One of the advantages that the Via di Francesco has over the Cammino di San Benedetto is the available source material related to its titular saint. There’s just a ton more to work with in the traditions surrounding Francis than Benedict. The dude also, it has to be said, got around. While Benedict didn’t move in a purely straight line, his story centers on three main places–Norcia, Subiaco, and Montecassino. To describe the other towns along the route as “filler” would be uncharitable and misleading, but from a narrative perspective they don’t add a ton to the story of Benedict. By contrast, my best comparison point for this walk on the Francesco, especially now that I’ve advanced beyond Rieti, is to the abundance of Jesus sites when I walked from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Every stone, it seemed, had biblical implications. Here, meanwhile, it seems like Francis cherished every tree, prayed in every cave, left a legacy behind in every church.
Pilgrims on the Via di Francesco face a difficult position if they’re heading north from Rieti, as there are two route options, each leading past two of the four major Franciscan shrines in the Rieti valley. In my case, though, I already visited two of them when I walked the Cammino di San Benedetto, as it led me through La Foresta, which is very close to Mauro’s home outside of Rieti, and then onward to Poggio Bustone, where the fourth sanctuary is located.
The former, La Foresta, was in Francis’s day the Church of San Fabiano, and in 1225 or 1226 Francis spent some time there, trying to get an eye problem resolved. By that point in his life, Francis drew attention wherever he went, and a flock of followers swelled around this peaceful little nook in the hills. Mauro related this classic account with gusto. “There was a small vineyard where the priest produced the wine needed for the host,” he explained. Indeed, even today a small set of vines stands outside the sanctuary. However, those crowds fell upon the grapes for sustenance, and the harried priest soon turned to Francis in despair. “It will be fine,” Francis replied. Disinclined to argue with the great man, the priest accepted the statement and turned away, and yet remained unsettled. The days passed by, and the grapes continued to be plucked from the vines, and an even more alarmed priest returned to Francis. “It will be fine,” he reasserted. In a “with all due respect…” kind of situation, the priest responded with “that’s easy for you to say, but I will be left without the wine required for the year ahead.” Francis asked how much wine was typically produced on an annual basis; the priest replied that it tended to be around 10 to 12 barrels. “Fine,” Francis answered, “this year you shall have twenty.” And indeed, twenty barrels were ultimately produced, a record year, despite vines seemingly picked clean by the voracious crowds. The priest, suddenly ten pounds lighter, buoyantly returned to Francis to confirm the great man’s prediction, the miracle that had occurred. “Indeed,” Francis affirmed,” but the important point here is this: the miracle is not the wine. The miracle is that all of these people have come together here, in shared faith, as a community. That is the miracle.” Today, a community still exists at La Foresta, though its focus has shifted slightly. A group known as Mondo X inhabits the sanctuary, devoted to providing a space for young men recovering from drug and alcohol addiction to get clean and find their direction in life.
There are two stories linked to the sanctuary in Poggio Bustone and, for me at least, the most commonly spotlighted is a little more opaque. Saint Francis, it is said, declared “Buon giorno, buona gente!” to the townspeople, not merely as a greeting, but also as a revelation, to help them to discover their own inner goodness, to discover a sense of value and self-worth. The story of the archangel’s visitation to Francis in the cave of Santo Speco above the sanctuary is more memorable to me, and it’s one that I featured in my discussion of pilgrimage and reconciliation at the Victoria Camino spring gathering.
Here’s how it goes: In 1208, two years after Francis had his profound transformation, he had already drawn some followers from around Assisi, and they had committed a number of good acts, including the rebuilding of churches–as he had been commanded to do at San Damiano. But he also carried a significant amount of guilt resulting from his earlier life, and his recognition of how he must have disappointed God with his poor behavior. Francis had confessed all of those actions, of course, and performed appropriate penance, and thus completed the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in name at least. And yet the guilt remained almost overwhelming. It weighed heavily upon his shoulders. Francis and his followers traveled to Poggio Bustone, and all the while he played the part of the self-assured leader, encouraging his colleagues to do good work. Internally, though, he remained troubled, and so he sought seclusion, taking refuge in a cave overlooking the town, and proceeded to pray for insight. That night, a miracle happened–the archangel Gabriel visited Francis. The angel explained that Francis’s perseveration over those guilty memories had immersed him in darkness, causing him to turn inward and away from the world he was otherwise endeavoring to serve. And then Gabriel finally helped Francis to understand–he had indeed been well and truly forgiven; his guilt had been absolved. Only then was Francis genuinely at peace and freed to commit himself wholeheartedly to his mission.
