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ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI,
FOUNDER OF THE FRIARS MINOR
October 4
Patron Saint of Italy; Catholic Action; Ecologists; Merchants
St. Francis was born at Assisi in Umbria in 1181 or 1182. In his youth he was devoted to the ideas of romantic chivalry propagated by the troubadours; he had plenty of money and spent it lavishly, even osten¬tatiously. He was uninterested alike in his father's business and in formal learning. He was bent on enjoying himself. Nevertheless, he was not licentious, and would never refuse an alms to any poor man who asked it of him for the love of God.
When he was about twenty, strife broke out between the cities of Perugia and Assisi, and Francis was carried away prisoner by the Perugians. This he bore a whole year with cheerfulness and good temper. But as soon as he was released he was struck down by a long and dangerous sickness, which he suffered with so great patience that by the weakness of his body his spirit gathered greater strength and became more serious. On his recovery he determined to join the forces of Walter de Brienne, who was fighting in southern Italy. He bought himself expensive equip¬ment and handsome outfit, but as he rode out one day in a new suit, meeting a gentleman reduced to poverty and very ill-clad, he was touched with compassion and changed clothes with him. That night he seemed to see in his sleep a magnificent palace, filled with rich arms,
all marked with the sign of the cross; and he thought he heard one tell him that these arms belonged to him and his soldiers. He set out exultingly for Apulia, but never reached the front. At Spoleto he was taken ill again, and as he lay there a heavenly voice seemed to tell him to turn back, "to serve the master rather than the man." Francis obeyed. At first he returned to his old life, but more quietly and with less enjoyment. His preoccupation was noticed, and he was told he was in love. "Yes," he replied, "I am going to take a wife more beautiful and worthy than any you know." He began to give himself much to prayer and to have a desire to sell his goods and buy the precious jewel of the gospel. He knew not yet how he should do this, but certain strong inspirations made him understand that the spiritual warfare of Christ is begun by mortification and victory over one's self. Riding one day in the plain of Assisi he met a leper, whose sores were so loathsome that at the sight of them he was struck with horror. But he dismounted, and as the leper stretched out his hand to receive an alms, Francis, whilst he bestowed it, kissed the man.
Henceforward he often visited the hospitals and served the sick, and gave to the poor sometimes his clothes and sometimes money. One day as he was praying in the church of St. Damian, outside the walls of Assisi, he seemed to hear a voice coming from the crucifix, which said to him three times, "Francis, go and repair my house, which you see is falling down." The saint, seeing that the church was old and ready to fall, thought our Lord commanded him to repair it. He therefore went home, and in the simplicity of his heart took a horse load of cloth out of his father's warehouse
and sold it, with the horse. The price he brought to the poor priest of St. Damian's, asking to be allowed to stay with him. The priest consented, but would not take the money, which Francis therefore left on a window-sill. His father, hearing what had been done, came in great indignation to St. Damian's, but Francis had hid himself. After some days spent in prayer and fasting, he appeared again, though so disfigured and ill-clad that people pelted him and called him mad. His father, more annoyed than ever, carried him home, beat him unmercifully (Francis was about twenty-five), put fetters on his feet, and locked him up, till his mother set him at liberty while his father was out. Francis returned to St. Damian's. His father, following him thither, hit him about the head and insisted that he should either return home or renounce all his share in his inheritance and return the purchase-price of the goods he had taken. Francis had no objection to being disinherited, but said that the other money now belonged to God and the poor. He was therefore summoned before Guide, Bishop ofAssisi, who told him to return it and have trust in God: "He does not wish His Church to profit by goods which may have been gotten unjustly." Francis did as he was told and, with his usual literalness, added, "The clothes I wear are also his. I'll give them back." He suited the action to the word, stripped himself of his clothes, and gave them to his father, saying cheerfully, "Hitherto I have called you father on earth; but now I say, 'Our Father, who art in Heaven.' " The frock of a laborer, a servant of the bishop, was found, and Francis received this first alms with many thanks, made a cross on the garment with chalk, and put it on.
