St. Francis of Assisi
The Little Poor Man, Founder of the Friars Minor
The merchant's son who stripped himself of everything to marry Lady Poverty, rebuilt the Church by living the Gospel, and bore the wounds of Christ in his own flesh.
- Feast
- October 4
- Lived
- 1181/82–1226
Invoked For
- Italy
- Animals and the environment
- Merchants
- Peacemakers
His Life
Francesco Bernardone was the son of a prosperous cloth merchant of Assisi, and spent his youth in the way such sons did — feasting, spending freely, dreaming of knighthood. He rode out to war, was taken prisoner, and came home a year later ill and changed.
The turn came in stages. He gave his cloak to a beggar. He embraced a leper on the road, and found the bitterness turned to sweetness. Then, praying in the ruined chapel of San Damiano, he heard the crucifix speak: "Francis, go and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin." He took it literally, sold his father's cloth to buy stones, and was dragged before the bishop — where he handed back even the clothes he wore and said that henceforth he had only one Father, in heaven.
He lived on nothing, rebuilt chapels with his hands, and preached repentance in the streets. Others joined him, and he gave them a rule made almost entirely of Gospel verses. He went to Egypt during the Fifth Crusade and walked into the Sultan's camp to preach, and was received with courtesy and sent home unharmed. At Greccio he made the first Christmas crib, so that people could see with their eyes what Bethlehem had been.
In 1224, praying on Mount La Verna, he received the stigmata — the five wounds of Christ in his own body, the first recorded instance in the Church. He lived two more years, nearly blind and in constant pain, and in that condition composed the Canticle of the Creatures. He asked to be laid on the bare ground to die, and welcomed death as Sister.
The Path to Sainthood
Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228, less than two years after his death, and the basilica at Assisi was begun the following day.
The order he founded became one of the largest in the Church, and with St. Clare, who followed him from Assisi, he shaped the whole Franciscan movement — friars, contemplative sisters, and lay people living the same Gospel in the world.
He was declared patron of Italy in 1939, and patron of ecology in 1979. In 2013 the newly elected Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio took his name — the first pope in history to do so.
Prayers to St. Francis of Assisi
Tap any prayer to open it large and clear — set for reading aloud. Close it to return here and choose another.