Admirable text, brief but faithful to the Franciscan spirit in that it goes to the point. François Cheng conveys in simple and beautiful words his passion for the holy that elected and he chose the name: First, his intuition of Assisi as a privileged place, its "place"; and then a slow impregnation, over travel, meditations in Saint Damien, the Portiuncula, the caves of Carneri. François Cheng does not like the sweetened and Gentillet images we sometimes gives the saint, far removed images of the radicalism of his commitment as his appetite for life. It is the "Great Living" he says. The double culture of the author flush constantly and discreetly, whether Chinese geomancy (feng shui) or tradition wise hermits fled to the mountains or to the dialectic of emptiness and fullness to which François Cheng has also devoted some fine pages. Francis of Assisi is the greatest saint of the Western tradition, the most universal as well. In the late Middle Ages, in a true faithful recapitulation in the evangelical spirit, it makes provision for the ages to come because soon will come the great schism of the West, then the corrupt papacies and reform and fratricidal rifts Christendom who will deliver modernity. François Cheng may have seen the need for models for our time, found the need for simplicity, frugality given to the nature and open to the poor, an attitude of gratitude towards the Creator and a praise to his creation (the opposite of nihilism). All things beautifully embodied Francis of Assisi.