Francis went in search of some convenient shelter, singing the divine praises along the highways. He was met by a band of robbers, who asked him who he was. He answered, "I am the herald of the great King." They beat him and threw him into a ditch full of snow. He went on singing the praises of God. He passed by a monastery, and there received alms and a job of work as an unknown poor man. In the city of Gubbio, one who knew him took him into his house, and gave him a tunic, belt and shoes, such as pilgrims wore, which were decent though poor and shabby. These he wore
two years, and he walked with a staff in his hand like a hermit. He then returned to San Damiano at Assisi. For the repair of the church he gathered alms and begged in Assisi, where all had known him rich, bearing with joy the railleries and contempt with which he was treated by some. For the building he himself carried stones and served the masons and helped put the church in order. He next did the same for an old church which was dedicated in honor of St. Peter. After this he went to a little chapel called Portiuncula, belonging to the abbey of Benedictine monks on Monte Subasio, who gave it that name prob¬ably because it was built on so small a parcel of land. It stands in a plain two miles from Assisi, and was at that time forsaken and ruinous. The retiredness of this place appealed to St. Francis, and he was delighted with the title which the church bore, it being dedicated in honor of our Lady of the Angels. He repaired it, and fixed his abode by it. Here, on the feast of St. Matthias in the year 1209, his way of life was shown to St. Francis. In those days the gospel of the Mass on this feast was Matt. x 7-19: "And going, preach, saying: The kingdom of Heaven is at hand... . Freely have you received, freely give. . . . Do not possess gold .. . nor two coats nor shoes nor a staff. . . . Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves...." The words went straight to his heart and, applying them literally to himself, he gave away his shoes, staff and girdle, and left himself with one poor coat, which he girt about him with a cord. This was the dress which he gave to his friars the year following: the undyed woolen dress of the shepherds and peasants in those parts. Thus garbed, he began to exhort to repentance with such energy that his words pierced the hearts of his hearers. As he passed them on the road he saluted the people with the words, "Our Lord give you peace." God had already given him the gifts of prophecy and miracles. When he was begging alms to repair the church of St. Damian, he used to say, "Help me to finish this building. Here will one day be a monastery of nuns by whose good fame our Lord will be glorified over the whole Church." This was verified in St. Clare five years after. A man in Spoleto was afflicted with a cancer, which had disfigured him hideously. He met
St. Francis and would have thrown himself at his feet;
but the saint prevented him and kissed his diseased face, which was instantly healed. "I know not," says St. Bonaventure, "which I ought most to wonder at, such a kiss or such a cure."
Many began to admire Francis, and some desired to be his companions and disciples. When his followers had increased to a dozen, Francis drew up a short informal rule consisting chiefly of the gospel counsels of perfection. This he took to Rome in 1210 for the pope's approbation. Innocent III appeared at first averse, and many of the cardinals alleged that the orders already established ought to be reformed and their number not multiplied, and that the intended poverty of this new body was impracticable. Cardinal John Colonna pleaded in its favor that it was no more than the evangelical counsels of perfection. The pope afterwards told his nephew, from whom St. Bonaven¬ture heard it, that in a dream he saw a palm tree growing up at his feet, and in another he saw St. Francis propping up the Lateran church, which seemed ready to fall (as he saw St. Dominic in another vision five years after). He therefore sent again for St. Francis, and approved his rule, but only by word of mouth, tonsuring him and his companions and giving them a general commission to preach repentance.
St. Francis and his companions now lived together in a little cottage at Rivo Torto, outside the gates of Assisi, whence they sometimes went into the country to preach. After a time they had trouble with a peasant who wanted the cottage for the use of his donkey. "God has not called us to prepare a stable for an ass," observed Francis, and went off to see the abbot of Monte Subasio. The abbot, in 1212, handed over the Portiuncula chapel to St. Francis, upon condition that it should always continue the head church of his order. The saint refused to accept the property "in fee simple" but would only have the use of the place; and in token that he held it of the monks, he sent them every year a basket of fish caught in a neighboring river. The monks sent the friars in return a barrel of oil. This custom is now revived between the friars of Santa Maria degli Angeli and the Benedictines of San Pietro at Assisi.
