i always tend to accumulate too many books, and to spend a lot of time reading. therefore i have often felt guilty when i read of francis's contempt for books. (you know francis: he's the minimalist saint that all of us who have far too much junk around our houses enshrine as a bird bath, the anti-book dude whom i nevertheless learn about in books.) so. i was very happy to discover dominic, who was also barefooted and poor, but who encouraged his brothers to stay up as late as they wanted to, reading. he had the novel idea that it would be better to talk to--the post-modern wording would be conversation with, heretics and non-believers than to turn them or run swords through them,
off he went to rome, to pitch his idea to honorius iii, bishop of rome. the pope gave him the grand tour, showing him the accumulated riches of the papacy, and bragging that no longer would peter have to say to the lame man, "silver and gold have i none." but neither, replied dominic, can he now say, "rise up and walk."
i love that story, and i have tried to remember it as a guide to what i should read, and how i should use any knowledge i gain from my study. so the rest of this feast day i plan to read about celtic methods of evengelism, particularly of how the celtic monks went to europe to try to re-evangelize areas where the faith had been lost, rather as in the rich, embedded, american church, sitting bare-footed along a creek.
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