Assisi Speaks

Extract

The luminous hills of Umbria, the absolute sun, the grey climbing town, the rows of thick green cypresses—who has not heard of these and of the little sanctuary that is Assisi? Some, too, perhaps, have come to guess at a whole world made up of prayer and of a real Presence enshrined in no less a sanctuary than man’s soul; to guess, to wonder, even to realize so far as the wayfaring man may. But are there many who have given thought to the mind of modern Assisi, to consider how the townsfolk of St. Francis speak and think to-day of their greatest citizen? How many of the thronging pilgrims were able to read the Italian placards, the ‘affisioni,’ that were everywhere, half-covering the walls of the little sunny town?