St. Francis, by Italian artist Cimabue (1240-1302). Public Domain.
Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally – not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit, and without a sense of self-importance.
Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as a soldier and leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer – lengthy and difficult – led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.
He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house”, but he would have been quite content to be, for the rest of his life, a poor man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up all his possessions, returning even his clothes to his father Pietro di Bernardone, a rich cloth merchant, and standing completely naked before him. Francis desired to be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious fanatic, begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, evoking sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from others.
But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff.” (Luke 9:1-3)
St. Francis in the Desert by Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516). Public Domain.
Francis soon attracted followers. In 1209 he composed for his mendicant disciples, or Friars Minor as they came to be known, a simple rule drawn from passages in the Bible: “To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps.”
Francis was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News of God’s love for us. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did travel to Egypt to share his faith with the Sultan al-Kāmil, who was very impressed by him.
Francis considered all nature as the mirror of God, and called all creatures his “brothers” and “sisters”. In the most endearing stories about him, Francis preached to the birds and persuaded a wolf to stop attacking the people of the town of Gubbio and their livestock.
Francis died at age 44. During the last years of his relatively short life, he was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death he received the stigmata, the painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.
Photo by Laura Locke
On his deathbed, Francis said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” At the end, he asked his superior’s permission to have his clothes removed when the last hour came, in order that he could expire lying naked on the earth in imitation of his Lord.
Francis of Assisi was poor only that he might be Christ-like. He recognized creation as a manifestation of the beauty of the Creator. In 1979, he was named Patron of Ecology.
Copyright © Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, Ohio. Excerpt adapted from Franciscan Media Saint of the Day.
