Monaldo’s Vision

THE EARLIEST documentary reference to St Anthony that we have – written while he was still alive – is found in Thomas of Celano’s first Life of St Francis. The focus of the incident is in fact not Anthony himself, but a vision of Francis seen by a certain Brother Monaldo during a Provincial Chapter. Celano notes in passing that “Brother Anthony was also present at the Chapter,” and he describes him as one “whose mind the Lord opened that he might understand the Scriptures and speak among all the people words about Jesus that were sweeter than syrup or honey from the comb.”





Sermons on the Passion





Our Saint’s profound Scriptural learning and his marvellous preaching ability are summed up in these few words. To understand the word of God in the Bible, and to communicate it to others in such a way as to inspire them to conversion and newness of life: those should be the ambition of every preacher.



Celano further notes that on this occasion Anthony was preaching on the text, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews – that is to say, on the inscription which Pontius Pilate had attached to the Cross. We can easily conclude that the theme of the sermon was the Kingship of Christ, a Kingship that was gained by the suffering and death of the Cross. These were themes very dear to Francis himself, who early in his religious life described himself as “the herald of the Great King,” and who towards the end of his life asked nothing of the Lord but to experience something of the mystery of the Cross.





Parallel events





Although Celano does not say just where the Chapter was held, Saint Bonaventure says that it took place at Arles. At the time in question, Ministers Provincial had the right to summon a Chapter in the autumn following a General Chapter. This means we can probably date it to around the Feast of St Michael (September 29) in the year 1224. At the Pentecost Chapter that year Anthony had probably received his commission to serve as Custos at Limoges, and John of Florence, the Minister of Provence, may well have asked such a distinguished preacher to address his Chapter while on the way to his new assignation.



As we all know, on September 17, 1224, Saint Francis received the Stigmata on Mount La Verna. He remained on the holy mountain until the day following the Feast of St Michael. Monaldo’s vision of Francis raised up with arms extended in the form of a cross would therefore have been a sight of the newly stigmatised Founder. Bonaventure explicitly makes a connection between Anthony’s sermon on the Cross, and the Cross given to Francis.





Images of the Cross





The Passion and Cross of our Lord were regular themes of Anthony’s preaching. In his commentary on the Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent, he says that Jesus casts out the devil from sinners (that is, he frees them from the evil power that enslaves them) by His love and by His passion. “Because of the exceeding love with which he loved us, he delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.”



Again, on Palm Sunday he takes the text: “Go up into Galaad and take balm” (Jeremiah 46.11). He explains that Galaad (meaning ‘the heap of witness’) stands for “the Cross of Jesus Christ, in which many witnesses are heaped up: to whit, the nails and the lance, the gall, vinegar and the crown of thorns.” From the Cross we should take balm, the precious resin which is “the most precious Blood, which flows from that tree planted in the paradise of delight... for the reconciliation of the human race.” “O soul,” he goes on, “take to yourself this balm, and anoint your wounds: for this is the best and most efficacious of all medicines...”



Again and again Anthony refers to the Cross. It is the ladder whereby we ascend to heaven, the grill on which the divine fish (an ancient symbol of Christ) was roasted, the hook wherewith He pulls us out of the pit, the shield with which He defends us, the standard held up by His preachers, the mousetrap with which He caught the devil, the winepress from which the wine of His Blood was pressed out, and so on.





The cleft rock





The very abundance of the images Anthony uses indicates the centrality and the richness of this theme for his preaching and spirituality. It is, quite literally, the crux, the crucial point in God’s dealings with the human race. Could the Love of God for us be expressed more fully than by His being willing to undergo not just death, but the most agonising death, for our sakes? Can we imagine that He will easily let any of us be lost, unless we are absolutely determined to reject Him?



“Because of the exceeding love with which He loved us, He delivered himself for us.” Nowadays we express this amazing love by the image of the Sacred Heart. The Heart of Jesus, pierced by the spear, is for Anthony the ‘cleft rock’ in which the sinner can hide and take refuge; “Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee,” as a much later hymn-writer has put it. The truly penitent, says Anthony, “love everyone in the Heart of Jesus Christ.”



A sermon attributed to Anthony (but which is not in his certain writings) is at least wholly in accord with his spirit. Speaking of the Cross, he says, “There were, indeed, in his body numberless wounds, and one deep wound in his side; this leads to his Heart, and it is hither he calls the soul he has espoused. To her he extends his arms, to her he opens wide his sacred side and divine Heart, that she may come and hide therein.” He goes on, “But the religious soul must not stay at the entrance. When she has heard, and understood, the voice of the divine blood, she must hasten to the very source from which it springs, into the very innermost sanctuary of the Heart of Jesus. There she will find light, peace, and ineffable consolations.”