SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI

St. Francis was born in 1182, the son of Pietro Bernardone and Madonna Pica. His father sold spices and fabrics and was often out of town on business. It was while Pietro was travelling in Provence on business that Madonna Pica gave birth to the boy. His mother named him Giovanni after John the Baptist, but Pietro didn't like this. He wanted a son who was a man of business, not a man of God, and a son that would reflect his love of France and all that was French, so immediately renamed him Francesco. Francesco spent a happy childhood under the watchful eye of Madonna Pica and the attention heaped on him by his father, who was certain his son would follow him in the merchant business. He was popular with everyone, too much so for his own good. As he grew up he became the leader of a crowd of young people who spent their nights in wild parties. Nevertheless, his strict education and healthy moral upbringing gave everything he did a sense of balance. For instance, he was working intently in his father's cloth shop, arranging the fabric, when a beggar came to the door asking for alms in God's name. Francesco rudely kicked the man out, but then he regretted his actions and followed the man. When he found him, he apologized and gave him some money.

When Francesco was just barely twenty years old, Assisi declared war on its longtime enemy, Perugia. Most of the troops from Assisi were killed in the fight, but those wealthy enough to expect to be ransomed were taken prisoner. Francesco was one of these, and so he found himself where he always wanted to be, among the nobility, even though chained in a dark dungeon. After a year he was ransomed, but the harsh treatment ruined his health. By the time he returned to Assisi, he was seriously ill. His mother's loving care and time itself brought him back to health, and once again he started partying with as much abandon as before the battle. But he still wanted glory. Finally a call for the Fourth Crusade gave him a chance to fulfil his dream. Mounted on a horse and wearing armour decorated with gold (both paid for by his father, of course), he set out, declaring that he would return a prince. But when he reached Spoleto, just a day's journey away from Assisi, the Lord appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to turn back. And go back he did, without taking part in any battle. What must it have been like for him to return after all his boasts without even making it into battle. The boy who loved to be liked was humiliated, called a coward by all that knew him, and raged at by his father for wasting all that money on armour and a horse.

The words of God echoed in his mind like a summons. But Francesco's conversion did not take place overnight. God had waited for him for twenty-five years, and now it was Francesco's turn to wait. Life couldn't stop for God. There was life to be lived, a business to run, customers to wait on. But from that moment on, his life changed. He started to spend more time in prayer. He went off to a cave and wept for his sins. During a brief stay in Rome, for example, he stripped himself of his garments and his money and gave them to a beggar. Later, he encountered a leper in Assisi and instead of fleeing from him as most people did, he went up to him and embraced him. He did this amidst the mockery and scorn of his friends and to his father's great disappointment. Only in Madonna Pica did he find any understanding. But his path was clear: he chose to go off in silent meditation amidst the hills and countryside of Assisi. One day, when riding through the countryside, he came across a leper. This man, who loved beauty and hated deformity, jumped off his horse and kissed the leper's hand. This kiss of peace was returned, which filled Francesco with joy. As he rode off, he turned around for a last wave, but the leper had disappeared. Francesco always regarded this incident as a test from God, a test which he had passed.

Francesco often visited the little church of St. Damiano, just a few kilometers outside Assisi. During one of these visits, God spoke to him through the crucifix in the little chapel, saying, "Go and repair my house, which is in ruins." Francesco assumed that this meant church with a small 'c', the crumbling building that he was in. Consequently, to raise some money, he took fabric from his father's shop and sold it to get money to buy materials to repair the church. However, Pietro Bernardone saw this as an act of theft. Put with Francesco's apparent cowardice, waste of money, and growing disinterest in business, it seemed like the act of a madman rather than his son. So he dragged Francesco before the bishop and, in front of the whole town, demanded his money back and ordered Francesco to renounce all his rights as son and heir. The bishop, a man of great wisdom, told Francesco to return the money, and said that God would provide. That was enough for Francesco. He not only gave back the money but took off all his clothes - the clothes his father had paid for - until he was wearing only a hair shirt. In front of the crowd that had gathered he affirmed that Pietro Bernadone was no longer his father.

