St. Francis of Assisi
- May 3
- 4 min read
By: Juan de la Vara Sánchez
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francis of Assisi, was born in Assisi, in the Holy Roman Empire, Italy today, in 1181 and died on October 3rd 1226, in Assisi too, which at that moment had become part of the Papal States. He was the friar who founded the Franciscan order, but he is also known for his love of nature and animals, being the patron saint of ecology and animals.
He was born in a wealthy family, his father was a merchant, and he was among the richest people of the region. Francis’ childhood was very privileged. He wore clothes with the best materials and got an exceptional education; but, despite all his wealth, he started showing discontent with the world that surrounded him. One time he was in the market selling, when a beggar asked him for a handout. When Francis finished his business, he looked for the beggar and he gave the beggar all he had in his purse while his friends laughed at him and his father yelled at him.
When he was 21, he joined the military in a war between Assisi and Perugia, but he was taken as a prisoner for close to a year. After recovering, he tried to join the Papal Forces to fight against the Holy Roman Empire, but he had a vision and decided to return home. When he came back, he dedicated himself to solitude and prayer to try to find what God wanted for him. This and more experiences led him to the apostolic life, spending time with beggars and helping them. After a priest refused to take Francis’s money, which he had obtained from selling some of his father’s cloth, to repair the ruined chapel of San Damiano, Francis threw the money out the window. He and his father had an argument and Francis embraced a life of poverty without his family’s wealth.
In his new life, he repaired the church of San Damiano, renewed and restored multiple chapels, and he started preaching to the people, even though he didn’t have the license to do it, and he created a rule for his disciples based in the Bible: To follow the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to walk His footsteps.
After that, he went to Rome to get Pope Innocent III’s approval for officially founding the Franciscan order; the approval was given on April 16th, 1210, under the official name of the Order of Friar Minor. At that time, they preached and worked in the region of Umbria, and with the growth of the order, all over Italy. In 1212, Francis cofounded another order, that was known as the Poor Clares, later known as the Women’s Order of St. Clare, this one for women; and in 1221, he formed the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, for people that could not leave their homes and families, but they would still follow a Franciscan life.
Francis is one of the people in history that has followed Christ’s life in Christ’s way, as he had a deep devotion for the Eucharist and really respected the priests that handled Communion. His spirit is marked by the love of poverty and helping those struggling with poverty was a pillar of his life. But above everything else, he is known for his love of nature, as he considered nature as the mirror of God. He called God’s creations his “brothers” and “sisters.” An example of this is in the town of Gubbio, where he preached to the birds and persuaded a wolf to stop attacking the people and livestock from Gubbio. This legacy is shown in his song “The Canticle of the Creatures.” You can read it from Xavier University here.
His desire was to present the Gospel to all God’s creatures, going outside of Italy. He tried multiple times, going to the Holy Land to preach to the Muslims, to the Muslims in Al-Andalus (Spain) and tried to go to France, but every time was stopped by sickness, a shipwreck, and also the future Pope Gregory IX stopped him, but he didn’t give up and in 1219 he went to Egypt. In a Muslim camp, the sultan was so
impressed with him that he let him visit sacred places in the Holy Land, but he had to go back to Italy because of disturbances among the friars in Italy. He solved it by preparing a more detailed rule and reasserted devotion to the apostolic life and poverty, and he also appointed Peter Catanii as his vicar to handle the practical affairs. In his final years, he received the stigmata (the bodily wounds of Christ’s crucifixion) and he hid it, and it was then announced by Brother Elias after Francis’s death. In his last two years, he lived in constant pain and almost completely blind, and after the treatment didn’t work, he died in 1226. He was buried in 1228 temporarily, to be transferred in 1230 in the basilica that was built in his memory. He was canonized shortly after his death, less than two years after his death, by Pope Gregory IX, his former protector.
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