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| Saint created by another mother (notice the wolf, an interesting story) |
Feast day: October 4
Patron of Animals, Merchants & Ecology
Birth: 1181
Death: 1226
Merchant family
Founder of the Franciscan Order
I always wondered why he was not the patron saint of those who were misunderstood by their parents. He definitely disappointed his father (he wanted Francis to carry on his merchant business) in many ways throughout his early life.
It is interesting to see that this man who would grow up to be a symbol of poverty and chastity grew up in a family of little wants. He had all that he needed and spent many years enjoying a life of leisure. He was also loved by everyone (except his father!). Maybe too much for his own good. Thomas of Celano, his biographer who knew him well, said, "In other respects an exquisite youth, he attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people addicted to evil and accustomed to vice." Francis himself said, "I lived in sin" during that time.
In all of this, Francis knew that something was missing. He just was not sure what this was...so he entered into the military service hoping to achieve glory on the battle field. As if history itself wanted to please Francis, a war broke out at just the right time so he could prove his courage and leadership when Assisi declared war on their longtime enemy, the nearby town of Perugia. Instead of glory, Francis found himself captured and placed in a dungeon for a year before he was ransomed.
However, he still did not change his ways. He returned to Assisi to his frivolous lifestyle. He again dreamed of going to battle, and a second opportunity came in the form of the 4th Crusades. This time he was expected to have a suit of armor for the battle. He had the finest armor his father could buy. However, this time he had only gone a day's journey when he was sent a message from God to return.
Strange that Francis should heed God's message at this time in his life. Not only was he giving up on his life time dream, but he would also face ridicule and scorn as the people in Assisi considered him a coward. His father was furious with him and made him pay back the money for the wasted armor.
It was at this point in his life that Francis began to see his wicked ways and repented for his mistakes. However, he was not sure what he should do to right the problem. Francis started to spend more time in prayer. He went off to a cave and wept for his sins. Then an encounter with a leper was the final message needed for Francis to have a full conversion.
To find solitude as Francis tried to find his way, he found himself at the ancient church at San Damiano. While he was praying there, he heard Christ on the crucifix speak to him, "Francis, repair my church." Francis assumed this meant church with a small c -- the crumbling building he was in.
To help fund this "mission," Francis took fabric from his father's shop and sold it to get money to repair the church. His father saw this as an act of theft -- and put together with Francis' cowardice, waste of money, and his growing disinterest in money made Francis seem more like a madman than his son. Pietro dragged Francis before the bishop and in front of the whole town demanded that Francis return the money and renounce all rights as his heir.
The bishop was very kind to Francis; he told him to return the money and said God would provide. That was all Francis needed to hear. He not only gave back the money but stripped off all his clothes -- the clothes his father had given him -- until he was wearing only a hair shirt. In front of the crowd that had gathered he said, "Pietro Bernardone is no longer my father. From now on I can say with complete freedom, 'Our Father who art in heaven.'"
Francis went back to what he considered God's call. He begged for stones and rebuilt the San Damiano church with his own hands, not realizing that it was the Church with a capital C that God wanted repaired. Scandal and avarice were working on the Church from the inside while outside heresies flourished.
Soon Francis started to preach the need for repentance. Slowly companions came to Francis seeking his way of life. With companions, Francis knew he now had to have some kind of direction, so he opened the Bible in three places. He read the command to the rich young man to sell all his good and give to the poor, the order to the apostles to take nothing on their journey, and the demand to take up the cross daily. "Here is our rule," Francis said -- as simple, and as seemingly impossible, as that.
Francis did not try to abolish poverty, he tried to make it holy. Francis was a man of action. His simplicity of life extended to ideas and deeds. If there was a simple way, no matter how impossible it seemed, Francis would take it. So when Francis wanted approval for his brotherhood, he went straight to Rome to see Pope Innocent III. You can imagine what the pope thought when this beggar approached him! As a matter of fact he threw Francis out. But when he had a dream that this tiny man in rags held up the tilting Lateran basilica, he quickly called Francis back and gave him permission to preach.
Francis decided to go to Syria to convert the Moslems while the Fifth Crusade was being fought. In the middle of a battle, Francis decided to do the simplest thing and go straight to the sultan to make peace. When he and his companion were captured, the real miracle was that they weren't killed. Instead Francis was taken to the sultan who was charmed by Francis and his preaching. He told Francis, "I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one -- but both of us would be murdered."
Francis' final years were filled with suffering as well as humiliation. Praying to share in Christ's passion he had a vision and received the stigmata, the marks of the nails and the lance wound that Christ suffered, in his own body.
Years of poverty and wandering had made Francis ill. On July 16, 1228, he died. He was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory IX. It is customary to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of October 4. He is also known for his love of the Eucharist, his sorrow during the Stations of the Cross, and for the creation of the Christmas crèche or Nativity Scene.
