St Francis must be one of the best-loved saints. There is something immensely attractive about his joyful embrace of poverty, his delight in natural beauty, his engaging simplicity of manner. But there is another side to Francis that comparatively few dwell on: the Francis of the stigmata, the mystic. Holiness is never one-sided. It is we who are not holy who try to reduce it to terms that we can grasp or feel comfortable with. I suspect that St Francis was not always easy to be with. His Master is not always easy to be with, either.