More from St Francis:
...As men who are in love with a human and natural love have their thoughts nearly always turned towards their beloved one, their heart full of affection for her, their mouth filled with her praises, and as in her absence they lose no opportunity of showing their love by letters, and meet with no tree upon which they write not the name of the beloved; so those who love God cannot cease to think of him, long for him, aspire to him, and speak of him, and they would be willing, were it possible, to engrave the holy and sacred name of Jesus on the breast of all persons in the world. And all creatures invite them to do this, and there is not any creature which does not announce to them the praise of their Well-Beloved; and, as St Augustine says (taking it from St Antony), everything in the world speaks to them, in mute but very intelligible language, of their love; all things suggest to them good thoughts, from which spring afterwards many movements and aspirations to God. Here are some examples:
... Constantine the Great wrote respectfully to St Antony; whereat the religious, who were about him, were greatly astonished, and he said to them: "Why do you wonder that a king should write to a man? Wonder rather that the everlasting God should have written his law to mortal men, nay, more, should have spoken to them mouth to mouth in the person of his Son."
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