Jesus exhorts us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, committing ourselves to enter through the narrow door, which leads to the Kingdom.
These themes are recurrent in the Franciscan Sources.
After his conversion, the son of Peter Bernardone took great care to "strive to enter through the narrow gate" recommended by Jesus.
In fact, in what we call the "Writings of Francis" [mostly dictated to some friar who became his secretary] his firm adherence to the Gospel emerges clearly.
In the Regola non bollata (1221) we find, among the exhortations addressed to his brothers:
"And let them strive to enter through the narrow gate, for the Lord says: Narrow is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life; and there are few who find it" (FF 37).
And well aware of the evangelical requirement of humility and minority in order to enter the Kingdom of heaven, he responded to his own as to who should be considered a true friar minor:
"Take a dead body," he said, "and put it wherever you like. And you will see that if you move it, it will not object: if you drop it, it will not protest. If you put it on a chair, it will not look up, but down. If you put a purple robe on him, he will look doubly pale. This is the true obedient one: he who does not judge why they move him; he does not care where he is assigned; he does not insist on being transferred; elected to an office, he maintains his usual humility; the more he is honoured, the more he considers himself unworthy' (FF 1107).
And Clare was no less!
In her Testament left to the sisters we read:
"But because narrow is the way and the path, and narrow is the gate by which one sets out and enters into life, few are those who tread it and enter it; and if there are those who walk in it for a little while, very few persevere in it. Blessed, however, are those to whom it is granted to walk this way and persevere in it to the end" (FF 2850).
And in the Legend:
"From then on, she no longer refused any servile duties, to the point that, for the most part, it was she who poured water on her sisters' hands, stood to assist them while they sat, and served them at table while they ate" (FF 3180).
Yea, the last shall be first in the Kingdom of God!
And what we wish to be done to us is what we gratuitously have to do to others in order to enter the narrow way, thus living the Word.
In this regard, what Francis writes in his eloquent Admonitions is symptomatic.
In short: 'Do you want the door of the Kingdom to be opened for you? Love your sick brother and do not say in his absence what you would not say in his presence'.
This is as much as we would wish for ourselves and therefore also applies to our neighbour.
"Blessed is the servant who is so willing to love his brother when he is sick, and therefore cannot return his service to him, as he loves him when he is healthy, and can return it to him" (FF 174).
"Blessed is the servant who would so love and fear his brother when he is far from him, as if he were beside him, and would say nothing behind his back that with charity he could not say in his presence" (FF 175).
"Therefore, whatever you would have men do to you, so also do you to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate [...]" (Mt 7:12-13).
Tuesday of the 12th wk. in O.T. (Mt 7,6.12-14)
