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For the opera by Olivier Messiaen see Saint-François d'Assise.

Saint Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis
Confessor
Born	1181/1182 Assisi, Italy
Died	October 3, 1226 Assisi, Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	July 16, 1228, Assisi by Pope Gregory IX
Major shrine	Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Feast	September 17 October 4
Attributes	Cross, Dove, Pax et Bonum, Poor Franciscan habit, Stigmata
Patronage	animals, Catholic Action, environment, merchants, Meycauayan, Italy, Philippines, stowaways

Francis of Assisi (Giovanni Francesco Bernardone; born 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was a friar and the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans.

He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment and Italy, and it is customary for Catholic churches to hold ceremonies honouring animals around his feast day of 4 October.

Childhood and early adulthood

Francis was one of seven children born to Pietro di Bernardone, a rich cloth merchant, and his wife Pica Bourlemont, about whom little is known except that she was originally from France. Pietro was in France on business when Francis was born, and Pica had him baptized as Giovanni di Bernardone in honor of Saint John the Baptist,in the hope he would grow to be a great religious leader. When his father returned to Assisi, he was furious about this, as he did not want his son to be a man of the Church and decided to call him Francesco, in honor of his commercial success and enthusiasm for all things French.

As a youth, Francesco—or Francis in English—became a troubador and yearned to become a writer of French poetry. And although many biographers remark about his bright clothing, rich friends, street brawls, and love of pleasure, his displays of disillusionment toward the world that surrounded him came fairly early in his life, as is shown in the "story of the beggar." In this account, he was selling cloth and velvet in the marketplace on behalf of his father when a beggar came to him and asked for alms. At the conclusion of his business deal, Francis abandoned his wares and ran after the beggar. When he found him, Francis gave the man everything he had in his pockets. His friends quickly chided and mocked him for his act of charity. When he got home, his father scolded him in rage.

In 1201, he joined a military expedition against Perugia, he was taken as a prisoner at Collestrada, and spent a year as a captive. It is probable that his conversion to more serious thoughts was a gradual process relating to this experience. Upon his return to Assisi in 1203, Francis returned to his carefree life and in 1204, a serious illness led to a spiritual crisis. In 1205 Francis left for Puglia to enlist in the army of the Count of Brienne. In Spoleto, a strange vision made him return to Assisi, deepening his ecclesiastical awakening .

It is said that thereafter he began to avoid the sports and the feasts of his former companions; in response, they asked him laughingly whether he was thinking of marrying, to which he answered "yes, a fairer bride than any of you have ever seen", meaning his "lady poverty". He spent much time in lonely places, asking God for enlightenment. By degrees he took to nursing lepers, the most repulsive victims in the lazar houses near Assisi. After a pilgrimage to Rome, where he begged at the church doors for the poor, he said he had had a mystical vision of Jesus Christ in the Church of San Damiano just outside of Assisi, in which the Icon of Christ Crucified came alive and said to him three times, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins". He thought this to mean the ruined church in which he was presently praying, and so sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store, to assist the priest there for this purpose.

His father Pietro, highly indignant, attempted to change his mind, first with threats and then with corporal chastisement. After a final interview in the presence of the bishop, Francis renounced his father and his patrimony, laying aside even the garments he had received from him. For the next couple of months he lived as a beggar in the region of Assisi. Returning to the town for two years this time, he restored several ruined churches, among them the Porziuncola, little chapel of St Mary of the Angels, just outside the town, which later became his favorite abode.

Founding of the Order of Friars Minor

At the end of this period (according to Jordanus, on 24 February 1209), Francis heard a sermon that changed his life. The sermon was about Matthew 10:9, in which Christ tells his followers that they should go forth and proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven was upon them, that they should take no money with them, nor even a walking stick or shoes for the road. Francis was inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty.

Clad in a rough garment, barefoot, and, after the Evangelical precept, without staff or scrip, he began to preach repentance. He was soon joined by his first follower, a prominent fellow townsman, the jurist Bernardo di Quintavalle, who contributed all that he had to the work. Within a year Francis had eleven followers. Francis chose never to be ordained a priest and the community lived as "lesser brothers," fratres minores in Latin.

