Matteo da Bascio and how he gave the pieces of cloth to the poor man and how he adopted the pointed cowl

88 The foundation year 89 Fra Matteo’s encounter with a mysterious poor man 90 The value and meaning of this encounter 91 Enlightened by God, Fra Matteo dresses in lowly cloth and heads off for Rome straightaway

(88) Since it was the holy year, the kind and compassionate God began our Congregation (since then always called the Capuchin Friars) in the year of the glorious and ever blessed Nativity of the Only Son of God, in January 1525.

(89) In the Marches of Ancona near the mountains of Amándola and Montefortino is a castle in the domain of the city of Fermo called Montefalcone. In its territory the Zoccolanti Fathers have friary called Saint James. At that time Padre Fra Matteo da Bascio lived there. He was about thirty years of age. It happened one day that most of the Fathers who lived in that friary were going out to a liturgical function not very far away. When they had finished that function they were returning to eat at the friary. It was a day of fasting. As it pleased God, it happened that Fra Matteo was behind along the way, as was his custom. He was well back everyone else. It was in the depths of winter, and those regions are very cold because of their proximity to the mountain of Sibilla. Since a little snow had fallen that night, the friars hurried home quickly, both because of the cold and because hunger pressed them on. As it pleased the Most High God, behold. They were not far from the friary when the servant of God, Fra Matteo, raised his eyes. He saw a poor man lying on the ground. He was almost completely naked and shivering intensely from the extreme cold. When Fra Matteo saw him in such misery a deep compassion came over him. Slowing somewhat he fixed his eye upon the man and gazed at him benevolently. Aware of this, the poor man humbly commended himself in tears to Fra Matteo. He begged for something so as to cover and defend himself against the cold. However Fra Matteo thought to himself, “Now what will I give this poor fellow?” Not knowing what to give him he struggled within himself. He replied, “What can I give you? I’ve got nothing.” The poor fellow answered, “Give me something so that I may cover myself.” Such was Matteo’s compassion that he felt he could not leave without giving him something, but on the other hand he didn’t know what. However, as it pleased God, he recalled how he had sewn some patches inside his habit a little earlier. The idea came to him about how to dress the poor man with those pieces of cloth the best way he could. He went somewhere private and he quickly took off the habit. Removing the patches he dressed that poor man of Jesus Christ with those as best he could.

(90) Taking to the road again to return to the friary, he felt pleased within himself for having done some good for that poor fellow. He often turned round to look at him and was glad to have dressed him in those patches. But lo and behold! When he had gone a short distance from the poor man, Fra Matteo turned back to look at him and could no longer see him at all. This amazed him. It didn’t seem possible that in such a short space of time the man could have disappeared from sight. So he went back and searched everywhere to see if the fellow had hidden somewhere. He could not see him any more, even though it was a wide-open area. Therefore the desire to know where the poor fellow was took hold of him. For a long time he carefully went to different vantage points at cross roads to see if the fellow he had left in a hurry, as the poor usually do when they receive an alms that they really like. Unable to see him any more he began to think and say to himself, “Was this, perhaps, Our Lord Jesus Christ who appeared to me in that form?” It seems someone, I don’t know who, spoke within him and said, “Who do you think it was if not the same one who appeared as a leper to Saint Francis when he was still in the clothes of the world? Already converted to the Lord Our Father Saint Francis was still in secular dress, but had decided in his heart to never refuse anything asked of him for the love of God, though he could have. He was going on horseback to Our Lady of the Angels just a short distance from the town of Assisi. At the gate where there was leper hospital called the hospital of Parete. There he came upon a horribly disfigured leper. Even though he asked alms very humbly of the holy young man Francis, who had decided not to deny alms to anyone, like the young he was really repulsed by the stench that came from the man’s sores. He spurred his horse and passed him by without giving him a thing. He didn’t even look him in the face. The Holy Spirit reprimanded a little later. Revolted with himself he remembered the firm resolution he had made never to renounce alms. He rebuked himself firmly and with intense fervour he returned. To better mortify himself he dismounted from the horse, embraced the leper and kissed his face where there was the most horrible sore. He placed the purse in the leper’s hand to give him the alms. As he did so, the fellow, who first had looked like a leper, revealed himself to be Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all, who for the sake of universal salvation on the wood of the cross wanted to appear like a leper due to all the many beatings. And so he disappeared from Francis’ embrace. Because of this Francis was inflamed with an immense fervour to abandon the world completely and to serve the lepers for the love of Christ.

Because of that remarkable vanishing of the poor man, the thought entered the heart of the great servant of God, Fra Matteo – and he never doubted it – that the fellow was Jesus Christ. So he set himself to follow him in the utmost poverty. After that he always recalled the image of that poor man as he had seen him lying on the ground. The more he gave himself to prayer, the more this scene filled in his memory. Reprimanding himself he would say, “Fra Matteo, you promised poverty, but others observe it better than you.” When he pondered how much our Lord wanted to suffer for us, he fervently asked the Lord in His mercy to show him the direction and way he should observe poverty so as to serve Him better.

(91) Once while he was at prayer he felt himself roused by the love of God more than usual. He dissolved completely into tears. He could no longer continue without donning that habit. However, because he feared this may have been a trick of the devil, he didn’t dare leave. He worried whether his enthusiasm were not some kind of diabolical illusion to take him from the Order. He decided to commend himself more vigorously to the Lord before taking the step of dressing in that habit. He persevered some days more and he felt his spirit totally transformed in God. Rapt almost in ecstasy he clearly heard a voice call him though he saw no one. It said to him, “Know Fra Matteo that it is the will of God for you to observe the Rule perfectly: to the letter, to the letter, to the letter, just as you promised Him. That is what God said at Fonte Colombo to the Ministers who opposed Father Saint Francis.” Fra Matteo knew clearly then that this was a revelation from God and that His Majesty wanted to restore the habit and the way of life of the Seraphic Francis.

Sure within himself and verified externally by the voice that this was not a ploy of the devil but the will of God, one night he came to a decision and found the most worthless and roughest tunic in that place. He found some threadbare material and made a pointed cowl. Since he wasn’t sure about the shape the one he made was not exactly like the one we Capuchins now wear. Later he was surer after seeing the habit of Father Saint Francis kept as a relic in the Sacro Convento in Assisi, and he made another more like the one he saw on that habit. Silently he left the friary at Montefalcone, determined to go to Rome and His Holiness to seek permission to observe the Rule with that habit and lead an apostolic life, going round to preach throughout the world. As a pilgrim and stranger in this world he wanted to remove from himself all earthly affection and to content himself only in imitating the supreme poverty of Christ and our Father Saint Francis. From experience he knew, he used to say, that the Order would not grant him the opportunity to able to observe the Rule completely.

As usual, however, our Lord always tests His servants in all their good works. These works do not please Him if they are not accompanied by the holy cross, so beloved to our Saviour, who never abandoned the cross in this world but always clung closely to it. The cross was His cherished and beloved companion and at the end of his life He wanted the cross as his bed. At His death he was not content to have anything but the holy cross as His bed. And so Our Lord also wanted to reassure His servant that this was His work: to make Fra Matteo like himself. For, as will be described below, this man of God was treated badly the very next day.