F. Francis of Jesi: "The more government was lacking in human terms, the more the government of God was manifest"

Jul 14, 2025

The venerable Father Francis of Jesi said that nothing was more effective in making him believe that the Congregation was of God and the true Reform, as much as seeing how God governed it from the beginning with the lowliest of instruments and how the providence of God was always demonstrated in it. Nor did the true observance of the Rule ever go as well nor with so much simplicity as when it was governed by simple persons. That holy man said that the more government was lacking in human terms, the more the government of God was manifest.

Therefore when God chooses a man for spiritual government, His Majesty supplies wherever the natural man is deficient. For example, one who governs would have to be learned, speculative and of sound natural intellect in order to know naturally all the deceits the infernal enemy uses to tempt his subjects. However when these things are lacking in a Superior our Lord God supplies for them with good inspirations. Therefore every Superior should have to know and hold as certain that his strengths will not succeed in ruling and governing his subjects according to God. Recognising himself as unfit he humbles himself before God and has recourse to him assiduously in holy prayer so that His Majesty may deign to govern him and not let him govern himself. He ought to hold as certain that he can never govern except badly and in prejudice of the sheep of God.

So this holy man said: If we consider it carefully, the Order has never badly governed more nor ever relaxed more and given birth to more scandals in the world than when it was full of learned men. While the Order was governed by Father Saint Francis with his simplicity and by his companions and all the simple Friars during his time, it always stayed in perfect observance of the rule. However when the learned Brother Elias with many of his other learned followers began to rule the Order with the teaching and prudence of the flesh of the flesh, it immediately with ambitious persons. The beloved Order of God began to decline under their government.

This happened because the learned generally trust themselves and rule according to their own prudence which has no place in the Order because the Order is founded on God and on his providence and on simplicity. Remove simplicity from the Order and the foundation upon the Order it is established is removed. There is nothing more repugnant to simplicity than human, carnal prudence that always keeps an eye on how to accommodate the flesh.

Therefore, when a Superior does not know how to stand in the place of God; when he doesn’t know that truly his government is ordered by God; and when he doesn’t know that he has been put in that position by God and not by himself, and for the benefit of the sheep of God, he cannot rule and govern well.

This is especially true when he organises the government for his own glory and does not seek the honour of God nor the good of the sheep, but his own honour and comfort, he perverts the office of superior because he does not seek the honour of God. Our Lord orders not only the Order but the whole Church when he says, “Without me you can do nothing. I am the vine. You are the branches.” Therefore government comes from God and not just from man. However, when there is teaching and holiness, there is nothing better, despite the other circumstances.