The brothers lived a simple life in the deserted lazar house of Rivo Torto near Assisi; but they spent much of their time wandering through the mountainous districts of Umbria, always cheerful and full of songs, yet making a deep impression on their hearers by their earnest exhortations.

In 1209 Francis led his first eleven followers to Rome to seek permission from Pope Innocent III to found a new religious order. Upon entry to Rome, the brothers encountered Bishop Guido of Assisi, who had in his company Giovanni di San Paolo, the cardinal bishop of Sabina. The Cardinal, who was the confessor of Pope Innocent III, was immediately sympathetic to Francis and agreed to represent Francis to the pope. Reluctantly, Pope Innocent agreed to meet with Francis and the brothers the next day. After several days, the pope agreed to informally admit the group, adding that when God increased the group in grace and number, they could return for an official admittance. The group was tonsured and Francis was ordained as a deacon, allowing him to read Gospels in the church.

Feast day

Saint Francis' feast day is observed on October 4. In addition to this feast, a secondary feast is still observed amongst Traditional Roman Catholics and Franciscans world-wide in honor of the stigmata received by St Francis celebrated on September 17 called "The Impression of the Stigmata of St Francis, Confessor" (see the General Roman Calendar as in 1954, the General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, and the General Roman Calendar of 1962).

Saint Francis, nature, and the environment

Many of the stories that surround the life of St Francis deal with his love for animals. Perhaps the most famous incident that illustrates the Saint’s humility towards nature is recounted in the 'Fioretti' (The "Little Flowers"), a collection of legends and folk-lore that sprang up after the Saint’s death. It is said that one day while Francis was traveling with some companions they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to "wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds". The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:

My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you…you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore… always seek to praise God.

Another legend from the Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals”. Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis. “Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil…” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” Then Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had “done evil out of hunger”, the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly, and in return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. In this manner Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis, ever the lover of animals, even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again. It is also said that Francis, to show the townspeople that they would not be harmed baptised the wolf.

These legends exemplify the Franciscan mode of charity and poverty as well as the saint's love of the natural world. Part of his appreciation of the environment is expressed in his Canticle of the Sun, a poem written in Umbrian Italian in perhaps 1224 which expresses a love and appreciation of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Mother Earth, Brother Fire, etc. and all of God's creations personified in their fundamental forms. In "Canticle of the Creatures," he wrote: "All praise to you, Oh Lord, for all these brother and sister creatures."

Francis's attitude towards the natural world, while poetically expressed, was conventionally Christian. He believed that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of the primordial sin of man. He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God (a common theme in the Psalms) and the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God's creation and as creatures ourselves.

Legend has it that St. Francis on his deathbed thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life, and his donkey wept.

Saint Francis in other media

• Franco Zeffirelli's film Brother Sun, Sister Moon
• Olivier Messiaen's opera Saint-François d'Assise
• Francesco (1990), a film by Liliana Cavani, somewhat slow moving film which follows Francis of Assisi's evolution from rich man's son to religious humanitarian and eventually to full-fledged self-tortured saint. This movie was inspired by Hermann Hesse's novel Peter Camenzind. St. Francis is played by Mickey Rourke, and the woman who later became Saint Clare, is played by Helena Bonham Carter
• Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi a book by Donald Spoto (2002)
• Flowers for St Francis (2005), a book by Raj Arumugam
• Saint Francis et His Four Ladies (1970) a book by Joan Mowat Erikson
• Brother, Sister (2006), third full-length album by indie rock band MewithoutYou, featuring the song "The Sun and Moon"
• Sant Francesc (Saint Francis, 1895), a book of forty-three Saint Francis poems by Catalan poet-priest Jacint Verdaguer, three of which are included in English translation in Selected Poems of Jacint Verdaguer: A Bilingual Edition, edited and translated by Ronald Puppo, with an introduction by Ramon Pinyol i Torrents (University of Chicago, 2007). The three poems are "The Turtledoves", "Preaching to Birds" and "The Pilgrim".
• Frank McCourt's autobiography Angela's Ashes contains some references to St. Francis.
• In Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov,' Ivan Karamazov invokes the name of 'Pater Seraphicus,' an epithet applied to St. Francis, to describe Alyshosha's spiritual guide Zosima. The reference is also found in Goethe's "Faust," Part 2, Act 5, lines 11918–25.

