The Founder: St. Francis of Assisi
by Aneel Aranha
The founder of the Franciscan Order was born Francesco Bernardone at Assisi in Umbria, Italy in 1181. His father was a wealthy cloth merchant who, from all indications, seemed to have indulged his son’s every whim. Records indicate that the saint’s early life was one of utter decadence. Blessed with a natural charm, Francis became the leader of a crowd of young people who spent their nights in wild parties.
Between parties, Francis dreamed of becoming a noble and a knight. Battle seemed the ideal way to win the glory and prestige that he longed for and when he was about 20, he had his chance when war broke out between the rival cities of Assisi and Perugia. The Assisians were resolutely defeated and Francis was one of those taken prisoner. During his imprisonment Francis contracted a low fever which seems to have turned his thoughts toward eternity. He began to see the emptiness of his life, but when he was released a year later - he was ransomed - Francis reverted to his old ways, including his dreams of honor and glory.
God speaks to Francis
A call for knights by the Neapolitan states against the emperor gave him another chance to realize his dreams. Decked up in a suit of armor that was decorated with gold and riding a fine horse, Francis left with the boast that he would return a prince. He never got further than a day’s ride from Assisi. He fell ill in the town of Spoleto where he had a dream urging him to return to Assisi. The dream affected Francis deeply and changed his life forever. The year was 1205.
Over the next few months, it was obvious that Francis had changed. Though he still joined in noisy revels with his former companions, his heart was no longer in it, and it wasn’t long before Francis gave up his gay attire and his wasteful ways. He turned increasingly toward prayer, often retiring to a cave where he wept for his sins.
One day, while crossing the Umbrian plain on horseback, Francis unexpectedly came across a leper. Francis was repelled by the sight and the smell of the man, but presently he controlled his aversion, dismounted and embaced the poor unfortunate. Francis looked upon the incident as a test from God and thereafter Francis was well on his way to sainthood.
On God’s path
Not long after, whilst Francis was praying before an ancient crucifix in a forsaken wayside chapel at San Damiano, he heard Christ on the crucifix speaking to him. “Go, Francis, and repair my church, which as you see is falling in ruin.”
In his impetuous manner of old, Francis went to his father’s shop and bundled together a load of colorful fabric. Riding to the nearby market of Foligno, Francis sold both the cloth and the horse he rode on, and took the gold he obtained to the priest who officiated at the chapel.
Francis’s father Pietro was furious with his son. In a bid to escape his father’s wrath, Francis hid out in a cave near St. Damian’s for a month. When he emerged, emaciated with hunger and squalid with dirt, Francis was dragged home by his father, beaten, bound and locked in a dark closet. In the father’s absence, Francis’s mother freed him. Francis immediately returned to St. Damian’s where he was given shelter, but his father sought him out and pulled him up in front of the bishop, demanding that Francis return all his money and renounce his rights as heir. It was a request that Francis was only too happy to fulfill. Stripping off the clothes he wore, he handed them to his father saying, “Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”
The Franciscan Habit
Francis took the Gospels as the rule of his life, often literally. In 1208, while Francis was hearing mass in a little chapel, the Gospel of the day said, “Take no gold or silver, nor copper in your belts, no bag for the journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff, for the labourer is worthy of his food.”
Francis took these words as if spoken directly to him and immediately after the mass he discarded everything that he owned. He obtained a coarse woolen tunic and tied it around his waist with a knotted rope. The cord symbolises the bridle of a subdued animal, for this is how St Francis considered the body in relation to the mind.
The Friars Minor
Assisians, who had once scoffed at Francis, now looked at him with wonder and many found themselves drawn to his austere life of penance and humble living. Several expressed a desire to join him and in typical fashion Francis turned to prayer to establish God’s will in this regard. He opened the Bible thrice and each time it opened at passages where Christ told his disciples to leave all things and follow Him. In this prescription of absolute poverty Francis saw the means to imitate the life of Christ.
Despite the severity of the practices, Francis’s group began to grow, and it wasn’t long before the Penitents of Assisi, as Francis and his followers styled themselves, set out for Rome to seek the approval of the Holy See. While what happened there is not quite certain, legend has it that the pope refused to grant an audience to the tiny man dressed in rags. But when he had a dream that Francis held up the tilting Lateran basilica, he called Francis back and gave him permission to preach.
After their return to Assisi, the friars minor, or little friars, continued to grow. Francis realized that the rule of povery - requiring monks to reject all property, whether personal or communal, and to be entirely dependent on the charity of others - was too arduous for many and in 1221 and 1223 produced two new rules which allowed friars some possessions.
The Poor Clares and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance
In 1212, a young 18 year old heiress of Assisi named Clare was so moved by the saint’s preaching, she beseeched him to be allowed to embrace the new manner of life he had founded. Francis eventually established her, and a few pious companions who had joined her, at St. Damian’s, in a dwelling adjoining the chapel he had built with his own hands. This became the first monastery of the Second Francisan Order of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares.
Over the next few years, Francis travelled to Spain and other lands, attempting to bring conversion to the infidels. Wherever he went, Francis found himself preaching to spell bound crowds who were fascinated by the man and the short, simple homilies he used to despatch. Church bells rang at his approach; processions of people advanced to greet him with music and singing; many brought sick to him to be healed and several literally kissed the very ground on which he walked. It so happened, that once while preaching at Camara, a small village near Assisi, the whole congregation were so moved by his teachings, they presented themselves as a body and begged to be admitted into his order. It was to accede to requests like this that Francis devised his Third Order of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance in 1221.
The Passion of Christ
In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis made his famous but fruitless attempt to convert the Sultan al-Kamil of Syria. In the middle of a battle, Francis decided to do the simplest thing and go straight to the Sultan to make peace. It was a miracle that he wasn’t killed on the spot. Instead, he was taken to the Sultan who was so charmed by the saint and his preaching that he told Francis, “I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one - but then both of us would be dead.”
When he returned to Assisi, Francis retired from the government of the order for a life of prayer, contemplation and fasting. It was during this time in his life that he prayed in La Verna, a mountain retreat in the Apennines just north of Assisi. Here in 1224 he received the Stigmata, the imprint of the wounds of Christ on his own body, which periodically bled during the remaining two years of his life. A year later, in the garden of San Damiano, he composed his famous poem, the Canticle of Brother Sun (see box), his response to increasing illhealth, blindness and suffering.
Francis died on October 3, 1226 and was canonized in 1228.
Next: The Work
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Image courtesy Belen Jesuit Preparatory School.
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