So, before I set off from Rieti, the geographical center of Italy, I had already hit each of those Franciscan sanctuaries. It wouldn’t take long to visit a third, following the alternative route along the river out of Rieti, and then skirting the valley along a series of gentle hills. A lovely ascent along a wooded trail brought me past the Fonte Colombo itself, a muddy trickle at a bend in the trail, before arriving at the sanctuary. Mass had just started, so I sat outside the church, listening to the song and service within for a few minutes, thinking about how Francis might have similarly experienced Mass through sound alone, as this is where he ultimately underwent eye surgery. The site is also consequential because in 1223 he spent forty days in a cave here, also known as the Santo Speco, after which he authored the Regula Bullata. While he had previously published a rule for the Franciscan order, the Regula Prima, it lacked official papal recognition and, like many a first draft, benefited from another coat of polish. The Regula Bullata guided the order moving forward.
The Via di Francesco continued to wind along the valley’s edge after Fonte Colombo, a reminder that in Francis’s time the Rieti Valley was a malarial bog. People established towns in the hills for their defensive value, of course, but solid ground is worth valuing in its own right. And in the absence of solid ground, you make do with what you have, even if it’s a cliff face, as in the case of Greccio, the most famous of the Franciscan sites in this area. It’s a stunning sight; while the walk to Poggio Bustone is certainly superior to this variant, it would have been hard to miss this sanctuary.
Francis also held it in high regard. He first visited the shrine in 1209, finding much to appreciate in the virtuous friars and their dedication to humble prayer. Every reference to the place underscores the poverty of the friars and the local inhabitants alike, one of the foremost virtues in the mind of Francis. Greccio is best known for being the site of the first live nativity scene. It’s a wild thing to consider. We’re told by the historian Thomas of Celano that “the humility of the Incarnation and the charity of the Passion occup[ied]” Francis’s memory so thoroughly that “he scarcely wanted to think of anything else.” As with his views on poverty, the scene of Jesus, child of God, being born in a manger, on the same straw used by livestock, moved Francis profoundly because of the absolute, incorruptible sense of humility that pervaded every part of it. Text only goes so far, though. He needed to see it with his own eyes. And so, in 1223, he recruited help in Greccio to stage the whole scene, including an ox and a donkey. As Francis explained, “I wish to enact the memory of the babe who was born in Bethlehem: to see as much as is possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he rested on hay.”
Francis was not disappointed. Again, Thomas of Celano tells us, “The holy man of God stands before the manger, filled with heartfelt sighs, contrite in his piety, and overcome with wondrous joy.” As Francis turned to preach to the assembled audience, his passion and earnestness infused every statement, to a level that–in my distant perspective–borders on the awkward: “Then he preaches to the people standing around him and pours sweet honey about the birth of the poor King and the poor city of Bethlehem… Saying the word Bethlehem in the manner of a bleating sheep, he fills his whole mouth with sound… He seems to lick his lips whenever he uses the expressions ‘Jesus’ or ‘babe from Bethlehem,’ tasting the word on his happy palate and savoring the sweetness of the word.”
I’m still new to Francis, all things considered, but one of the overarching qualities that quickly emerges when reading about his life is the consistency. Following his conversion, he exemplified this earnest, genuine love of Jesus, combined with an unceasing continuity between what he preached about poverty and humility and his own actions. He walked the talk, and as I walk his walk, it’s easy to find him to be an admirable fellow.
The departure from Greccio also involves a departure from the Rieti Valley, not to mention the region of Lazio. A steep, relentless ascent leads high into the hills, crossing into Umbria, and finally descending to my destination for the night, Stroncone. The priest instructed me to visit the bar in the Piazza della Liberta, where the barista would call a parish community member to guide me to the hostel. It was perfect clockwork, and ten minutes later I was showering in the shiny new pilgrim lodging–one bed filled, the other ten vacant.
