Saint Francis of Assisi, Confessor

Saint Francis was born about the year 1182 at Assisi, in Umbria, the son of a prosperous cloth-merchant. In his youth he was generous and high-spirited, fond of company and of the pleasures of the world, and dreamed of glory. But God touched his heart through sickness, through the sight of the poor, and through prayer; and little by little he came to despise the riches he had loved, and to seek instead the poverty and the cross of Christ.

The conversion to poverty

The decisive moment came when, praying before the crucifix in the ruined chapel of San Damiano, Saint Francis heard the words, “Go, repair my house, which is falling into ruin.” Taking the command at first in its plainest sense, he set himself to rebuild the little church; but soon he understood that God called him to a greater work. Renouncing his inheritance, he gave back to his father even the clothes he wore, and declared that henceforth he had no father but his Father in heaven. Espousing the poverty he called his “Lady,” he went about clad in a rough garment, preaching penance, repairing churches, serving lepers, and proclaiming the peace and good of the Gospel.

Companions soon gathered to him, drawn by the joy and simplicity of his life. For them Saint Francis composed a short rule drawn from the words of the Gospel, and obtained its approval from the Sovereign Pontiff. Thus was born the Order of Friars Minor — the “lesser brothers” — who, owning nothing, went through the towns and countryside preaching Christ and living by the labour of their hands and by alms. With Saint Clare he gave rise also to an order of poor enclosed nuns, and for those living in the world he opened a way of penance, the Third Order.

The Stigmata and holy death

Saint Francis burned with love for our Lord, and above all for his Passion and for the mystery of the Crib. So conformed was he to the Crucified that, while he prayed upon Mount Alverna two years before his death, he received in his own body the sacred Stigmata — the marks of the five wounds of Christ — the first of the saints so to be signed. His love overflowed also upon all creatures, which he called brothers and sisters as the works of one Father, and which he summoned in his Canticle to praise their Creator.

Worn out by his labours and austerities, and nearly blind, Saint Francis welcomed “Sister Death” with joy. He died at the Portiuncula near Assisi on the evening of the third of October, 1226, and was canonised within two years. The collect of his feast praises God who enriched his Church through Saint Francis with a new family, and asks that we may follow him in despising earthly things and rejoice in the partaking of heavenly gifts. In the Poor Man of Assisi the Church honours one who took the Gospel for his rule, poverty for his bride, and the cross of Christ for his glory.

Patronage

He is venerated as the founder of the Franciscan Orders and is honoured as a patron of Italy, of animals and the natural world, of merchants, and of those who labour for peace; he is invoked by all who seek to live the poverty of the Gospel.