The Teacher of His Heart: Jesus Christ in the Thought and Writings of Saint Francis.

by Norbert Nguyen-Van-Khnh, O.F.M. The Franciscan Institute, $15,253 pp.

For decades, the Franciscan Institute (address:c/o Saint Bonaventure University, Saint Bonaventure, NY 14778, for a catalog and ordering information) has produced critical editions of the writings of medieval Franciscans such as William of Occam. They also publish some serious, but popularly accessible, works which treat various aspects of the Franciscan charism. Like Cistercian Publications and the Institute of Carmelite Studies, the Franciscan Institute publishes works (inexpensively!) which mine the legacy of a given religious tradition.

Father Norbert's study of the Christology of Francis would fit into the category of a book solidly built on careful research but aimed at a general audience. The writings of Francis are a melange of letters, liturgical texts, brief exhortations, rules for the religious life, glosses, and paraphrases of prayers. It is almost impossible to date the majority of them. Most come, very likely, from the last years of his life. Father Norbert had the very good idea of combing through the writings (using the lives only in an ancillary fashion) to see if he could construct a systematic and coherent picture of the Christ of Saint Francis. He had the further good idea of contextualizing that search in terms of the regnant art of the time. Curiously, however, he dwells on twelfth-century Romanesque in France instead of what I would have looked at: the Italo-Byzantine tradition of Italy, which is what Francis would have been most familiar with.

Norbert's book seeks out the various images and titles that Francis uses, sets them against the world of twelfth-century piety (especially as it comes from Bernard of Clairvaux), and then studies in detail how Francis accepted and/or enlarged the images he uses. This close analysis yields not only the range of Christological images used by Francis but some surprising insights into his religious worldview. Let me cite one specific example. Norbert notes that Francis never uses the word "Bible" or "sacred Scripture" but refers to "word of God" or "words of God" or "written words." On close analysis, the "words of God" seem to mean three things: (1) the words of eucharistic institution; (2) the words of liturgical texts; (3) the preaching of priests in church. Is it too far off the mark to suggest that Francis, who was not a conventionally learned man (he described himself as idiota--unlettered) heard the word of God, not through Bible reading, but through close attention to the liturgical and homiletical life of the church? And does it follow that that is probably the way most people heard the word in those days?

It is also interesting that Francis uses the verb administrare to speak both of the administration of the Eucharist (again, Eucharist is a word he never uses; he always refers to the "body and blood of the Lord") and the word of God to the faithful. Francis was more liturgically sophisticated than we would think at first glance.

There are so many useful things in this lovingly written book that the writings of Francis, which on the surface seem flat and conventional, need to be read in a new light. I have read and thought about the early writings of and about Francis for a long time, but books like this help me to reach deeper into the life of the Poverello and for that I am grateful.