Audite Poverelle

¹Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord,
who have come together from many parts and provinces.

²Live always in truth,
that you may die in obedience.

³Do not look at the life without,
for that of the Spirit is better.

⁴I beg you out of great love,
to use with discernment
the alms the Lord gives you.

⁵Those weighed down by sickness
and the others wearied because of them,
all of you: bear it in peace.

⁶For you will sell this fatigue at a very high price
and each one will be crowned queen
in heaven with the Virgin Mary.

While Francis, close to death, was staying in the garden of San Damiano (the very same garden of the Sisters that found him overrun by mice during the night), Francis writes two extremely important lauds, or praises: the Canticle of the Creatures, and the Audite Poverelle. Together with the Prayer before the Crucifix, these comprise some of the very earliest works in Italian, albeit in an Umbrian dialect. The Canticle of Exhortation for the Ladies of San Damiano as it is called in English, was written in the Fall before his death at a time when both Francis and Clare were in grave illness.

In the collection of memories which is called the Assisi Compilation, there are a number of episodes which appear for the first time. Section 85 records, “blessed Francis,” “always moved to piety for [the Poor Ladies]”, “after he composed the Praises of the Lord for his creatures, also composed some holy words with chant for the greater consolation of the Poor Ladies of the Monastery of San Damiano. He did this especially because he knew how much his illness troubled them.”

At the end of his life, Francis calls the Poor Ladies by a new name, “Poverelle”. With great affection and esteem he gives this name to describe not a financial crisis, but an existential status. They have taken on all of the aspects of the Virgin Mary who with Christ chose this precious poverty as Clare will later write in that very important chapter eight of her Rule:

¹Let the sisters not appropriate anything to themselves, neither a house nor a place nor anything at all;^{* 2}instead, as pilgrims and strangers in this world who serve the Lord in poverty and humility, let them confidently send for alms. ³Nor should they be ashamed, since the Lord made Himself poor in this world for us. ⁴This is that summit of the highest poverty which has established you, my dearest sisters, heiresses and queens of the kingdom of heaven; it has made you poor in things but exalted you in virtue. ⁵Let this be your portion which leads into the land of the living. ⁶Clinging totally to this, my most beloved sisters, do not wish to have anything else in perpetuity under heaven for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and His most holy mother.

As for the Audite Poverelle, of which we celebrate it’s 800^th anniversary, the text unfortunately has been all but lost all but the last fifty of these eight centuries. It was happily tracked down in 1976 and made known a year later. The text has been further authenticated as truly by our holy father Francis of Assisi.

In it Francis presents a mirror to the poor ladies in which to reflect their own faces, in memory of Him who was the first called by the Father to fulfill—by assuming human nature—the promise of Adam’s salvation; a mirror of Him who revealed Himself as Truth and was obedient to the Father’s will even unto death on the cross; Him who gives us the Spirit so that we may live in the Spirit; Him who did not spare Himself, in order to make us rich through His poverty; Him who took our sufferings upon Himself, bore our sorrows, and is patience itself; a mirror of Him who desires to crown us with glory and honor.

May our hearts ever be attentive to that Eternal Word spoken into this world, grateful to be taken out of our darkness into His own marvelous light.