Main writings by St. Francis

• Canticum Fratris Solis or Laudes Creaturarum, Canticle of the Sun.
• Prayer before the Crucifix, 1205 (extant in the original Umbrian dialect as well as in a contemporary Latin translation).
• Regula non bullata, the Earlier Rule, 1221.
• Regula bullata, the Later Rule, 1223.
• Testament, 1226.
• Admonitions.

For a complete list, see .

Primary sources for the life of Saint Francis

• Friar Elias, Epistola Encyclica de Transitu Sancti Francisci, 1226.
• Pope Gregory IX, Bulla "Mira circa nos" for the canonization of St. Francis, 19 July 1228.
• Friar Tommaso da Celano: Vita Prima Sancti Francisci, 1228; Vita Secunda Sancti Francisci, 1246 – 1247; Tractatus de Miraculis Sancti Francisci, 1252 – 1253.
• Friar Julian of Speyer, Vita Sancti Francisci, 1232 – 1239.
• St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Legenda Maior Sancti Francisci, 1260 – 1263.
• Ugolino da Montegiorgio, Actus Beati Francisci et sociorum eius, 1327 – 1342.
• Fioretti di San Francesco, the "Little Flowers of St. Francis", end of the 14th century: an anonymous Italian version of the Actus; the most popular of the sources, but very late and therefore not the best authority by any means.
• The Little Flowers of Saint Francis (Translated by Raphael Brown), Doubleday, 1998. ISBN 978-0-385-07544-2

For an exhaustive list of sources, see .

See also

• Fraticelli

• Saint Juniper, one of Francis' original followers.
• Saint David
• St. Bonaventure University, a school founded in the Franciscan tradition inspired by St. Francis of Assisi.
• Franciscan University of Steubenville, a school run by Franciscan TOR's in Southeastern Ohio.
• University of Saint Francis (Illinois), a school founded in the tradition of St. Francis of Assisi.
• Saint Francis University (Pennsylvania)
• List of people on stamps of Ireland
• Saint Margaret of Cortona
• Saint-François d'Assise, an opera by Olivier Messiaen
• Society of Saint Francis
• The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), a film by Roberto Rossellini
• Christian mystics
• Siena College
• Saint-François (places called for Francis of Assisi in French-speaking countries)
• Lynn Townsend White, Jr.
• San Francisco, California, a major city named for this saint

References

1. Chesterton(1924), p.126
2. ^ Paschal Robinson (1913). "St. Francis of Assisi" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
3. ^ "Blessing All Creatures, Great and Small". Duke Magazine. 2006-11. Retrieved 2007-07-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. ^ Englebert, Omer (1951). The Lives of the Saints. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 529. ISBN 978-1566195164.
5. ^ Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1924), St. Francis of Assisi (14 ed.), Garden City, New York: Image Books, p. 158 Cite error: The named reference "Chesterton" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
6. Chesterton (1924), pp. 40–41
7. Bonaventure; Cardinal Manning (1867), The Life of St. Francis of Assisi (from the Legenda Sancti Francisci) (1988 ed.), Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books & Publishers, p. 190, ISBN 978-0895553430
8. ^ Chesterton(1924), pp. 54–56
9. Chesterton(1924), pp. 107–108
10. Galli(2002), pp. 74–80
11. ^ Bonaventure (1867), pp. 78–85
12. Bonaventure (1867), pp. 67–68

External links

• ORDO FRATRUM MINORUM — OFM — The homepage of the first order of Franciscans, Friars Minor.
• Franciscans International
• The Capuchin-Franciscan Friars
• The Third Order Regular, founded by Francis
• The Franciscan Archive
• Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier at Project Gutenberg
• Opuscula omnia Sancti Francisci Assisiensis Writings of St. Francis, in Latin
• The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi
• Template:Worldcat id
• Biography of St. Francis of Assissi

Template:Persondata

• 1181 births
• 1226 deaths
• Founders of Roman Catholic religious communities
• Franciscan spirituality
• Franciscans
• Italian saints
• Ascetics
• Christian mystics
• Christian theologians
• Christian philosophers
• 13th century philosophers
• Renewers of the church
• Roman Catholic devotions
• Stigmatics
• People from Assisi
• Christian hymnwriters
• Beggars
• Italian Christian pacifists
• 13th century Christian saints