Saint Francis of Assisi

Life and historical context

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known to the world as Francis of Assisi, was born in 1181 or 1182 in the Umbrian town of Assisi to a wealthy cloth merchant named Pietro di Bernardone and his French wife Pica de Bourlémont. The future saint was nicknamed Francesco (Frenchman) by his father in recognition of Pica's heritage and Pietro's commercial dealings in France. Francis was raised in the relative comfort of the rising Italian merchant class of the late twelfth century and educated to take over the family business.¹

His youth was marked by the typical preoccupations of an Italian merchant's son of that era: trade, courtly poetry, and the pursuit of knighthood. In 1202 he marched with the Assisian militia against neighboring Perugia and was captured at the Battle of Collestrada, spending nearly a year as a prisoner of war in a Perugian dungeon. After his release in 1203 he returned to Assisi gravely ill, and the period of his recovery began the gradual interior turn that would lead to his religious vocation.²

The decisive moment in his conversion came in 1206 in the dilapidated chapel of San Damiano outside Assisi. Praying before a Byzantine-style crucifix, Francis is said to have heard the figure of Christ speak to him: Francisce, vade et repara domum meam, quae, ut cernis, tota destruitur ("Francis, go and repair my house, which as you can see is falling into ruin"). Taking the command literally at first, Francis began the physical restoration of the San Damiano chapel using funds taken from his father's cloth shop. The conflict with his father over the misappropriation of the cloth led to a public hearing before the Bishop of Assisi in 1206, at which Francis renounced his inheritance and his patrimony, stripped off his clothes in the public square, and committed himself to the service of God in voluntary poverty.³

Over the next several years Francis attracted companions, and in 1209 he composed a brief rule for the small community gathered around him. He traveled to Rome that year and obtained from Pope Innocent III the verbal approval of the Order of Friars Minor. The Order grew rapidly across the Italian peninsula and beyond, drawing members from every social class. Francis himself preached on missionary journeys to the Muslim Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade in 1219, an encounter remembered in Franciscan tradition as a model of Christian-Muslim dialogue. In 1224 he received the stigmata, the wounds of the Crucified Christ in his hands, feet, and side, while praying on Mount La Verna in Tuscany. He died at the Portiuncula chapel near Assisi on the evening of 3 October 1226.⁴

Theological and spiritual significance

The Franciscan charism centers on radical poverty, humility, and identification with Christ Crucified. Francis insisted that his Order possess nothing, that the friars beg for their food, and that they preach the Gospel by word and example to the urban poor of medieval Europe. The decision to embrace poverty as a positive theological commitment, not as deprivation but as imitation of Christ "who being rich became poor for our sake" (2 Cor 8:9), became one of the central spiritual currents of the thirteenth century and was eventually treated as a foundational charism of the Western Church.⁵

Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228, less than two years after his death. The speed of the canonization was extraordinary, second only to Anthony of Padua's, and reflects both the popular intensity of Francis's cult and the personal connection of Gregory IX (formerly Cardinal Hugolino) to Francis during his lifetime. The Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi was begun the same year and consecrated in 1253.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church references Francis explicitly in its treatment of the universal call to holiness and in its discussion of the religious life. The Catechism cites Francis as an exemplar of the kenotic spirituality that locates Christian holiness in self-emptying love after the pattern of the Incarnate Word. Francis's Canticle of the Creatures (also known as the Laudes Creaturarum), composed in the Umbrian vernacular in the last year of his life, is one of the earliest extant works of Italian literature and a foundational text of Catholic ecological spirituality.⁶

Pope Saint John Paul II in 1979 declared Francis Patron of Ecology, and Pope Francis took the saint's name on his election in 2013, an unprecedented choice for a Pope and the first time a pope had taken a regnal name not previously used in the Petrine succession. Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', on care for our common home, takes its title from the Canticle of the Creatures and develops a Franciscan-rooted theology of integral ecology grounded in the saint's vision of creation as the universal sacrament of God's goodness.⁷

Devotion and liturgical observance

The feast of Saint Francis of Assisi is celebrated on 4 October in the universal Roman Calendar with the rank of memorial. In Italy, where Francis is co-patron of the nation alongside Saint Catherine of Siena (declared by Pope Pius XII in 1939), the feast is observed with greater civic and ecclesiastical solemnity. The Festa di San Francesco in Assisi includes a torchlight procession from Assisi to the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels at the Portiuncula, where Francis died.⁸

The Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, begun in 1228 and consecrated in 1253, is one of the great pilgrimage destinations of the Catholic world. The basilica's lower church houses the saint's tomb; the upper church contains the celebrated cycle of frescoes traditionally attributed to Giotto. The hermitage of Mount La Verna, where Francis received the stigmata in 1224, is a secondary major Franciscan pilgrimage site in Tuscany.

