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St. Francis of Assisi, Who Lived the Gospel Counsel of Poverty but Spoke of It in the Poetic Lan- Guage of Romance, Chivalry, and the Courts of Love

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St. Francis of Assisi, Who Lived the Gospel Counsel of Poverty but Spoke of It in the Poetic Lan- Guage of Romance, Chivalry, and the Courts of Love BORN 1181�t. OR 1182; DIED F 1226rancis DEACON AND FOUNDER FEAST DAY: OCTOBERo� 4 Assisi HE HIGH MIDDLE AGES of Europe was a time of knights, crusades, chivalry, troubadours; of PAUL KERRIS Tpure, courtly love. Into this culture was born St. Francis of Assisi, who lived the Gospel counsel of poverty but spoke of it in the poetic lan- guage of romance, chivalry, and the courts of love. Francis was born in Assisi, a city in the central warfare. He also increased his almsgiving and be- Italian province of Umbria. His father, Pietro di gan to care for the sick. Meeting a horribly disfig- Bernadone, was a wealthy cloth merchant. His ured leper while on pilgrimage to Rome, Francis mother Pica may have been of a noble family of gave him not only alms but also kissed him. One Provence (modern southern France), and he had at day while praying before a crucifix in the church least one younger brother. Up to the age of twenty, of San Damiano in the valley below Assisi, Francis Francis was truly worldly-minded. He spent lav- heard three times from the crucifix: “Go, repair my ishly, loved pleasure, was merry and witty, learned house, which you see is falling into ruin.” Think- to play several musical instruments, and could sing ing the voice meant him to repair the small church, well. Wherever he went he was the life of the par- Francis went to his father’s warehouse and sold ty and a popular leader of his peers. Yet he did not bolts of fine cloth to raise money for the task. The seek carnal pleasure and was known to be gener- priest of San Damiano, however, refused the mon- ous to beggars. At twenty he became a soldier in ey, and Francis’ irate father demanded its return. Assisi’s effort to free itself from Perugia, a city about Francis hid, fasting and in prayer, for a month, and ten miles distant. Assisi was defeated and Francis when he reappeared he was so changed that people spent a year as a prisoner. He next determined to thought him mad and pelted him with trash. Piet- seek knighthood by joining an army in southern ro, even angrier, dragged his son home, beat him, Italy to defend the Church’s lands. In 1205, gor- chained his feet, and locked him up. Freed by his geously well-equipped, he left Assisi but almost im- mother, Francis fled to San Damiano, where his fa- mediately met an impoverished gentleman. Morti- ther again demanded his money and told Francis fied by his comparative wealth, Francis exchanged to either return home or renounce his inheritance. clothing with the man. The following day he set Francis was willing to be disinherited, but refused out anew, but fell ill less than fifty miles from home to return the money. Pietro then denounced Fran- at Spoleto. There he heard a voice from Heaven cis before the bishop of Assisi as a lunatic. The bish- instructing him to return home to serve God. op ordered Francis to return his father’s money. He Francis began to devote much of his time to did so, and then with good cheer stripped himself of prayer, and developed a desire to sell all that he had his clothing, thrusting them at his father as his pos- in exchange for the call of the Gospel. Not sure session too, and declared that he had only a Heav- how to do this, he soon realized that self-mastery enly Father. Pietro left the bishop, angry and grief- and mortification were the foundation of spiritual stricken. The bishop clothed Francis in a cloak. The Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM) grants the original purchaser (parish, local parochial institution, or individual) permission to reproduce this handout. Departing from Assisi singing the Litany of creation. People soon noticed that around Francis the Divine Praises, Francis was soon set upon by there seemed to be a new Eden. Rabbits followed robbers, who beat him and tossed him into snow- him; he could preach to birds and ask swallows filled ditch. Undeterred, Francis went on singing to stop speaking so that he might preach; a wolf the divine praises. In the town of Gubbio about threatening the people of Gubbio obeyed his or- thirty miles north of Assisi, he was taken in and der to stop. He also received the mystical gifts of given a pilgrim’s tunic. Two years later, he re- prophecy and the ability to work miracles. With- turned to Assisi and begged for funds to repair in three years, he gathered around himself eleven San Damiano, doing some of the manual labor followers, to whom he gave a