Keep nothing for yourselves, that he may receive you without reserve, who has given himself to you without reserve.
We see with what vigor of love Francis's heart had laid hold upon the idea of the communion.
He closes with long counsels to the Brothers, and after having conjured them faithfully to keep their promises, all his mysticism breathes out and is summed up in a prayer of admirable simplicity.
God Almighty, eternal, righteous, and merciful, give to us poor wretches to do for thy sake all that we know of thy will, and to will always what pleases thee; so that inwardly purified, enlightened, and kindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may follow in the footprints of thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
What separates this prayer from the effort to discern duty made by choice spirits apart from all revealed religion?
Very little in truth; the words are different, the action is the same.
But Francis's solicitudes reached far beyond the limits of the Order.
His longest epistle is addressed to all Christians; its words are so living that you fancy you hear a voice speaking behind you; and this voice, usually as serene as that which from the mountain in Galilee proclaimed the law of the new times, becomes here and there unutterably sweet, like that which sounded in the upper chamber on the night of the first eucharist.
As Jesus forgot the cross that was standing in the shadows, so Francis forgets his sufferings, and, overcome with a divine sadness, thinks of humanity, for each member of which he would give his life; he thinks of his spiritual sons, the Brothers of Penitence, whom he is about to leave without having been able to make them feel, as he would have had them feel, the love for them with which he burns: "Father, I have given them the words which thou hast given me....

For them I pray!" The whole Franciscan gospel is in these words, but to understand the fascination which it exerted we must have gone through the School of the Middle Ages, and there listened to the interminable tournaments of dialectics by which minds were dried up; we must have seen the Church of the thirteenth century, honeycombed by simony and luxury, and only able, under the pressure of heresy or revolt, to make a few futile efforts to scotch the evil.
To all Christians, monks, clerics, or laymen, whether men or women, to all who dwell in the whole world, Brother Francis, their most submissive servitor, presents his duty and wishes the true peace of heaven, and sincere love in the Lord.
Being the servitor of all men, I am bound to serve them and to dispense to them the wholesome words of my Master.

This is why, seeing I am too weak and ill to visit each one of you in particular, I have resolved to send you my message by this letter, and to offer you the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and of the Holy Spirit, which are spirit and life.
It would be puerile to expect here new ideas either in fact or form.
Francis's appeals are of value only by the spirit which animates them.
After having briefly recalled the chief features of the gospel, and urgently recommended the communion, Francis addresses himself in particular to certain categories of hearers, with special counsels.
Let the podestas, governors, and those who are placed in authority, exercise their functions with mercy, as they would be judged with mercy by God....
Monks in particular, who have renounced the world, are bound to do more and better than simple Christians, to renounce all that is not necessary to them, and to have in hatred the vices and sins of the body....

They should love their enemies, do good to them who hate them, observe the precepts and counsels of our Redeemer, renounce themselves, and subdue their bodies.

And no monk is bound to obedience, if in obeying he would be obliged to commit a fault or a sin....
Let us not be wise and learned according to the flesh, but simple, humble, and pure....