Product Description

James Cowan lived in Italy for three years walking in the footsteps of Francis, following his journeys, breathing his air and sleeping in his caves and grottoes. He discovered a man who, in a sense, de-institutionalised the medieval Church, who represented a mystical Christian tradition and stood up to leaders and theologians and all the great citadels of monastic influence

This attempt to enter into the spirit of Francis as also a celebration of Italy and its ability to inspire the imagination.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2689643 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
Not just the pious ascetic who spoke to birds, but a man who sought through pain and fasting to overcome 'the prison of the self' - this is the picture of St Francis of Assisi that Cowan seeks to portray in a book that is not so much a biography of Francis as a meditation on the ecstatic visionary that he became through the punishing ordeals to which he subjected his flesh. It is a convincing portrait and one with which Cowan himself can identify, having spent three years following in the footsteps of St Francis, sleeping on the stones his hero slept on, revelling in the countryside that the saint loved and thus 'escaping from the tyranny of things'. He explores areas of Francis's life that have been previously ignored, particularly his extraordinary visit to the Holy Land where, in spite of the Crusaders' objections, he met the leader of the Egyptian forces Sultan Malik al Kamal and became deeply interested in safi mysticism. Cowan's sees Francis's religious beliefs as vacillating between theChristian God and a 'supreme unknowable nothingness'. It seems certain that he was profoundly affected by his conversation with 'The Infidel'. As a wandering ascetic he wanted to open the well of true spirit that he thought doctrine and theology had blocked when the Christian story spread from harsh Middle Eastern soil to a softer European climate. The second event that Cowan stresses is Francis's receiving of the stigmata at La Verna. Having talked and prayed with mystics at the Sultan's Court in Egypt, he acquired techniques of inwardness that he practised for the rest of his life, 'one could say that he was a changed man', writes Cowan. Thus he was prepared to receive the terrible wounds of the stigmata, which he carried joyfully for the rest of his life. As the frail body of the saint began to fail, the senior clerics in Rome waited avidly to seize his bones and sell them as relics, but his followers, 'I Poverelli', wept sorrowfully when he died. An inspiring picture of a holy obsessive shot through with the radiance of the author's feeling for Italy - as well as for the world's favourite saint. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
James Cowan is the author of numerous internationally acclaimed books including Letters from a Wild State: Rediscovering Our True Relationship to Nature, the best-selling A Mapmaker's Dream for which he was awarded the prestigious Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal and Francis: A Saint's Way. He lives in North-Eastern Australia and his works have been translated into seventeen languages.