The traditional Catholic blessing of animals on or near the feast of Saint Francis is a practice of long standing in many parishes, particularly in the United States and Latin America. Pet owners bring their animals to the church on or near 4 October to receive a brief Franciscan blessing, in keeping with the saint's celebrated affection for the creatures of God.

The traditional iconography of Francis shows him in the brown Franciscan habit (or sometimes in the original undyed cloth color), barefoot, with the stigmata visible on his hands, feet, and side, often holding a crucifix or skull (memento mori) and frequently surrounded by animals. He is sometimes depicted with the Blessed Virgin Mary or with the Christ Child, recalling Francis's institution of the first Christmas creche at Greccio in 1223. His liturgical color on the feast is white.

Prayers and novenas associated with Saint Francis

The principal devotion to Saint Francis is the Saint Francis Novena, a nine-day prayer for ecological care, peace, and the imitation of the Franciscan charism. The novena is most commonly prayed in the nine days leading up to his feast on 4 October.

The most widely known prayer associated with Francis is the Peace Prayer ("Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace..."), though textual scholarship has shown that this prayer was first published in French in 1912 and is not in fact composed by Francis. It is sometimes called the Franciscan Peace Prayer for its expression of Franciscan spiritual themes, while careful Catholic publishers attribute it as anonymous twentieth-century or as inspired by Francis rather than by him.

Authentic prayers of Francis include the Canticle of the Creatures (composed 1225), the Prayer Before the Crucifix (the prayer Francis recited at San Damiano), and the Praises of God (composed by Francis on Mount La Verna in 1224). These are preserved in the early Franciscan sources and are widely available in modern critical editions.

Catholics commonly pair Saint Francis devotions with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the foundational Franciscan blessing: "Pax et Bonum" ("Peace and Good"). For broader theological context, see Communion of Saints, Doctor of the Church (Francis is not a Doctor of the Church, though Bonaventure, his Franciscan biographer, is), and the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, in which the meditation on the Nativity recalls Francis's institution of the Christmas creche.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Butler's Lives of the Saints, October 4 entry on Saint Francis of Assisi (1894 edition, public domain). The historical context of Assisi in the late twelfth century is treated more fully in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), "Saint Francis of Assisi," available at newadvent.org. ↩

2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), "Saint Francis of Assisi." The 1202 capture at Collestrada and the 1203 release are documented in the early Franciscan sources, particularly the Vita Prima of Thomas of Celano composed in 1228. ↩

3. Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima Sancti Francisci (1228). The San Damiano vision and the public renunciation before Bishop Guido of Assisi are recorded in this earliest official biography of the saint, commissioned by Pope Gregory IX for the canonization process. ↩

4. Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), "Saint Francis of Assisi," on the meeting with Sultan al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade in 1219, the receipt of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224, and the death at the Portiuncula on 3 October 1226. The encounter with the Sultan is treated more fully in modern scholarship including in Pope John Paul II's allocutions on inter-religious dialogue. ↩

5. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 916 on the consecrated life as imitation of Christ in poverty, chastity, and obedience. The kenotic theology underlying Francis's spirituality is grounded in Phil 2:5-11. Available at vatican.va. ↩

6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2546 to 2547, on the spiritual poverty of the Beatitudes and its embodiment in saints like Francis. Available at vatican.va. The Canticle of the Creatures in the original Umbrian and a modern English rendering are preserved in the Franciscan critical edition published by Fonti Francescane. ↩

7. Pope Saint John Paul II, Inter Sanctos (apostolic letter, 29 November 1979), declaring Saint Francis of Assisi patron of those who promote ecology. Pope Francis, Laudato Si' (encyclical, 24 May 2015), on care for our common home. Both available at vatican.va. ↩

8. General Roman Calendar, current edition, on the rank of the feast of Saint Francis on 4 October. The Italian co-patronage was declared by Pope Pius XII in Licet Commissa (apostolic letter, 18 June 1939). ↩