The Miracle of St. Francis

This painting is based on the Bible verse: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." This metaphorical statement appears in both the Gospel of Mark (10:25) and the Gospel of Matthew (19:24). It highlights the extreme difficulty of a rich person entering the kingdom of God due to their attachment to wealth.

In a painterly illustration, I use the life and legend of St. Francis, the young heir to a wealthy rug merchant in the Italian town of Assisi, who heard the voice of God tell him to “Repair my Church.” The small local church was in a bad state of disrepair so Francis sold several valuable rugs that belonged to his father to fund the project.

When his father discovered the missing rugs, he called his son Francis to account by suing him in a court of law. The judge ruled that while it was well and good to repair the church (which still stands today inside a much larger church built to protect it) he shouldn’t have sold his father’s rugs without his permission.

Francis had no money on hand to make the restitution to his father. So, he renounced his inheritance, leaving town that very day when, as people remembered, there was a very rare snowfall marking a momentous event. Out at the edge of the forest Francis relinquished all his worldly goods including all of his clothes, declaring that he would now only serve his Father in Heaven—thus was the genesis of the Franciscan order.

At this point, it is said, the crowd saw a camel jump through the eye of a needle. (This story, by the way, reminds me of the parable of the Prodigal Son – only told in reverse, and with a heavy redemption component).

The image of a camel through a needle's eye emphasizes the impossibility of such a feat, illustrating that salvation is not earned through wealth or good works, but through God’s grace.