San Francesco d'Assisi è un santo cattolico ben noto ai cattolici. Francesco ebbe una vita difficile, povera e semplice. Nel 1202 fu prigioniero di guerra. Dopo il suo rilascio, fece diversi lavoro per donare denaro alla Chiesa. Nel 1209, con il permesso di Papa Innocenzo III, fondò l'Ordine dei Frati Minori. Dedicò la sua vita a Gesù e viaggiò per comunicare la parola di Dio. Per il resto della sua vita, Francesco continuò a portare la fede cattolica al prossimo e specialmente in Egitto. Quando Jorge Mario Bergoglio annunciò di voler essere chiamato Papa Francesco, è stata un’ulteriore testimonianza della devozione a San Francesco.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there are more than 10,000 saints recognized by the Catholic Church. It is not surprising that with such a large group, some saints are better known than others. One of the best known and most loved is Saint Francis of Assisi. G.K. Chesterton said Francis was “the only Christian”, while the Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff called Francis a model of human liberation. From Hermann Hesse to W.E.B. Du Bois, Francis is seen as the model of the Christian life. Something about Francis sets him apart, which makes him worthy of veneration in the eyes of Christians and non-Christians alike. As we better understand him and his life, we begin to appreciate what that something is.
Late in 1181, Francis was born the son of Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, a member of the cloth merchants guild. His family was rich, but their wealth did not come from an inheritance or social position. Rather, it came from the hard work of their own hands, which Francis did not wholly appreciate. He was extravagant with the family’s money, always willing to share his wealth and pay for a good time. His mother said of him, “he is more like a prince than our son.” As one would expect, however, his generosity made him popular and a leader of the young men of his town.
Then in 1202, he was taken prisoner while fighting in a war between Assisi and the nearby town of Perugia. After a year of being held in such miserable conditions that he contracted a disease, he was ransomed. The reality of war and being a POW gobsmacked this decadent party boy causing him to no longer find his old way of life fulfilling and search for some direction in life. During this time, he had a dream of a palace filled with weapons of war, swords, spears, helmets, and shields; all emblazoned with a sacred sign. He took this dream as a vision calling him to war. So, he enlisted in a mercenary army headed for Southern Italy, seeing it as an opportunity to distinguish himself and possibly become knighted. At that point, he thought he would have it all, the social status of a knight and the wealth of his family. As he rode out, he boasted, “I shall return a prince!” He had not gotten very far when the sickness he had contracted while being held prisoner struck him down again. During this sickness, he had another dream in which he was told he had misinterpreted the first. He returned to Assisi, shamed after making such a proud exit.
Frances asked himself if he was not destined to be the noble leader of great armies, what was he to do. To seek answers, Frances would pray in the ruins of the Church of Saint Damien, an old, dilapidated shrine in Assisi. One day while praying, he heard a voice say, “Francis, seest thou my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me.” Immediately he went to work with brick and mortar, trying to repair the building. He also began to go into Assisi, asking for contributions from others to continue his work. At one point, without asking permission, Francis took some bolts of cloth from his father’s business to another town and sold not only the fabric but the donkey that carried them. He then gave that money to a priest.
While we, looking in retrospect, may see this as the burgeoning of one of the greatest Christian saints, his father, Pietro, did not have this perspective. Look at things from the father’s point of view. While trying to present himself as a prosperous businessman, an image important in the business world, his son is begging in the streets. To make matters worse, Francis starts to sell off the business’ inventory to fund his eccentric behavior. Frustrated, Pietro takes Francis to the bishop to straighten the boy out. During the intervention, Francis, realizing that everything he had was a gift from his father, stripped himself naked, returning to his father everything he had been given.
Francis embraced the life of a penitent; wandering the countryside, serving the poor, nursing lepers, and rebuilding churches. His example was so pure, so humble, that others began to follow him. So in 1209, with the blessings of Pope Innocent III, he founded a new order, The Order of the Friars Minor. Then in 1219, he went to Egypt during the Fifth Crusade, actually seeking to be martyred. Instead of trying to return the Holy Land to Christian hands through the force of arms, Francis sought to convert those that held it, the Muslims. Crossing Muslim lines, Francis was brought before the Sultan al-Kamil, where he remained for several days preaching the gospel to the Muslim leader. Ultimately, the Sultan did not accommodate Francis’s wish for martyrdom but instead returned him loaded down with gifts, which Francis, in true Franciscan fashion, gave away.
There are far too many stories of Francis to tell here. The key point, however, is what drove Francis was that Christ was more than a historical figure. It is far too easy to look at Christ the way many look at Washington or Napolean, a character in the dusty pages of some book. Jesus was as real to Francis, as present in his life, as was his father or mother. Everything Francis did was reflective of the intimate relationship he had with Jesus through faith. He saw himself as a missionary among Christians, seeking to convert them from a ritualized belief to an experience of and relationship with the risen Christ.
When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio announced that he would take the name Francis as pope, it was clear that he was signaling the mission of his papacy. When Saint Francis heard the voice telling him to rebuild the church, it was more than an individual building or set of buildings; Saint Frances was tasked with bringing renewal to the entire church that had lost its way. In much the same way, Pope Frances seeks to renew Catholicism after the tumultuous past few decades.
Regardless of one’s religion, or even those who have no religious belief, Saint Francis is an example to us all. He was a man of honest purity who gave himself over to the service of others, and he was an Italian.
