Life of St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis was born in 1181 in Assisi, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant and his Provençal wife. As a child and young man, St. Francis was spoiled, restless and focused primarily on worldly pleasures and pastimes. Not very studious, Francis was known instead for his handsome appearance, sharp wit and merry singing.
At about the age of 20, Francis went to fight in a local skirmish in Perugia. He was captured and imprisoned for more than a year. He briefly considered spiritual things when he developed a fever, but after he recovered and was released from prison, Francis excitedly planned for a military career.
En route to Apalia to join the royal court in 1205, Francis had a dream in which a voice commanded him to return to Assisi. He did so. After a short period of thoughtfulness and uncertainty, Francis declared to his friends that he was going to marry Lady Poverty. He gave up his gay attire and spent more time in prayer. He went on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he emptied his purse at the Tomb of St. Peter and joined the beggars at the door of the basilica.
Not long after his return to Assisi, whilst Francis was praying before an ancient crucifix in the forsaken wayside chapel of St. Damian's below the town, he heard a voice saying: "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin." Taking this behest literally, as referring to the ruinous church wherein he knelt, he immediately gathered cloth from his father's house and took it to town to sell. His father, incensed, brought Francis before the local bishop and retracted his entire inheritance. There Francis famously Francis stripped off all his clothes and gave them to his father, saying: "Until now I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only 'Our Father who art in Heaven.'"
Having thus married Lady Poverty, Francis wandered off into the hills beyond Assisi, living as a poor mendicant. He restored St. Damian's and two other chapels with rocks gathered by his own hands and worked with lepers. After hearing a gospel reading in Mass in 1208, Francis was inspired to wander throughout the countryside, preaching repentance, brotherly love, and peace.
Francis soon attracted disciples, and he instructed them that their rule of life shall be to follow Christ's words, "Give all you have to the poor and come, follow me." As the small group grew, Francis penned a brief written rule, known as the Friars Minor. They then set off for Rome to seek approval by the Pope, which was given.
Back in Assisi, the first Franciscan monastery was built in 1211. The Franciscans wandered throughout the countryside two by two exhorting people to a good life and singing God's praises. In 1212, an 18-year-old heiress named Clare came to Francis and begged to be allowed to embrace his way of life. He agreed, and with his encouragement she secretly left her father's house in the middle of the night.
Francis and fellow friars met her by torchlight, and Francis cut her hair and clothed her in a monastic habit. He set her up in a Benedictine convent temporarily, then provided her and other young nuns a dwelling next to St. Damian's. This became the first monastery of the Second Franciscan Order of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares.
From 1212 to 1219, Francis embarked on several missionary journeys in Italy, Spain, and the Holy Land. In 1221, Francis drew up a second monastic rule. A revised version of this rule was officially approved by the Pope in 1223.
At Christmastime in 1223, Francis came up with the idea of the nativity scene, and reproduced in a church at Greccio the manger of Bethlehem.
Around September 14, 1224, Francis received the stigmata. He is the first to be recorded as having received this miraculous sign. Brother Leo was with Francis at the time, and his note recording the event has survived.
A year later, the increasingly frail Francis composed his famous "Canticle of the Sun (Brother Sun, Sister Moon)" while praying at St. Damian's.
Francis died at the Porziuncola in Assisi on October 3, 1226. The saint had, in his humility, it is said, expressed a wish to be buried on the Colle d'Inferno, a despised hill without Assisi, where criminals were executed.
If this is so, he certainly did not get his wish. On October 4 his body was borne in triumphant procession to the city, a halt being made at St. Damian's, so that St. Clare and her companions might venerate the sacred stigmata now visible to all. The body was placed provisionally in the church of St. George (now within the enclosure of the monastery of St. Clare), where the saint had learned to read and had first preached. Many miracles are recorded to have taken place at his tomb.
Francis was canonized at St. George's by Gregory IX, 16 July, 1228. On that day following the pope laid the first stone of the great double church of St. Francis, erected in honour of the new saint, and thither on 25 May, 1230, Francis's remains were secretly transferred by Brother Elias and buried far down under the high altar in the lower church. Here, after lying hidden for six centuries, like that of St. Clare's, Francis's coffin was found on December 12, 1818, after a search lasting 52 nights.
The discovery of the saint's body is commemorated in the order by a special office on 12 December, and that of his translation by another on 25 May. His feast is kept throughout the Church on 4 October, and the impression of the stigmata on his body is celebrated on 17 September.
