Saint Francis of Assisi

Francis was born in Assisi around 1181 or 1182; the exact date is not known. His father, Pietro di Bernardone, was a cloth merchant in a rising middle-class family. His mother, Pica, who was of Provençal origin, had him baptized Giovanni while his father was away on business in France. When Pietro came home he called the boy Francesco. Francis learned to read and write and to sing the Church's hymns, and he grew up with expectations of a comfortable life.

As a young man he wanted to join the minor nobility of the town, and he looked for glory in war. When the papacy raised a campaign against the imperial forces in southern Italy, he enlisted. He rode out in expensive armor, saying goodbye to his worried family and envious friends, but the journey ended after a single day at Spoleto. What happened there is unclear. The early accounts speak of a vision in a dream, while others have suggested a return of illness or second thoughts about fighting for pay rather than for an ideal.

Francis turned to prayer, penance, and solitude. He left his family and gave up his possessions, repaired chapels, and cared for the sick of his hometown. In 1209 he began to preach the Gospel in the towns, and the first followers joined him. Together they went to Rome, where Pope Innocent III approved their way of life, and they became the Order of Friars Minor. From 1210 to 1224 he walked the roads and piazzas of Italy, followed by crowds and by disciples he called brothers. Clare of Assisi, who joined him, started the Second Order, now known as the Poor Clares.

In 1219 he traveled to Egypt, hoping to convert Sultan al-Kamil and end the fighting of the Fifth Crusade. At Greccio he arranged the first live nativity scene. According to tradition, in 1224 he received the stigmata, marks resembling the wounds of Christ, during a vision of a seraph. He died on 3 October 1226 at about the age of forty-four, having asked to die on the bare ground. Pope Gregory IX canonized him less than two years later. He is the patron of Italy, together with Catherine of Siena, and is widely loved as the patron of animals and the natural world.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.