FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Saint. — Founder of three religious Orders (the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares, and the Franciscan Third Order), patron of Catholic Action; with St. Catherine of Siena, joint principal patron of Italy, also known by the appellations “seraphic patriarch,” “father of the poor,” etc. Born at Assisi toward the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182, died there on the evening of 3 October 1226.
OUTLINE:
I. Youth
II. Conversion
III. Vocation and the founding of the Order of Friars Minor
IV. Early apostolate and first missions abroad
V. Organization of the Order. The Rules. — VI. The last years. The stigmata. —VII. Death
VIII. Canonization and cult
IX. Later centuries
X. The figure of St. Francis. — XI. Iconography.I. Youth
Son of Pietro di Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant, and of Lady Pica, perhaps of noble birth. Nothing certain is known about the paternal family, which some erroneously claimed was of Lucchese origin, nor about the alleged Provençal ancestry of his mother. At baptism he received the name John, later changed by his father—returning from Provence—to Francis. He attended school near the church of St. George, where he learned Latin, later adding a certain knowledge of French language and literature, especially troubadour poetry.Endowed with fine natural qualities, in his youth he loved the splendor of wealth and fine clothing, the company of feasts and merry gatherings, the poetry of love, and the glory of military exploits. The youth of Francis is portrayed differently by various sources: Thomas of Celano and other legends perhaps exaggerate the darker hues for literary effect, whereas St. Bonaventure and the legend known as “of the three companions,” which is largely devoted to Francis’s early years, depicts him as pure, chaste, and generous.
One day, while praying before the crucifix in the church of St. Damian outside the walls of Assisi, he heard a voice say: “Go, Francis, repair my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” He took the command literally and set about restoring the church of St. Damian and the other two little churches, St. Peter’s and St. Mary of the Angels (the Portiuncula). Thus he decided to leave the world; his father Pietro di Bernardone opposed his foreign alms-giving, first locking him in a cellar from which he was freed by his mother, then appealing to the consular tribunal. But Francis appealed, as a religious, to the ecclesiastical tribunal and before the bishop of Assisi renounced all his possessions, even returning his clothes to his father with the famous words: “From now on I will not call Pietro di Bernardone my father, but Our Father who art in heaven.” From that moment began the “sacred exchange” of St. Francis with Lady Poverty.
III. THE VOCATION AND THE FOUNDING OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR
On 24 February 1209, the feast of St. Matthias, hearing the Gospel of the mission of the Apostles, he felt it as a personal call and decided upon the apostolic life. He began to preach. His first disciples joined him: Bernardo di Quintavalle, a noble and wealthy man; Pietro Cattani, a learned jurist and canon; the lay brother Egidio (q.v.); Marco, Giovanni della Cappella, Sabatino, Filippo Longo, Giovanni di S. Costanzo, Barbaro, Bernardo di Vigilante, and Angelo Tancredi. With this small group he composed, “in few and simple words” (Testament of St. Francis), a Rule that included the essential elements of religious life. In 1210 he went to Rome to obtain from Innocent III approval of his institution. The difficulties that arose to this plan—given the times when movements of an apostolic character in a heterodox sense were multiplying—were overcome through the protection of the bishop of Assisi and Cardinal Giovanni di S. Paolo (q.v.); Innocent III gave his approval verbally, clothing St. Francis and all his first companions and promising greater favors later. Returning to Assisi, they resided for a time at Rivotorto, then definitively at the Portiuncula, which would become the cradle of the Seraphic Order, the center of the entire Order, the place where Francis desired to die. There, on 18 March 1212, Palm Sunday, he clothed St. Clare (q.v.) in the religious habit, thus founding the Second Franciscan Order, the Poor Clares (q.v.).IV. EARLY APOSTOLATE AND FIRST MISSIONS ABROAD
After official approval and papal mission, a more systematic apostolate began, spreading from Umbria to Tuscany, the Marches, Latium, and other Italian regions, partly through his personal efforts, partly through his disciples, whose numbers were growing. This new method of apostolate, carried out by these “new men,” aroused extraordinary enthusiasm and renewal among the people. People of every social class, even those bound by marriage, sought to join his Order. From this came the initiative for the Third Order, to which he probably gave a Rule in 1221.
Already by 1222 he made his first attempts to leave Italy. That year St. Francis embarked at Ancona for Syria, but a storm drove him onto the Dalmatian coast, whence, unable to continue, he returned to Italy. Between 1213 and 1215 he traveled to Spain, where illness forced his return. A few years later he sent other friars to Morocco, who in 1220 sealed their evangelization with their blood, becoming the protomartyrs of the Order (q.V. BERNARD, etc.). Around these years the Friars Minor were already spread across many regions of Europe and the Near East.
Again in 1219 he resumed the journey eastward, reaching the disorganized crusader army in Egypt, then besieging Damietta. After vainly trying to reconcile the Crusaders, he foretold their terrible defeat on 29 August. He sought to convert the sultan (al-Malik al-Kāmil) and, accompanied by Brother Illuminato, entered the infidel camp and was brought “into the presence of the proud Sultan.” Though he did not obtain the sultan’s conversion, he did secure permission to preach the Gospel freely within his domains.
Soon, however, he had to return to Italy because of some disturbances that had arisen within the Order, news of which reached him in the East.
V. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ORDER. THE RULES. — The rapid growth of his family and its spread everywhere soon posed organizational problems that the primitive Rule, consisting of a few Gospel phrases, was insufficient to resolve. He therefore began to call his friars together periodically in assemblies that, from at least 1217, became the General Chapters of the Order, where the Institute’s problems were discussed and new provisions promulgated. They were always convened near the small church of St. Mary of the Angels, the Portiuncula, which from 1216 had been enriched by Pope Honorius III with the famous indulgence. At the Chapter of 1217 St. Francis divided the Order into provinces. At that of 1221, probably the famous Chapter of the Mattresses, which was attended by 500 friars, the primitive Rule was re-examined, expanded, and modified with the promulgation of the so-called “First Rule,” actually the second. Finding it somewhat imprecise and overly detailed, it was redrafted with the help of a learned jurist, Cardinal Ugolino (later Gregory IX), and the definitive Rule resulted, which the Saint, again with the cardinal’s support, had approved by Honorius III on 29 November 1223.
