The Admonitions of Saint Francis

The admonitions originated in the chapters, i.e., the meetings of the brothers, in which Francis participated and during which he taught. The word "admonition" comes from Latin and means "exhortation." The admonitions were probably written between 1223 and 1226. They were addressed to the brothers and were intended to instruct them on the meaning of the evangelical life described in the Rule. 

I. THE BODY OF THE LORD

1 The Lord Jesus said to his disciples: I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. 2 If you knew me, you would know my Father too; but soon you will know him, and in fact you have already seen him. 3 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." 4 Jesus answered him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (Jn.14:6-9).
5 The Father dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16); God is spirit (Jn. 4:24); no one has ever seen God (Jn. 1:18). 6 Since God is spirit, we can only see him through the spirit, for it is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail (Jn. 6:64). 7 The same is true of the Son: since he is equal to the Father, he cannot be seen except as the Father, except through the Spirit. 8 That is why all those who once saw only the man in the Lord Jesus Christ, without seeing or believing, according to the Spirit and according to God, that he is truly the Son of God, were damned. 9 Likewise, all those who today resemble them are damned: they see, in the form of bread and wine, the sacrament of the Body of Christ, consecrated on the altar by the hands of the priest through the words of the Lord; but they do not see or believe, according to the Spirit and according to God, that these are truly the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 as testified by the Most High himself, who says: "This is my Body, and the Blood of the New Covenant, which will be poured out for many" (Mk. 14:22-24), and again: 11 "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" (Jn. 6:55). 12 The Spirit of the Lord: he dwells in those who believe in him; it is therefore he who receives the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord. 13 All others, those who have no part in this Spirit, if they have the audacity to receive the Lord, eat and drink their own condemnation (1 Cor. 11:29). 14 O fleshly race, how long will you have such a hard heart (Ps. 4:3)? 15 Why not acknowledge the truth? Why not believe in the Son of God? 16 See: every day he humbles himself, just as when, leaving his royal palace (Wis. 18:15), he became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin; 17 every day it is he himself who comes to us, and in the most humble appearance; 18 every day he descends from the bosom of the Father onto the altar into the hands of the priest. 19 And just as he once appeared to the holy apostles in real flesh, so now he shows himself to our eyes in sacred bread. 20 When the apostles looked at him with their physical eyes, they saw only his flesh, but they contemplated him with the eyes of the spirit and believed that he was God. 21 We too, when we see bread and wine with our physical eyes, should know how to see and believe firmly that this is the real and living Body and Blood of the Lord. 22 This is indeed the means he has chosen to remain always with those who believe in him, as he himself said: I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20).

II. THE SIN OF FREE WILL

1 The Lord said to Adam: "You may eat the fruit of all the trees, but do not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:16-17). 2 Adam therefore had the right to eat the fruit of all the trees in Paradise; as long as he remained obedient, he was without sin. 3 To eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good means to appropriate one's will, to proudly attribute to oneself the good that one does, when in reality it is the Lord in us who accomplishes it in words or deeds. 4 But we prefer to listen to the insinuations of the devil, we break the prohibition; then the fruit of the knowledge of good is transformed into the fruit of the knowledge of evil, 5 and we must suffer the punishment.

III. PERFECT OBEDIENCE AND IMPERFECT OBEDIENCE

1 The Lord says in the Gospel: Whoever does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple (Lk. 14:33); 2 and again: Whoever wants to save his soul must lose it (Lk. 9:24). 3 How can we give up everything we have? How can we lose our body and soul? By surrendering ourselves entirely to obedience in the hands of our superior. 4 Everything a subject does and says is an act of true obedience on two conditions: on the one hand, that it is objectively a good action; on the other hand, that we are sure not to go against the will of our superior. 5 A subject sometimes feels that another course of action would be better and more useful for his soul than the one imposed on him: let him sacrifice his plan to God and set about carrying out that of his superior instead. 6 This is true obedience, which is also love: it pleases both God and one's neighbor. 7 But if the superior gave an order contrary to the salvation of our soul, we should refuse to obey him, without however breaking with him or leaving him. 8 If we were to incur the persecution of some because of this attitude, we should only love them more, for the love of God, 9 for he who, far from divorcing himself from his brothers, prefers to endure their hostility, remains in perfect obedience: the obedience that goes so far as to give one's life for one's brothers (Jn. 15:13). 10 Unfortunately, many religious imagine that they have discovered something better to do than what their superiors command; they look back (Lk. 9:62) and return to their vomit (Pr. 26:11), that is, to their own will. 11 They are murderers, for their bad examples sow death in many souls.

IV. NOT TAKING ON RESPONSIBILITIES

1 "I did not come to be served, but to serve," says the Lord (Matthew 20:28). 2 When one has been given authority over others, one should not take more glory from it than if one were assigned to wash their feet. 3 To be more distraught at losing a position of superiority than at losing the job of washing feet is to amass, like Judas, a fraudulent treasure (Jn. 12:6) at the risk of one's soul; and the greater the turmoil, the more guilty the avarice.

