Biography of Saint Francis of Assisi

Francis was born in Assisi in 1182

His father worked as a cloth merchant, therefore he traveled and often went to France. During the baptism he gave his son the name Giovanni (John).

Pietro loved France very much and upon returning from a trip to that country he wanted to change his son's name from Giovanni to Francesco (Francis).

From youth to radical conversion (1182–1208)

In 1202, Francis, seeking military glory, participated as a volunteer in the war between Perugia and Assisi. Fortune was not on his side, in fact the army of Assisi was defeated and Francis was taken prisoner. The imprisonment lasted a year after which his father ransomed him for health reasons. The long and depressing illness continued in Francis throughout 1204.

After this difficult period his health recovered and Francis, we are in 1205, set out again for war. He enlisted as a volunteer to fight the papal troops in Puglia. Upon reaching Spoleto he heard a voice urging him to return to Assisi. Francis heeded the warning and returned to Assisi, where his conversion began.

At the end of 1205, while Francis was praying before the Crucifix placed in the Chapel of San Damiano, he received this order from Christ Jesus: "Go and repair my Church". Francis accepted the invitation and began diligently to restore the churches now in ruins located around Assisi.

Pietro Bernardone, Francis's father, who had invested hopes and financed the costly worldly lifestyle, did not appreciate his conversion. He therefore turned to Bishop Guido, the Episcopal ordinary in Assisi, so that he would act with authority on the young mystic to induce him to respect filial duties and both family and professional tasks that awaited him. The prelate listened to Francis and was struck by his sincerity and seriousness of purpose, so he welcomed him into the Church and placed him under his protection. Thus Francis renounced his paternal inheritance, publicly stripping himself naked before the Bishop, his father and his fellow citizens. The Bishop then covered his nakedness with his mantle.

For Francis, now twenty-five years old, the journey begins in the footsteps of Jesus. He cares for the poor and lepers, staying first in the woods of Mount Subasio and then in the valley, near the Chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, called the "Porziuncola". During the celebration of Holy Mass, on February 24, 1208, Francis feels the need to definitively leave the "world", he is guided by the text of the evangelist Matthew: "Deprive yourself of everything to do good everywhere". He returns to Assisi and begins preaching, gathering around him a dozen fervent followers, mostly old companions of games and festivities. These became the first members of a free fraternity of lay people dedicated to poverty, communal life, and charity.

Foundation of the Order and mission in the world (1209–1223)

This fellowship, in the year 1210, was recognized and legitimized orally by Pope Innocent III, probably thanks to the mediation of Giovanni Colonna, cardinal of San Paolo, to whom Francis had been recommended by the Bishop of Assisi.

Francis welcomed Chiara di Offreduccio into his community, it was Palm Sunday, March 18, 1212. Chiara, having been born in 1194, was twelve years younger than Francis. Today she is honored as Saint Clare, founder of the Poor Clares.

The community of Saint Francis between 1209 and 1220 grew rapidly. The friars preached the message of forgiveness and peace, not only in Italy but beyond the Alps and even in Syria. Francis himself visited Dalmatia, Spain, France and the Holy Land, he also tried to reach Morocco to preach the Gospel to the Muslims.

During the biennium 1215-16 Francis's presence in Perugia at the time of the death of Pope Innocent III is certain. The successor, Honorius III, was very important for the consolidation of the fraternity and its transformation into a proper mendicant Order, the first expression of which was the famous general chapter held in Assisi at Pentecost 1217.

After celebrating the second general chapter of the Order, in May 1219, Francis embarked at Ancona on June 21 with a dozen companions, including Pietro Cattani and Illuminato da Rieti, and sailed first to Acre to meet the confreres settled there, then towards Egypt to the crusader camp where he wished to preach to those who had responded in arms to the Church's call. He also wished to meet the Muslims to testify to them his faith in Christ. It is probable that he truly met on this occasion the Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, known for his magnanimous gifts. The meeting opened the great season of the Franciscan missionary vocation, although the Order later proved to understand it in a predominantly apologetic sense and foreign to the primitive intentions of the Poor Man of Assisi.

In the first months of 1220 Francis returns from the East and discovers that in his absence decisions have been made that have imposed on his community a more rigid organization, a stricter discipline to align this fresh community with the other Orders already firmly established. He must also face the difficulties deriving from the success of his fraternity in which followers of various social and cultural backgrounds were converging. The solicitations aimed to soften and make less severe the rule, especially regarding the concept of absolute poverty which included the refusal of any property and also the prohibition of exercising any form of power. Francis understands that his small community has transformed into a worldwide organization and that he is no longer able to govern. With wisdom and sadness he asks Pope Honorius III to designate Cardinal Ugolino (the future Gregory IX) to take care of the Order's affairs. Francis resigns as the legal head of his Order while remaining its spiritual head until death.

