Saint Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton

(3) It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age. (2) It is the only thing in which the superior cannot be superior in the sense of supercilious. (1) It is the only thing that really prevents a sin from being a secret. I could fill all my space with separate sentences each beginning with the words, “It is the only thing that…” As, for instance, The difficulty of explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true. When asked why he became a Catholic GK Chesterton would say: GK Chesterton is another of the great minds who converted from the Church of England to the Catholic tradition of faith, he joins Blessed John Henry Newman, both of whom converted in their late 40s. Chesterton describes St Francis as “a poet whose whole life was a poem.” Chesterton not only gets St Francis to speak for himself, he does it in the way the little friar would have preferred: by conveying not his words, but his life. The analysis is supportive rather than overwhelming.

Firstly it contains a lot more facts and secondly his writing is straight forward and highly dramatic. GK Chesterton’s book about St Francis of Assisi is unlike any of his other biographies.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote approximately 80 books, 2000 essays, 200 short stories and several plays, and today he’s probably best know for the Father Brown BBC TV Series staring Mark Williams as Father Brown and Sorcha Cusack as Mrs McCarthy.

Saint Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton