Poverty was demanding in Rivotorto during the autumn and winter months. They barely held their own against the frost and downpours. They lit bonfires to get warm and dry. Sometimes they had nothing to eat. They went through the fields, feeding themselves on beets and turnips, feeling no qualms about damaging private property.
This was not the time for harvest. There was no stable work in the fields. On some days, when the weather allowed, they worked the sowing with the peasants. Other brothers, most of them, helped in the leper colonies. Some repaired shoes or made furniture. All of them, in turn, went up to the prisons to deepen their personal relationship with God.
“This is the novitiate of the new order of the knights of Christ,” the Brother thought. “With the understanding of the Lord, let it be permitted for us to abandon the apostolic outings for a few months,” he told the brothers. “We need to grow in prayer, in obedience, and, above all, in fraternity. Oh, the human heart!” the Brother thought. “One can give their body to the flames, but suddenly, longing can bend it like a bamboo reed.”
Francis was afraid; afraid that the tempter would clothe himself in the garments of nostalgia. “It is the worst temptation,” he thought, “because it is the most subtle.”
There were days when the rain fell without stopping. Many times, they were blocked by snow. They couldn’t leave the hovel. With their arms crossed, they spent many hours in forced idleness, soaked with dampness, with the wind and rain seeping in everywhere, their gaze on the murky waters of the stream, without food.
In those moments, Francis felt that temptation was dangerously circling the inhabitants of the cabin, telling them: “This is an absurd life, without meaning. It would be much better to live up there in the city, in comfortable houses by the red hearth, with a tender wife and loving children, feeding on the harvest stored from a year’s work.”
Knowing the weak sides of the human being, the Brother gathered them every day and repeated these words to them: “Dearest brothers; God is our wife. God is our hearth. God is our banquet. God is our party. Having God in the soul, the snow provides warmth, and winters are transformed into springs. Unfortunate would we be if the Lord did not assist us. The currents of temptation would drag us away like those waters of the torrent, and we would succumb.” Like a skillful master, Francis taught them to dive into the depths of God; upon returning from those latitudes, the brothers were able to face the frost and the snow and the nostalgia.
Taken from the book “The Brother of Assisi,” Chapter IV, sub-heading: “The Temptation of Nostalgia” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
