no, no, no, no.

[ sniffles ] no.

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-A young woman from a noble family

Who had run away from home

Came to visit francis

To join his order.

Her name was clare,

Who later became a saint as revered as francis,

Clare of assisi.

A companion in the way of jesus,

A beloved friend.

Possibly his most beloved friend.

-Blessed are the poor in spirit,

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I thought on this for many days and nights.

-By giving away everything we have,

We find that we lack for nothing.

-What a great endless joy.

Have I said something wrong,

Brother francis?

-No.

-No, your joy gives me such joy.

It reminds me of my own joy when I saw the way of the light.

But I must tell you this.

Your joy will wither away like a cut flower.

On a day when work will seem too hard.

When someone curses you for the bread you give them,

Or when you feel a dryness in your heart.

Doubt,

It will come.

-Doubt.

-Doubt's not evil.

We have to embrace it.

It's a human response to the infinite mystery of life.

It will come and go.

But you can't just follow my words.

You have to live it all.

And it takes so much courage, clare.

I pray that you will see your faith

Shine through everything, burning brighter and brighter.

Do you understand?

-I understand.

Yes.

I understand.

I do.

-There's so much,

So much to be done to make this a holy christian world.

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-In the summer of 1219,

Francis decided to undertake a long and fraught journey

To join the fifth crusade in egypt.

That's where the christian army was preparing

The way to retaking jerusalem.

Francis was attempting something unthinkable,

Impossible,

And actually suicidal...

To convert the saracen muslim leader

To christianity.

To a man as devout as francis,

The conversion of the known world to christianity

Was the ultimate goal.

This was sanctified by god.

But when francis arrived in egypt,

He witnessed a shocking scene that...

Just complicated the picture.

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[ horse whinnies ]

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Francis did go to speak with sultan al-malik al kamil,

Who was the nephew of the great leader saladin.

But the accounts differ wildly.

He might have been beaten and forced to walk over crosses,

Or he might have been kidnapped by the saracens,

Or he might have met the sultan by accident.

But it's certain that they did meet,

That they spoke,

And that the outcome of their meeting

Surprised both of them.

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-Your excellency.

My name is francis.

I am a brother in god.

I have come with the christian warriors

And I am a christian,

But not a warrior.

I chose to travel here from assisi,

Which is a very small town, very far away,

To appear before you without weapons

Or without soldiers behind me.

I just speak from my heart,

Which is with god.

And to humbly ask you to join me in my faith,

The christian faith.

Because it's the only straight road to salvation.

I will testify to you

Because I have seen the light of god with my eyes.

As a young man,

And I...

I came to understand that the way of god

Is the way of love.

There is no choice.

It is a way of peace,

Within,

But also without.

-Peace?

-Yes.

-Have you come here as a representative

Of the christian army?

-No, I have not.

-So, when you speak of peace,

It's not in any kind of official capacity.

-I only speak as a man of god who follows the way of jesus.

-In my faith,

Jesus is considered to be a...

A great and holy man.

-He is.

-The christian soldiers,

They have not come in peace.

-No, they have not.

-But then again, how could they?

They're soldiers fighting a war.

How often do you pray, brother francis?

-I pray with each breath.

-I pray five times every day of my life.

I pray to be delivered from waging war.

But that prayer hasn't been answered,

As you can see.

-I have been to war.

But I've never had to send other men to battle.

What a heavy burden you carry.

-This is not something I would speak of to most people.

I've told you because

I see that you're a man of the greatest faith.

My advisors, they, uh, they told me of your coming,

And they warned me that you would, uh,

Attempt to convert me.

And they suggested that I have you executed

If you did.

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-I have always been prepared to die for my faith.

I'm ready to die now.

-I've decided not to act on their suggestion.

-You will allow me to keep speaking, your excellency?

-Of conversion, no.

Of yourself?

Yes.

I see with the eyes of my faith.

As it is for you with your faith.

Yes?

-Yes.

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-You're disappointed I have denied you martyrdom, I think.

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-My vanity...

Is a terrible thing.

-My friend,

To condemn me to death would be an evil reward

To bestow on a man who risked death

To save my life

Before the god of his faith.

And we both know that martyrdom is a paltry thing

Compared to the glory of life.

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-Yes. True.

It's true.

-Francis's disappointment in himself was bitter.

He judged himself a complete failure.

He returned to Italy discouraged and physically debilitated.

His vision was severely impaired by trachoma.

-In two days, brother francis, after you've rested,

We will have the assembly of the order.

-Oh, yes. Yes.

Has it grown since I was gone?

-In the thousands now.

-Thousands?

I'd never counted.

-With so many, there are now so many new problems.

[ indistinct shouting ]

-Our only responsibility is to god.

Wise old man.

-This is francis.

Francis!

-Brother francis.

Please forgive me.

-I forgive you, of course.

-Look out and see all the men assembled here.

And there are many more than these.

You planted a seed, and a great tree grew.

-I will speak now.

But not as a founder,

But as a fellow brother.

I hear you speaking to each other with such...

Hatred and resentment

That I find myself without...

The will to impose myself on you or...

Make any judgment.

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-Near the end of his life,

As illness ravaged his body and doubt shadowed his soul,

A vision came to francis.

An angelic vision.

-Divine jesus,

Let me come closer to you,

So that my heart, with its tenderest affections,

May acknowledge your infinite love,

That my memory may dwell in the mysteries.

-Clare?

-You are troubled, my brother.

-I failed at everything I set out to do.

The brothers are at odds with each other.

I saw our faith violated by our own holy crusaders.

I failed to convert the sultan.

But on the ship coming home, I had a strange thought.

That I might still become a father.

I would renounce my vows, clare.

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I was even denied martyrdom.

-Why?

Why would anyone want to deprive the world of you?

-Because it's the faith that's important,

Not my miserable life.

I deserve to just linger here and die in darkness.

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All I ever wanted in this life was to stay on your path.

Most high.

All powerful, all good lord,

All praise is yours.

All glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To you alone, most high, do they belong.

No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my lord,

Through all of your creatures,

Especially through, my lord, brother sun,

Who brings the day, and you give light through him.

He is beautiful and radiant in holy splendor.

Of you, most high, he bears the likeness.

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-Francis has become one of the more sentimental...

Saints, in a sense.

His life, for me,

More than any other saint, raises the question

Of what does it mean,

Really, to follow the way of jesus?

-The real francis, I mean, I think we've domesticated him.

We've domesticated him. -Exactly!

-He's charming, he's in a little statue in our gardens,

And he likes the birds, but the real francis,

The one we see in this film, you know,

Was a really radical guy who talked about radical poverty.

He's the one, of all the saints,

Who most closely followed christ.

-I had a professor at university

Who liked to point out that one of the gospels

Has "blessed are the poor,"

And another of the gospels

Has "blessed are the poor in spirit."

And for this professor,

The whole story of catholicism

Is the tension between "blessed are the poor"

And "blessed are the poor in spirit,"

That between the literal taking poverty seriously

And the more figurative thinking of poverty as a metaphor,

Where even a man living in a palace can say

"I'm poor because I'm celibate" or whatever,

And francis, more than anybody else,

"blessed are the poor."

Dante depicted francis as having a romance with lady poverty

And that poverty was his bride. Incredible.

-Material poverty is an evil.

I mean, the fact that people are living as refugees and poor,

But the people who choose to live simply

And who choose not to participate

In a world of things, and a world of objects,

Is very threatening to people.

And I think that's why francis is --

Was and is threatening, still today.

-We think of francis is being the person

Who most perfectly imitated christ.

Is that how you put it?

So, I know I forget that it was a conversion,

That he started off someplace else,

That he had to witness the violence of war,

The loneliness of imprisonment,

And the despair of being shunned by his own family

Before he had to get to the place

Where he's preaching to the birds,

Loving all creation, and living as a mendicant,

I'm just not used to thinking of him as a convert, really,

But it's so powerful to see it dramatized.

-But I think, I mean, each of the saints

Goes through a certain kind of conversion.

Francis is, you know, his father is a cloth merchant.

One of the reasons he's named francesco

Is because the father apparently went to France

And loved all french things, right?

So, he's very traveled, he's very cultured.

And he eventually finds that,

Like a lot of the saints do, empty, right?

And then he sees -- he sees a better way.

And then, god ratifies all that through the through the visions,

Through the voices, and ultimately through the stigmata,

Which is the first time

That happens in the lives of the saints.

-How many stigmatas have there been?

Among the saints? -Hard to say. Not many.

