Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi was born at Assisi in Umbria about 1181, son of the wealthy cloth merchant Pietro di Bernardone and of Pica, said to be of a noble Provençal family. At baptism he received the name Giovanni; his father, fond of France, called him Francesco. Handsome, witty, and lavish, he delighted in fine clothes, songs of the troubadours, and the revels of Assisi's young nobles, yet already showed a princely generosity toward the poor.

About the age of twenty he fought the Perugians, was taken prisoner, and spent more than a year in captivity. Illness turned his thoughts toward eternity. Recovered, he set out for military glory with Walter of Brienne, but at Spoleto a second dream bade him return to Assisi (1205). He began to seek solitude and prayer. Crossing the plain he met a leper, overcame disgust, embraced him, and gave him all he had. In Rome he emptied his purse at St. Peter's tomb and begged among the poor. While praying before the crucifix in the ruined chapel of San Damiano he heard the words: "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin." He sold cloth from his father's shop to restore the church; his enraged father had him beaten and locked away. Freed by his mother, Francis renounced his inheritance before the bishop, stripping off his clothes and declaring that henceforth he would call only "Our Father who art in Heaven." Naked and free, he wedded Lady Poverty.

He begged stones, rebuilt San Damiano, San Pietro, and the Porziuncola (St. Mary of the Angels), and nursed lepers. On or about 24 February 1208, hearing the Gospel of the mission of the apostles at the Porziuncola, he cast away staff, shoes, and wallet, put on a coarse peasant tunic with a knotted cord, and went forth preaching penance, brotherly love, and peace. Bernard of Quintavalle, Peter of Cattaneo, Giles, and others joined him. With eleven companions he sought the approval of Innocent III; the pope, moved by a dream of the Poor Man upholding the Lateran, gave verbal sanction to their simple Gospel rule. They settled at the Porziuncola, the cradle of the Friars Minor.

In 1212 Clare of Assisi, moved by his preaching, left her home on Palm Sunday night; Francis cut her hair, clothed her in the habit, and established her and her companions at San Damiano as the Second Order, the Poor Ladies. For those who could not leave the world he later founded the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance. He received La Verna as a place of contemplation, attempted missions to Syria and Morocco, and in 1219 crossed to the crusader camp at Damietta, preached before Sultan al-Kamil, and returned unharmed. Amid the order's rapid growth he revised the rule; Honorius III confirmed the Regula bullata on 29 November 1223. That Christmas at Greccio he arranged the first live crib, so that the faithful might see the poverty of Bethlehem.

In September 1224, while keeping a forty-day fast on La Verna, he beheld a seraph on a cross; thereafter the wounds of Christ—the stigmata—appeared in his hands, feet, and side. Broken in body yet radiant in spirit, he composed the Canticle of the Sun, dictated his Testament urging literal poverty and obedience, blessed Assisi he could no longer see, and on the evening of 3 October 1226, lying on the bare ground at the Porziuncola, had the Passion according to John read and himself sang Psalm 141 until "Sister Death" led him home. He was forty-five. Canonized by Gregory IX on 16 July 1228, his body was later placed beneath the great basilica of Assisi.

May Saint Francis teach us today to love Lady Poverty and to greet every creature as brother or sister under one Father.