Thus the necessary definition of the Rule of what was now the mendicant Order of the Friars Minor proceeded. Important for this was the so-called "Chapter of the Mats" of Pentecost 1221. In the presence of over five thousand friars, coming from all parts of Christendom, Francis energetically reaffirmed the specificity of his Christian proposal, different from that of any other Order, and not in competition with any of them.

The Rule, from laborious gestation, knew a first text of 1221 (Regula non bullata, that is not legitimized by an official pontifical document) and a second of 1223 which, compared to the first, modified its rigor somewhat. Meanwhile, the role of both the Second Franciscan Order, that of the Poor Ladies (the Poor Clares), and the Third Order, dedicated to lay people, was being specified.

The passage from the first to the second Rule was not easy at all. The Church leaders considered the rule of 1221 - which in fact did not receive formal hierarchical legitimation - too harsh and confused, unsuitable for the life of the Order, which had developed so far beyond any expectation. Ugolino and Elia made their proposals and exerted their pressure on the founder: the circumstances in which all this happened are not at all clear.

Francis withdrew to meditate in the hermitage of Fonte Colombo near Rieti and, in the end, issued a new redaction of the document, no longer divided into twenty-three, but only twelve chapters. This rule was approved by Honorius III with the bull Solet annuere issued on November 29 and later known as Regula bullata.

Francis spent Christmas 1223 in Greccio, in the valley of Rieti. Where he built a manger to celebrate the feast with a kind of sacred representation that gave origin to the tradition of the nativity scene in which, without doubt, he relived with emotion the pain of not having been able to visit, about four years earlier, the holy places. From miles and miles around people came to Greccio which: "was prepared as if it were a new Bethlehem".

The stigmata, the last years and the glory of the Saints (1224–1228)

The weeks from mid-August until the end of September 1224 Francis spent at La Verna, an Apennine rock, between Tuscany and Romagna, which had been donated to him, about ten years earlier, by a local feudal lord, for the time of a Lent dedicated to the Archangel Michael: and there, on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, he received the stigmata, that is, the signs of the crucifixion of Christ were imprinted on his hands, feet and side.

In the spring of 1225, during a visit to Saint Clare at San Damiano, Francis fell seriously ill. The cause was an eye disease that had afflicted him for several years. Now he was reduced almost to blindness. This forced him to stay at San Damiano for almost two months. After a mystical experience in which he was revealed that he would obtain eternal life, he composed the Canticle of the Creatures. He left San Damiano in early July, at Fonte Colombo he was prescribed to have his temples cauterized and he endured this painful treatment.

In April 1226 Francis was taken to Siena for further treatment of his eyes but without result. Now he was vomiting blood and it was evident to all that he would not live long because his strength no longer sustained him. Francis finally moved to Cortona, to the comfortable convent of the Celle, where, according to tradition, he drafted the fundamental and definitive document of his experience, the Testament, in which he energetically recommended that the rule of 1223 be followed constantly and to the letter, without any form of commentary that would change it in any way.

By his own desire he was brought back to Assisi, where he arrived in June. In the month of September, realizing that death was approaching, he insisted on being taken to the Porziuncola. A few days before dying Francis had himself laid naked on the ground. He exhorted death to render praise and invited it to dwell with him. Then at dusk on the evening of Saturday, October 3, 1226, Francis fell asleep in the Lord. One of the Friars present saw his soul like a star, the size of the moon and shining like the sun, ascending directly to heaven. The larks gathered in the place where he lay dying and flew around singing. That same evening all the bells of Assisi rang out and the event passed from mouth to mouth with the speed of lightning.

In the Church of San Giorgio the funeral was celebrated, then the body was deposited in a massive stone urn, closed on the surface by a narrow grid, which in turn was secured to the urn by tenacious iron wrappings. Finally the sacred deposit was lowered under the altar of the Church.

On that tomb meanwhile miracles flourished. The blind, the lame, the deaf, the mute, the paralytics, those affected by any disease suddenly regained the health of the body, and souls regained the light of faith and the strength for inner renewal.

He was canonized almost immediately, on July 16, 1228. Gregory IX, coming from Perugia to Assisi, solemnly inscribed the name of Francis in the register of Saints, while, in his honor, he pontificated in the square of S. Giorgio. Even today Francis is honored as alter Christus, a second Christ, bearing with him the sign of the Tau as a symbol of trust and redemption.