CONCLUSION

It can be difficult for moderns, living in a skeptical world where almost everything can be explained by science, to understand the medieval notion of sanctity, of miracles, and of the supernatural, at least among non-Catholics. Why indeed would not bathing for years, wearing hair shirts and scourging the flesh until the body was abscessed and oozing, eating fetid scraps, or kissing the decaying lips of a leper be particularly “holy” behavior? Why would anyone believe accounts of someone resisting the torments of demons, when there are no demons, and pronounce that man or woman holy? And if there are no miracles, how can they be proof of sainthood? It is difficult for most people living today to enter into a past world where the supernatural was vividly real; where scourging oneself reflected the humility and suffering of Christ and a willingness to assume burdens for his and for others’ behalf; where everything that was, was a sign of God or some sacred truth of his; and where miracles were ever-present signs of a voice interceding for salvation with God.

Perhaps what makes Francis so charismatic, so enduring, and so far-reaching today is that anyone can understand what made him a saint. It was not just his mortifications of the flesh that made him holy, it was also the love and humility that compelled him to spare others’ sufferings, to offer every little thing he had to someone poorer. It was not just his belief in the omnipresent supernatural forces of good and evil, of the signs and symbols of God’s work in the natural world, it was also his appreciation of the natural as beautiful and intrinsically worthwhile, and of man’s humble place in both the natural and the supernatural spheres. And it was not just the miracles performed by him and through his name that made him so revered through the ages, but the manifest goodness, profound faith, joyousness, and true charity of his life that enabled and still enable him to touch believers and skeptics alike, making followers of them all. He remains for many the best exemplar of true Christianity who ever lived, after Christ himself.