Saint Frances of Assisi

Son of Peter Bernadone, a wealthy silk merchant, he was born at Assisi, Italy, and christened John by his mother during his father's absence; on his return he insisted the child be renamed Francis.

Francis spent his youth in extravagant living and pleasure-seeking, went gaily to war, and was taken prisoner in 1202.  On his release he resumed his carefree ways, was seriously ill for a time, and returned to the wars in 1205.  A vision of Christ he experienced at Spelt, followed by another on his return to Assisi, caused him to change his whole lifestyle.

He went on pilgrimage to Rome in 1206 and on his return devoted himself to a life of poverty and care of the sick and the poor.  He was angrily denounced by his father as a madman and disinherited in one of the most dramatic scenes in religious history.  After repairing several churches in Assisi, he retired to a little chapel, the Portiuncula, and devoted himself completely to his life's work of poverty and preaching.  He soon attracted numerous disciples, among them several leading citizens, Bernard da Quintavalla, merchant, and Peter of Cattaneo, a canon of the cathedral, whom he robed on April 16, 1209, thus founding the Franciscans.  In 1210, he received verbal approval of a rule he had drawn up from Pope Innocent III. Two years later Francis was joined by St. Glare, who joined him over the violent objections of her family.

Obsessed with the desire to preach to the Mohammedans, he set out for Syria in the fall of 1212, but was shipwrecked on the way; a second attempt, 1213-14, also failed when he fell ill in Spain while on the way to Morocco, and he was forced to return to Italy.  He obtained the famous Portiuncula indulgence from Pope Innocent III in 1216 and the following year (when he probably met St. Dominic in Rome) Francis convened the first general chapter of his order at the Portiuncula to organize the huge number of followers he had attracted to his way of life.   In 1219, he sent his first missionaries to Tunis and Morocco from another general chapter, attended by some five thousand friars.  He himself went to Egypt to evangelize the Mohammedans in Palestine and Egypt with twelve friars, but though he met with Sultan Malek aIKamil at Damietta, Egypt, which was being besieged by Crusaders, his mission was a failure.  Obliged to hasten back to Italy to combat a movement in his Order to mitigate his original rule of simplicity, humility, and poverty led by Matthew of Narni and Gregory of Naples, he secured the appointment of Cardinal Ugolino as protector of the Order and presented a revised rule to a general chapter of the Order at the Portiuncula in 1221, which maintained his ideals.

A movement in the Order toward mitigating his rule, led by Brother Elias, began to spread and was met by Francis with still another revision, but this time he secured for it the approval of Pope Honorius III in 1223.   By this time Francis had retired from the practical activities of the Order, and its direction was mainly in the hands of Brother EIias.  At Christmas of 1223, Francis built a crèche at Grecchia, establishing the custom observed all over the Christian world to the present day.   In 1224, while praying, in his cell on Mount Alverna, he received on September 14 the stigmata, the climax of a series of supernatural events he had experienced throughout his lifetime. He died at Assisi on October 3, and was canonized in 1228. 

Though never ordained, Francis' impact on religious life since his times has been enormous. Probably no saint has affected so many in so many different ways as the gentle saint of Assisi who, born to wealth, devoted his life to poverty, concern for the poor and the sick, and so delighted in God's works as revealed in nature.   (c. 1181-1226).