you do not return to your vomit. Because, in truth, I assure you that should you return to your vomit, things worse than the first will come upon you. And you will incur a very harsh judgment because of your sins, ingratitude, and disregard of the kindness of the Lord."

After blessed Francis made the sign of the cross over him, he immediately stood up and got up, completely healed. When he stood up, you could hear the bones in his back cracking like dry wood in your hands.

A few years later he returned to the vomit and did not observe what the Lord had said to him through his servant Francis. One day it happened that . . .^a

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[KNIGHTS FROM ASSISI LEARN HOW TO BEG BEFORE BRINGING HIM BACK FROM NOCERA]

After returning from Siena and from "Le Celle" at Cortona, blessed Francis came to Saint Mary of the Portiuncula, and later went to stay at Begnara, north of Nocera, where the brothers were staying in a house that had recently been constructed for them. He stayed there for many days. And because his feet, and even his legs, began swelling up because of dropsy, he began to be seriously ill.

When the people of Assisi heard that he was sick there, they quickly sent some knights of Assisi to that place to bring him back to Assisi, fearing that he would die there and others would claim his most precious remains.

While they were bringing him back, they stopped in a small town belonging to the Commune of Assisi, wanting to have dinner there. Blessed Francis and his companions rested in the house of a man who received him with joy and charity. The knights, however, went about the town, attempting to buy things for their corporal needs, but did not find anything. And they returned to blessed Francis, saying to him as a joke: "Brother, you must give us some of your alms, because we can find nothing to buy."

Blessed Francis, with great intensity of spirit, told them: "You didn't find anything because you trust in your flies, that is, in your coins, and not in God. But go back to the houses where you went when you were looking for things to buy, and do not be ashamed,

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cave tibi ne ad vomitum redeas quoniam dico tibi in veritate quod, si ad vomitum redieris, peiora prioribus supervenient in te et iudicium durissimum incurres, propter peccata tua et ingratitudines et ignorantias benignitatis Domini ».

⁷Et facto signo crucis super eum a beato Francisco statim erexit se et surrexit ille liberatus interius. ⁸Cum erexit se, ita insonuerunt ossa renum eius, sicut si aliquis manibus frangeret sicca ligna.

⁹Cumque post paucos annos rediret ad vomitum et non observaret que Dominus per servum suum Franciscum locutus est ei, accidit, dum quadam die [coenaret in domo alterius concanonici sui, nocteque illa dormiret ibidem, subito super omnes corruit tectum domus. ¹⁰Caeteris autem evadentibus mortem, solus miser interceptus atque interemptus est].

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¹Post reversionem de Senis et de Cella Cortone venit beatus Franciscus apud ecclesiam Sancte Marie de Portiuncula, et postea ivit ad manendum in loco Bagnarie super civitatem Nucerii: ²ibi de novo erat constructa quedam domus pro fratribus ubi fratres morarentur. ³Et mansit ibi per plurimos dies. ⁴Et quia iam ceperant pedes eius, etiam crura, intumescere ex infirmitate hydropisis, cepit ibi plurimum infirmare.

⁵Cumque audirent homines Assisii quod infirmaretur ibi, venerunt festinanter quidam, milites Assisii ad locum illum ut ducerent ipsum apud Assisium, timentes ne ibi moreretur et alii haberent sanctissimum corpus eius.

⁶Et factum est dum ducerent ipsum infirmum, requierunt in quodam castro de comitatu Assisii, volentes ibi prandere. ⁷Beatus Franciscus cum sociis suis requievit in domo cuiusdam hominis, qui cum hilaritate et caritate multa suscepit ipsum. ⁸Milites vero iverunt per castrum ut emerent sibi necessaria corporis, sed non invenerunt. ⁹Et reversi sunt ad beatum, Franciscum dicentes ei quasi ludendo: « Oportet, frater, ut detis nobis de helemosinis vestris, quoniam nichil habere possumus ad emendum ».

¹⁰Et dixit ad eos beatus Franciscus cum magno fervore spiritus: « Ideo non invenistis, quia confiditis in vestris muscis, videlicet in denariis, et non in Deo; ¹¹sed revertimini per domos per quas ivistis querendo ad emendum, et nolite verecundari,