rule embracing strict himself. He did the same for a second church, and poverty. He took his proposed rule to the Pope, then for a chapel two miles from Assisi on a small who was reluctant to approve it until in a dream plot of land called the Porziuncola (Portiuncula) he saw Francis propping up St. John Lateran, owned by the Assisi monastery of Monte Subasio. the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome and There he settled, and came to realize that the Lord therefore a symbol of the Church herself. He took was asking him not to repair the walls of churches, this as confirmation that God indeed was calling but to help renew the faith of the Church and to Francis, and verbally approved his rule, the begin- bring people to conversion. He felt called to fol- ning of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans). low as exactly as possible the commission of Je- Returning to Assisi, Francis obtained permis- sus: “And preach as you go, saying, ‘The Kingdom of sion to use the Porziuncola chapel and proper- Heaven is at hand.’ … You received without paying, give ty, and his followers built crude huts in which to without pay. Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your live. He taught them to gain knowledge and wis- belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, dom through prayer, not sterile study, and to love nor a staff; for the laborer deserves his food” (Mt 10:7- “Lady Poverty.” They worked for food as field 10). Wearing a peasant’s gray tunic and cord belt, hands and at trades, begging for food (not mon- Francis began a wandering life of preaching, filled ey) when no work was available. They served with the desire to share God’s love with every- everyone, especially lepers and others who suf- one. An image of Christ through his life of pov- fered. Everywhere they were God’s troubadours, erty and humility, Francis was filled with joy, and singing of joy. Francis struggled for mastery over this spilled over into a reverence for all of God’s his own body (“Brother Ass”), and fought tempta- St. Francis preaching to birds, late 19th century lithograph St. Francis of Assisi ~ Page 2 tions against purity by flinging himself into snow- By this time, Francis’ mystical gifts included filled ditches. One especially severe temptation levitation during prayer. Not quite ten months he fought by rolling in a briar-patch. He never later he received one final gift, the stigmata (the sought the priesthood, in utter humility accepting crucified Jesus’ five wounds), the first known in ordination only as a deacon. history. During prayer at the Franciscan hermit- In the same year he also founded, with St. Clare age atop Mount La Verna in the Tuscan Apen- of Assisi, a cloistered women’s religious order nines north of Arezzo, Francis saw a seraph (the which became known as the Poor Clares, devot- highest rank of angel) with six radiant wings. ed like the male Franciscans to strict poverty and The crucified Jesus appeared between its wings an austere life of prayer and penance. He spent and Francis was filled with an intensely ardent most of the next several years in preaching and love of his Lord. The wounds in Francis’ hands in managing the explosive growth of the Francis- and feet — which he hid — were scars that ap- cans throughout Italy and northward in Europe. peared to have nails embedded; the wound in They devoted themselves to prayer and to min- his side often bled. In the final years of his life, istering to the poor and Francis was plagued by needy, opened church- “People soon noticed that illness, blindness, and es and made the sacra- pain from the stigmata. ments more available to around Francis there seemed His last work was the people, and by their sim- to be a new Eden.” “Canticle of the Sun,” ple life and commitment in which he sang praise to the Lord re-evangelized Europe. In less than to God for “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon,” of ten years, there were five thousand Franciscans. “Brothers Wind and Air” and “Sister Water,” of The rapid growth brought challenges to the ideal “Brother Fire” and “our Sister, Mother Earth,” of Franciscan poverty in the name of practicality, and even of “Sister Death.” In this poem are but Francis permitted no changes. phrases that are echoed in the well-known Three times he sought to extend his ministry prayer that begins “Lord, make me an instru- to Muslims. In 1212, he was shipwrecked after ment of your peace,” which was not composed having crossed to the Balkan Peninsula, and in by Francis although it certainly breathes his 1214, he fell ill in Spain. In 1219 he sailed to spirit. He welcomed “Sister Death” soon after- the port of Damietta, in the Nile delta of Egypt, ward, covered only by a cloth on bare ground.
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