Letter to the faithful
(Second Recension)

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To all Christian religious, clerics and lay people, men and women, to all who dwell in the whole world, friar Francis, their servant and subject, (offers) submission with reverence, the true peace from heaven and sincere charity in the Lord. Since I am the servant of all, I am bound to serve all and administer the sweet-smelling words of my Lord. Whence considering in mind, that since personally on account of the infirmity and debility of my body I cannot visit each of you, I have proposed by these present letters and announcements to repeat to you the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of the Father, and the words of the Holy Spirit, which are spirit and life (Jn 6:64). This Word of the Father-so worthy, so holy and glorious-the Father of heaven has announced by Saint Gabriel His angel in the womb of the holy and glorious Virgin Mary, from whose womb He received the true flesh of humanity and of our fragility. He whom, although you say is (2 Cor 8:9) above all things, willed in the world with the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, to chose poverty. And near His passion He celebrated the Passover with His disciples and taking bread He gave thanks and He blessed it and broke it saying:"Take and eat, this is My Body."(Mt 26:26) And taking the chalice He said: "This is My Blood of the new testament, which for you and for the many will be poured out in remission of sins." (Mt 26:27) Then He prayed to the Father saying: "Father, if it can be done, let this chalice pass from me." And His sweat became as drops of blood flowing down upon the earth (Lk 22:44). However, he lay down his own will for the will of the Father, saying: "Father, Thy will be done" (Mt 26:42); "not as I will, but as Thou" (Mt. 26:39). Of whose Father such was the will, that His Son, blest and glorious, whom He gave to us and who was born for us, would offer his very self through His own Blood as a Sacrifice and Victim upon the altar, not for His own sake, through whom all things were made (cf. Jn 1:3), but for the sake of our sins, leaving us an example, so that we may follow in his footsteps (cf 1 Pet 2:21). And He willed that all might be saved through Him and that we might receive Him with a pure heart and our own chaste body. But there are few, who want to receive Him and be saved by Him, though His yoke is sweet and His burden light (cf. Mt: 11:30). Those who do not want to taste how sweet the Lord is (cf. Ps 33:9) and love shadows more than the Light (Jn 3:19) not wanting to fulfil the commands of God, are cursed; concerning whom it is said through the prophet: "Cursed are they who turn away from Thy Commands." (Ps 118:21). But, o how blessed and blest are those who love God and who do as the Lord himself says in the Gospel: "Love the Lord thy God with your whole heart and with your whole mind and your neighbour as your very self (Mt 22:37.39). Let us therefore love God and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind, since He Himself seeking above all has said: "True adorers will adore the Father in spirit and truth." (Jn 4:23) For it is proper that all, who adore Him, adore Him in the spirit of truth (cf. Jn 4:24). And let us offer (lit."speak to") Him praises and prayer day and night (Ps 31:4) saying: "Our Father who art in Heaven" (Mt 6:9), since it is proper that we always pray and not fail to do what we might (Lk 18:1). If indeed we should confess all our sins to a priest, let us also receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ from him. He who does not eat His Flesh and does not drink His Blood (cf. Jn 6:55.57), cannot enter into the Kingdom of God (Jn 3:5). However let him eat and drink worthily, since he who receives unworthily eats and drinks judgement for himself, and he does not dejudicate the Body of the Lord (1 Cor 11:29), that is he does not discern it. In addition let us bring forth fruits worthy of penance (Lk 3:8). And let us love our neighbours as our very selves (cf. Mt 22:39). And if one does not want to love them as his very self, at least he does not charge them with wicked things, but does good (to them). Moreover let those who have received the power of judging others exercise it with mercy, just as they themselves wish to obtain mercy from the Lord. For there will be judgement without mercy for those who have not shown mercy (James 2:13). And so let us have charity and humility; and let us give alms, since this washes souls from the filth of their sins (cf. Tob 4:11; 12:9). For men lose everything, which they leave in this world; however they carry with them the wages of charity and the alms, which they gave, for which they will have from the Lord a gift and worthy recompense. We should also fast and abstain from vices and sins (cf Sir 3:32) and from a superfluity of food and drink and we should be catholics. We should also frequently visit churches and venerate the clerics and revere them, not only for their own sake, if they be sinners, but for the sake of their office and administration of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which they sanctify upon the altar and receive and administer to others. And let us all know firmly, since no one can be saved, except through the words and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which the clerics speak, announce and minister. And only they should minister and not others. Moreover the religious especially, who have renounced the world, are bound to do more and greater things, but not to give up these (cf. Lk 11:42). We should hold our bodies, with their vices and sins, in hatred, since the Lord says in the Gospel: "All wicked things, vices an sins, come forth from the heart." (Mt 15:18-19) We should love our enemies and do good to them, who hold us in hatred (cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27). We should also deny ourselves (cf. Mt 16:24) and place our bodies under the yoke of servitude and holy obedience, just as each one has promised the Lord. And no man is bound out of obedience to obey anyone in that, where crime or sin is committed. However to him whom obedience has been committed and whom is held to be greater, let him be as the lesser (Lk 22:26) and the servant of the other friars. And let him show and have mercy for each one of his brothers, as he would want done to himself, if he were in a similar case. Nor let him grow angry with a