Wearing nothing but cast off rags he went off into the freezing woods, singing. And when robbers beat him and took even the rags he was wearing, he climbed out of the ditch into which they had thrown him and continued on his way, singing again. From then on he owned nothing. Thus began a period marked by meditation and great sacrifice. He went back to what he considered God's call. He begged for stones and rebuilt the San Damiano church with his bare hands. Soon he started to preach. He was never a priest, though he was later, under protest, ordained deacon. Francesco was not a reformer. He preached about returning to God by both the laity and the clergy. His actions did not go unnoticed and he was soon joined by his first followers, people who were willing to follow his way of life - sleeping in the open, begging for food. Like their leader, they dressed in a tunic and rags. Francesco realized that he and his companions needed some kind of direction to the life they were living. Taking his bible, he opened it randomly, and read the command to the rich man to sell all his goods and give to the poor. A second random opening disclosed the order to the apostles to take nothing on their journey. A third time gave the demand to take up the cross daily. This, he decided, would be their rule - to live by the Gospel. Francesco took this rule so literally that, when a thief stole the hood of one of the brothers, he made that brother run after the thief and offer him his robe. Francesco practised true equality by showing respect and honour and love to everybody. Beggar or Pope, it made no difference to him. Following the Gospel literally, Francesco and his companions went out to preach two by two. They worked for what they needed, and only begged if they had to. In the beginning, listeners were hostile to these mad men in rags who talked about God's love. They ran away so that they would not catch this strange madness. But soon people noticed that these ragged beggars seemed to be filled with constant joy. And people began to ask themselves if it was possible to own nothing and still be happy. Soon, they were greeted with smiles.

Francesco never wanted to found a religious order. He thought of what he was doing as expressing God's brotherhood. His brotherhood included all of God's creation. Much has been written about his love of nature but his relationship was deeper than that. Francesco really felt that nature, all God's creations, were part of his brotherhood. The sparrow was as much his brother as the Pope. One famous story tells of how he preached to hundreds of birds about being thankful to God for their wonderful clothes, for their independence, and for God's care, and how the birds stood still as he walked among them, only flying off when he said they could go. Another story involves a wolf that had been eating human beings. Francesco intervened when the inhabitants of the town wanted to kill the wolf, and he talked the wolf into never killing again. The wolf became a pet of the townspeople who made sure that he always had plenty to eat.

In 1210, when Francesco 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 only to be expected he threw Francesco out. But then he had a dream in which the Lateran basilica was falling over, and this tiny man in rags was holding it up, whereupon he quickly called Francesco back and gave him permission to preach. It was about this time that the first contact with Clare of Assisi took place and this represented the beginning of the female branch of the Franciscan movement or, in other words, the foundation of the Order of the Poor Women, who would later be known as the Poor Clares.

In 1213, Francesco decided to go to Morocco, but had to stop in Spain because he fell ill. Later, in 1219, he decided to go to Syria to convert the Moslems while the Fifth Crusade was being fought. In the middle of a battle, Francesco 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 Francesco was taken to the sultan who was charmed by Francesco and his preaching. He told Francesco, "I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one - but both of us would be murdered."

When he returned to Italy, he came back to a brotherhood that had grown to 5000. Pressure came from outside to control this great movement, to make them conform to the standards of others. People complained that his dream of radical poverty was too harsh. He finally gave up authority in his order - but he probably wasn't too upset about it. Now he was just another brother, just like he had always wanted. Francesco's final years were filled with suffering as well as humiliation. In September 1224, after 40 days of fasting, he was praying upon Monte Alverno when he felt pain mingled with joy, and the marks of the crucifixion of Christ, the stigmata, appeared on his body. Accounts of the appearance of these marks differ, but it seems probable that they were knobbly protuberances of the flesh resembling the heads of nails. Years of poverty and wandering had made Francesco ill. He was carried back to Assisi, where his remaining years were marked by physical pain and almost total blindness. He died at sunset on the 3rd. October, 1226 at the age of 45. Two years later, Pope Gregory IX, who had been his patron and friend, canonized him.

BILL HUTCHINGS