Little Flower Of St Francis

Dear bro and sist, I was browsing the web the other day looking about the perfect joy that Brother John shared from the little flower of St Francis. Turns out the book is available online. So for those who are interested to read, here's the link.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/flowers.htm

A short write up from newadvent website.

Fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi

Little Flowers of Francis of Assisi, the name given to a classic collection of popular legends about the life of St. Francis of Assisi and his early companions as they appeared to the Italian people at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
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The "Fioretti" have been described as "the most exquisite expression of the religious life of the Middle Ages". That perhaps which gives these legends such a peculiar charm, is what may be called their atmosphere; they breathe all the delicious fragrance of the early Franciscan spirit. Nowhere can there be found a more childlike faith, a livelier sense of the supernatural, or a simpler literalness in the following Christ than in the pages of the "Fioretti", which more than any other work transport us to the scenes amid which St. Francis and his first followers live, and enable us to see them as they saw themselves.

Here's a snippet of the story about perfect joy.

Brother Leo wondered much within himself; and, questioning the saint, he said: "Father, I pray thee teach me wherein is perfect joy." St Francis answered: "If, when we shall arrive at St Mary of the Angels, all drenched with rain and trembling with cold, all covered with mud and exhausted from hunger; if, when we knock at the convent-gate, the porter should come angrily and ask us who we are; if, after we have told him, `We are two of the brethren', he should answer angrily, `What ye say is not the truth; ye are but two impostors going about to deceive the world, and take away the alms of the poor; begone I say'; if then he refuse to open to us, and leave us outside, exposed to the snow and rain, suffering from cold and hunger till nightfall - then, if we accept such injustice, such cruelty and such contempt with patience, without being ruffled and without murmuring, believing with humility and charity that the porter really knows us, and that it is God who maketh him to speak thus against us, write down, O Brother Leo, that this is perfect joy.

Enjoy... God bless....

PS: I've also attached the text file if you'd like to download it and read it offline.