brother on account of the crime of a brother, but with all patience and humility let him kindly admonish and support him. We should not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but rather we should be simple, humble and pure. And let us hold our bodies in opprobrium and contempt, since on account of our own fault we are all wretched and putrid, foetid and worms, just as the Lord say through the prophet: "I am a worm and no man, the opprobium of men and the abject of the people." (Ps 21:7) Let us never desire to be above others, but rather we should desire that upon all men and women, so long as they will have done these things and persevered even to the end, the Spirit of the Lord might rest (Is 11:2) and fashion in them His little dwelling and mansion (cf. Jn 14:23). And they will be the Heavenly Father's (cf Mt 5:45), whose works they do. And they are spouses, brothers and mothers of Our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Mt 12:5). We are spouses, when the faithful soul is joined by the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ. For we are brothers, when we do the will of His Father, who is in heaven (cf. Mt 12:50); mothers when we bear Him in our heart and body (1 Cor 6:20) by love and by a pure and sincere conscience; we give birth to Him through holy work, which should shine upon others as an example (cf Mt 5:16). O how glorious and holy and great to have in Heaven a Father! O how holy, to have a Paraclete, beautiful and admirable, as a spouse! O how holy and how beloved, pleasing, humble, peaceable, sweet and loveable and above all things desirable to have such a Brother and Son, who lay down his life for His sheep in the world, "they were Thine and Thou has given them to Me." (Jn 17:6) "And the words, which Thou has given to me, I have given to them; And they have received these and know truly, that I have gone forth from Thee and they have believed, that Thou has sent Me" (Jn 17:8); "I beg for them and not for the world" (cf Jn 17:9); "Bless and sanctify them." (Jn 17:17). And "for them I sanctify My very self, so that they may be sanctified in" one (cf. Jn 17:19) "just as we" are (cf. Jn 17:6). And "I wish, Father, that where I am they also may be with Me, so that they may see My brightness" (Jn 17:24) "in Thy Kingdom" (Mt 20:21). For Him, moreover, who endured so many thing for us, conferred all good things and who will confer them in the future, let every creature, which is in Heaven, on earth and in the abyss return praise, glory, honour, and blessing to God (cf Apoc 5:13), since He Himself is our virtue and strength, who is the only Good, the only Most High, the only Almighty, admirable, glorious and who alone is holy, worthy of praise and blest throughout the infinite ages of ages. Amen. Moreover all those, who are in penance and do not receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and work vices and ins, and who walk after wicked concupiscence and wicked desires, and who do not observe, what they have promised, and serve the world bodily with carnal desires, cares and the anxieties of this age and the cares of this live, having been deceived by the devil, whose sons they are and whose works they do (cf Jn 8:41), are blind, since they do not see the True Light, Our Lord Jesus Christ. They do not have spiritual wisdom, who do not have the Son of God in themselves, He who is the True Wisdom of the Father; concerning these it is said: "Their wisdom has been swallowed up." (Ps 106:27) They see, they do not acknowledge, they know and they do wicked things; and they knowingly lose their souls. See, blind ones, deceived by our enemies, namely, by the flesh, by the world, and by the devil, since sweet to the body is the working of sin and bitter the serving of God, since all wicked things, vices and sins come forth and proceed from the heart of men (cf. Mk 7:21.23), just as the Lord says in the Gospel. And you will have nothing in this age nor in the one to come. You think you will posses the vanities of this age for a long time, but you are deceived, since there will come the day and hour, of which you do not think or know or pay attention. The body weakens, death approaches, there comes neighbours and friends saying: "Dispose of your things." Behold his wife and his sons and neighbours and friends feign weeping. And looking back he sees them weeping, he is moved by a wicked emotion; thinking within himself he says: "Behold my soul and body and all my things I place in your hands." Truly, this man is cursed, who confides and casts his soul and body and all his things into such hands; whence the Lord through the prophet: "Cursed the man who confides in man." (Jer 17:5) And immediately they make the priest come; the priest says to him: "Do you want to receive a penance on account of all your sins?" He answers: "I do wish it." "Do you wish to satisfy on account of the sins you committed and those things of which you have defrauded and deceived men, as you are able from your substance?" He answers: "No." And the priest says; "Why not?" "Since I have disposed of everything into the hands of my neighbours and friends." And he begins to loose speech and so than man dies a wretch. But let all know, that wheresoever and howsoever a man die in culpable sin without satisfaction and he can make satisfaction and he does not make satisfaction, the devil tears his souls from his body with such anguish and tribulation, that no one can know how much, except he who experiences it. And all the talents and power and knowledge, which he used to think he had (cf. Lk 8:18), is born away from him (Mk 4:25). And he leaves neighbours and friends, and they bear off and divide his substance and say afterwards: "Cursed be his soul, since he could have given us more and acquired what he did not acquire." Worms eat the body; and so perishes body and soul in this brief age and he will go into Hell, where he will be tortured without end. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I friar Francis, your lesser servant, beg and entreat you in the charity, which God is (cf 1 Jn 4:16), and willingly kissing your feet, that you should receive and put into practice and observe these words and the others of Our Lord Jesus Christ with humility and charity. And all those men and women, who kindly receive these, understand them and send others copies, and if they persevere in these even to the end (Mt. 24:13), may them the Father and Son and Holy Spirit bless. Amen.