V. DO NOT BE PROUD, BUT PLACE YOUR PRIDE IN THE CROSS OF THE LORD

1 "Consider, O man, the degree of perfection to which the Lord has raised you: he has created and formed your body in the image of the body of his beloved Son, and your spirit in the likeness of his spirit" (Gen. 1:26). 2 And yet, all creatures under heaven serve their creator better than you do; they know him and obey him better than you do, each according to its nature. 3 Worse still, it was not the demons who crucified him: it was you who, together with them, crucified him and continue to crucify him by taking pleasure in vice and sin. 4 What, then, can you boast about?
5 Even if you had so much insight and wisdom that no science would hold any secrets for you; even if you knew how to interpret all languages and scrutinize divine mysteries with remarkable subtlety, you can derive no glory from any of this. 6 The first of the demons once penetrated much deeper into the mysteries of God, and even now knows the earthly universe better than all men combined (including the one who received from the Lord the special grace of the highest wisdom). 7 Likewise, even if you were the most handsome and richest of men, and even if you performed miracles to the point of casting out demons, all this could turn against you; you have nothing to do with it, and there is nothing in it from which you can derive glory. 8 But what we can derive glory from is our weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:5). It is our daily share in the holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

VI. IMITATING THE LORD

1 Consider, brothers, the good Shepherd: to save his sheep, he suffered the Passion and the Cross. 2 Following him, the Lord's sheep walked through suffering, persecution, humiliation, hunger, sickness, temptation, and all kinds of trials. In return, they received eternal life from the Lord. 3 We, the servants of God, should be ashamed. For the saints acted; we recount what they did, in order to gain honor and glory for ourselves.

VII. KNOWING, BUT TO ACT BETTER

1 The Apostle says, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6). 2 The letter kills those whose curiosity stops at the words of the text; what they want is to appear more knowledgeable than others, and thus be able to acquire great riches from which their relatives and friends will benefit. 3 The letter kills religious people who do not want to delve deeper into the spirit of Holy Scripture, but prefer to stick solely to the knowledge and commentary of words. 4 The spirit of Holy Scripture gives life to those who do not attribute the knowledge they possess or desire to possess to their own personal worth, but who, by word and example, pay homage to the Most High Lord God, to whom all good things belong.

VIII. AVOIDING THE SIN OF ENVY

1 "Without the help of the Holy Spirit," says the Apostle, "no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord' (1 Cor. 12:3)"; 2 "without the help of the Holy Spirit, no one, not a single person, is capable of doing good" (Rom. 3:12). 3 That is why anyone who is jealous of one of his brothers through whom the Lord speaks and does good commits a true blasphemy: his jealousy is directed at the Most High himself, since it is from God alone that every good word and every good deed derives.

IX. LOVE OF ENEMIES

1 "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44), says the Lord. 2 To truly love one's enemy is first of all not to grieve over the wrongs one has suffered oneself; 3 it is to feel painfully, but as an offense against the love of God, the sin that the other has committed; 4 and it is to prove to the latter, by one's actions, that one still loves him.

X. REPRESSING SELFISH TENDENCIES

1 Have we committed a sin? It is the devil's fault! Have we suffered an injustice? It is our neighbor's fault! Such is the attitude of many Christians. 2 But we must not blame others: each of us has the enemy at our disposal, the enemy being selfishness, which causes us to fall into sin.
3 Blessed, then, is the servant who keeps this enemy, delivered into his hands, forever chained and wisely guards himself against him: 4 as long as he does so, no other enemy, visible or invisible, can harm him.

XI. NOT TO BE DEVASTATED BY THE SINS OF OTHERS

1 A servant of God should feel repulsion for nothing except sin. 2 And even in this case, however great the sin committed, the servant of God may be affected in his love for God who has been offended, but he must never lose his peace of mind or become angry: in doing so, he would unjustly assume a right that belongs only to God: to judge a fault.
3 The servant of God who remains untouched by anger and turmoil in his dealings with others leads a life in accordance with his vocation, free from all selfish attachments. 4 Blessed is he who claims nothing for himself, who renders unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's (Mt. 22:21).

XII. HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD

1 Here is how to recognize that a servant of God possesses the Spirit of the Lord: 2 when the Lord works some good through him, the "flesh" of the servant of God does not become proud, for the flesh is always opposed to all good; 3 on the contrary, he despises himself all the more and judges himself more unworthy than all other men.

XIII. PATIENCE

1 Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be called sons of God (Mt. 5:9). How much patience and humility a servant of God possesses cannot be known as long as everything goes according to his desires. 2 But when the time comes when those who should respect his will begin to challenge it, the patience and humility he shows is exactly what he possesses, and nothing more.

XIV. THE SPIRIT OF POVERTY

1 Blessed are those who have the spirit of poverty, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them (Mt. 5:3). 2 There are many who are fond of prayers and services, and who inflict frequent mortifications and abstinence on their bodies. 3 But for a word that seems to them an affront or an injustice to their dear "self," or for this or that object that is taken away from them, they are immediately scandalized and lose the peace of their soul. 4 Such people do not have the true spirit of poverty: for those who have the true spirit of poverty hate themselves and cherish those who strike them on the cheek (Mt. 5:39).