So, for people who don't quite understand it,

It's experiencing physically the wounds of christ.

And people might say, "well, that sounds masochistic,"

But, you know, on the part of the saints,

It's the desire to be as closely united with christ as possible.

-And it's something that has always been,

Sort of, obviously controversial.

But I think, in terms, of the stigmata

Of francis and the others who have had it,

It has to do, I think, with a spiritual change in the person,

That it's a kind of spiritual transcendence

And expresses itself

Through the flesh and blood.

-Well, the supernatural

Is natural in ways we don't understand.

-Yes, we don't know. But what do we know?

We should know that we don't know.

You know, constantly, things are being discovered

And constantly being analyzed,

As new forms of matter and dark matter

And that sort of thing. We don't really know.

-The philosopher charles taylor

Talks about moving out of an enchanted world, right?

That the world is kind of disenchanted.

And so, when people hear stories about the stigmata or miracles

That they're -- they don't have as --

Many people don't have as much experience with it.

And so, it's very off-putting

And it can really shut people off from the life of christ.

-It's a difficult thing.

One has to understand that the mind is finite.

This is the issue, the mind is finite.

What consciousness is all of this?

It kind of cuts off the search, in a way.

It has to do with the sense of conviction.

We know everything.

-Yes. -What do we know?

-It's also, you don't have to know anything

To practice faith.

I mean, in a way, the most ra--

The most radical thing that any of us do,

And I tell my students this all the time, is to hope.

But that's what francis teaches us to do

In that thing of trying to live moment to moment

And lean into the light wherever it comes on.

Just, no matter what you call it or what you name it, or...

Because I think people think

In order to read about the saints

Or learn about the saints,

You have to be catholic or you have to sign up.

But it's not about doctrine, is it?

It's about what you do. -That's true.

-If you look at the stories in the life of francis

That are part of the historical record,

They're so extraordinary that they would strain credulity.

So, he lives to 44.

You figure he's in his late teens or early 20s

When he has the whole conversion experience.

So, in about 20 years,

He changes his way of life radically,

Gathers several thousand people

Who have resolved to live the same way,

Somehow gains an audience with the sultan,

Has this conversation that takes things to a new place,

Gets back to Italy, and then has the stigmata.

That's so extraordinary.

That's just 20 years like nobody's ever lived.

-Plus, starting an order

That is still around today. -Yes.

-Right after the pope was elected.

A cardinal from brazil, cardinal hummes,

Uh, leaned over and said to him,

"don't forget the poor."

And then when he went out on the balcony,

He chose the name francis.

First pope ever to choose that name.

To me, it's amazing that no pope has ever been named francis.

You would think... -Because he's --

-The closest that they came to anybody acting like francis

Was celestine v.

-Who they got rid of in two weeks.

-Two weeks! -[ laughs ]

-Francis's order did build up

And he did come back

And he was a little concerned, as they say,

About the nature of what was happening.

And this sort of echoed the greater conflicts

Between worldly power, spiritual understanding,

Discipline, and freedom.

I don't know, is this because

Just so many people joined the order?

-It's natural at that time to want to, sort of,

Start a religious order, and so, religious order starts.

But francis is, as they say, the charismatic founder, right?

He's not the one to, kind of, organize the religious order,

He doesn't want to organize a religious order.

He doesn't want them to have anything.

There's a story, I think, of the little flowers

That, they start to build a house,

And he takes the tiles off the roof.

You know, francis's order

Eventually doesn't know what to do with him,

Because in a sense, it goes in a different direction.

And he, in a sense,

He's too radical to have people follow him.

But the franciscans, let me say, the franciscans are wonderful

And do their best to follow saint francis.

But you need organization.

You need rules. You need structures...

-I know. I know. -...To do anything.

-It's no surprise that he wasn't really able

To be a bureaucrat as well as being francis of assisi.

-That's the word, right? He's not francis the bureaucrat.

[ laughter ]

-I mean, you have so many saints

Who seem to be like a failure, right,

In their in their earthly lives.

Even jesus, I mean, from an earthly standpoint, right?

Apart from the resurrection,

His mission at the end seems like a failure.

So, there are a lot of saints like that,

And there are a lot of saints who start religious orders,

Who have disbanded now.

But I think god looks at failure and success a lot differently.

-I hope so. -I know so.

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