At the beginning of his conversion, finding himself assailed with violent temptations against purity he sometimes cast himself naked into ditches full of snow. Once, under a more grievous trial than ordinary, he began to discipline himself sharply, and when this failed of its effect threw himself into a briar-patch and rolled therein. The humility of Francis was no emotional self-depreciation, but grounded in the certainty that "what each one is in the eyes of God, that he is and no more." He never proceeded in holy orders beyond the diaconate, not daring to be ordained priest. He had no use for singularity. In a certain house he was told that one of the friars was so great a lover of silence that he would only confess his faults by signs. The saint did not like it, and said, "This is not the spirit of God but of the Devil. A temptation, not a virtue." God illuminated the understanding of His servant with a light and wisdom that is not taught in books. When a certain brother asked leave to study, Francis told him that if he would often repeat the Gloria Patri with devotion he would become very learned before God. He was himself an example of knowledge so attained. His love for and power over the lower animals were noted and often referred to by those who knew him: his rebuke to the swallows while he was preaching at Alviano, "My sisters the swallows, it is now my turn to speak. You have been talking enough all this time"; the birds that perched around him while he told them to praise their Creator; the rabbit that would not leave him at Lake Trasimene;
and the tamed wolf at Gubbio, which some maintain is an allegory and others a plain fact.
St. Francis spent the Christmas of 1223 at Grecchio in the valley of Rieti where, he told his friend John da Vellita, "I would make a memorial of that Child who was born in Bethlehem and in some sort behold with bodily eyes the hardships of His infant state, lying on hay in a manger with the ox and the ass standing by." Accordingly a "crib" was set up at the hermitage, and the peasants crowded to the midnight Mass, at which Francis served as deacon and preached on the Christmas mystery. The custom of making a crib was probably not unknown before this time, but this use of it by St. Francis is said to have begun its subsequent
popularity. He remained for some months at Grecchio in prayer and quietness, and the graces which he received from God in contemplation he was careful to conceal from men. Brother Leo, his secretary and confessor, testified that he had seen him in prayer sometimes raised above the ground so high that he could only touch his feet, and that sometimes he was raised much higher. Towards the festival of the Assumption in 1224, St. Francis retired to Mount Alvernia and there made a little cell. He kept Leo with him, but forbade any other person to come to him before the feast of St. Michael. Here it was, on or about Holy Cross day 1224, that happened the miracle of the stigmata. Having been thus marked with the signs of our Lord's passion, Francis tried to conceal this favor of Heaven from the eyes of men, and for this purpose he ever after covered his hands with his habit, and wore shoes and stockings on his feet. Yet having first asked the advice of Brother Illuminate and others, he with fear disclosed to them this wonderful happening, and added that several things had been manifested to him which he never would disclose to anyone. To soothe him during illness he was one day asked to let someone read a book to him; but he answered, "Nothing gives me so much consolation as to think of the life and passion of our Lord. Were I to live to the end of the world I would stand in need of no other book." Before he left Alvernia St. Francis composed that poem which has been called the "Praise of the Most High God," then, after the feast of St. Michael, he came down from the mountain bearing in his flesh the marks of the sacred wounds, and healed the sick who were brought to him in the plain below.
Some time before his death he made a testament for his religious brethren, in which he recommends that they faithfully observe their rule and work with
their hands, not out of a desire of gain but for the of good example and to avoid idleness. "If we receive nothing for our work, let us have recourse to the i of the Lord, begging alms from door to door." When he knew the end was close at hand, he called for h and broke it and to each one present gave a piece token of mutual love and peace, saying, "I have done my part; may Christ teach you to do yours." He was laid on the ground and covered with an old habit which the guardian lent him. He exhorted his brethren to the love of God, of poverty, and of the gospel "before all other ordinances," and gave his blessing all his disciples, the absent as well as those that were present. The passion of our Lord in the gospel of St. John was read aloud, and in the evening of Saturday, October 3, 1226, St. Francis died.
He had asked to be buried in the criminals' cementary on the Colle d'lnferno, but the next day his b was taken in solemn procession to the church of St. George in Assisi. Here it remained until two years after his canonization when, in 1230, it was secret removed to the great basilica built by Brother Eli< six hundred years it was not seen by the eyes of m till in 1818 after fifty-two days' search it was found deep down beneath the high altar in the lower Church St. Francis was only forty-four or forty-five years the time of his death. This is not the place to relal even in outline, the checkered and glorious history the order which he founded; but in its three bran of Friars Minor, Friars Minor Capuchin and Friars Minor Conventual, together making the one Order St. Francis, it is the most numerous religious institute in the Church today. And it is the opinion of Prof David Knowles that by the foundation of this brother hood St. Francis "did more than any other man to save the medieval Church from decay and revolution.' |
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