XV. PEACE OF SOUL

1 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Mt. 5:9). 2 Truly peaceful are those who, despite all they have to suffer in this world, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, keep peace in their souls and bodies.

XVI. PURITY OF HEART

1 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt. 5:8). 2 Truly pure in heart are those who despise earthly goods, seek heavenly goods, and, thus purified of all attachment of soul and heart, never cease to worship and see nothing else but the living and true Lord God.

XVII. THE HUMILITY OF THE SERVANT OF GOD

1 Blessed is the servant who does not glory more in the good that the Lord says and works through him than in the good that the Lord says and works through another. 2 We sin when we want to receive more from our neighbor than we are willing to give of ourselves to the Lord God.

XVIII. COMPASSION FOR ONE'S NEIGHBOR

1 Blessed is the man who, within the limits of his own weakness, supports his neighbor as much as he would like to be supported by him in a similar case.

XIX. RETURN ALL GOOD TO THE LORD

 

1 Blessed is the servant who pays homage to the Lord with all his goods. On the contrary, he who claims a share for himself hides the Lord God's money deep within himself (Mt. 25:18), and what he thought he possessed will be taken away from him (Lk. 8:18).

XX. HUMILITY DESPITE PRAISE AND HONORS

1 Blessed is the servant who, when praised and honored, does not consider himself better than when treated as a man of no importance, simple and despicable. 2 For as much as a man is worth before God, so much is he worth in reality, no more.

3 Woe to the religious who, called by his brothers to high office, then refuses to step down of his own accord. 4 Blessed is the servant who, called against his will to high office, has no other ambition than to serve others and to humble himself beneath their feet.

XXI. TRUE AND FALSE JOY

1 Blessed is the religious who takes pleasure and joy only in all that the Lord has done, 2 and who uses it to lead men to the love of God with all joy. 3 Woe to the religious who takes pleasure in light and frivolous stories, and who uses them solely to provoke hilarity.

XXII. LIGHTHEARTEDNESS AND CHATTER

1 Blessed is the servant who does not speak to show off, who does not flaunt his worth and who is not always eager to speak (Pr. 29:20), but who expresses himself and responds with wisdom and reflection. 2 Woe to the religious who, instead of keeping in his heart the graces with which the Lord has favored him, and instead of sharing them with others through his actions, hastens to display them in speech before men in order to show off. 3 He obtains the petty reward he coveted, but those who listen to him reap little benefit.

XXIII. ACCEPTANCE OF REPROACH

1 Blessed is the servant who bears with as much patience as if he were inflicting them on himself the warnings, accusations, and rebukes inflicted by others.
2 Blessed is the servant who, when rebuked, readily acknowledges his faults, willingly yields, humbly confesses, and willingly makes amends.
3 Blessed is the servant who is not quick to excuse himself, and who humbly bears the shame of being reprimanded for a fault he did not commit.

XXIV. TRUE HUMILITY

1 Blessed is he who is found as humble among his subjects as he would be among his superiors. 2 Blessed is the servant who is always ready to accept criticism and punishment. 3 Faithful and prudent servant (Mt. 24:45), he who, whenever he has offended another, does not delay in making amends: inwardly through regret, outwardly through confession of his fault and through concrete acts of reparation.

XXV. BROTHERLY LOVE

1 Blessed is he who loves a sick brother who is unable to serve him as much as he loves a healthy brother who can be useful to him. 2 Blessed is he who loves and respects his brother as much when he is far from him as when he is with him, and who would not say behind his brother's back what he could not say to his face in all charity.

XXVI. THAT THE SERVANTS OF GOD HONOR THE CLERICS

1 Blessed is the servant who gives his faith to clerics who live in accordance with the teachings and institutions of the Holy Roman Church. 2 And woe to those who despise them: no one has the right to judge clerics, even sinners; it is the Lord who reserves the right to judge them himself and he alone. 3 For they are the ministers of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; therefore, just as their ministry surpasses other ministries, 4 so too does a fault against them surpass in gravity a fault against any other faithful person in this world.

XXVII. ON THE VIRTUE THAT PUTS VICE TO FLIGHT

1 Where charity and wisdom reign, there is neither fear nor ignorance
. 2 Where patience and humility reign, there is neither anger nor turmoil.
3 Where poverty and joy reign, there is neither greed nor avarice.
4 Where inner peace and meditation reign, there is neither desire for change nor dissipation.
5 Where there is fear of the Lord to guard the house (Lk. 11:21), the enemy can find no breach to enter.
6 Where there is mercy and discernment, there is neither superfluous luxury nor hardness of heart.

XXVIII. DISCREETNESS ABOUT GOD'S GRACES, FOR FEAR OF LOSING THEM

1 Blessed is the servant who stores up in heaven (Mt. 6:20) the treasure of graces that the Lord offers him and who does not seek to show them to men in order to make himself appear important; 2 for it is the Most High himself who will reveal his own works to whom he pleases. 3 Blessed is the servant who keeps the secrets of the Lord in his heart.