Saints

St. Francis of Assisi

St. Francis was born in Assisi, Italy in 1181. His father, Pietro Bernardone, came home to find his wife gave birth to a child. He was furious that she baptized her son Giovanni after John the Baptist which showed that he might be a man of God-the exact opposite of what he wanted his son to be. He wanted his son to be a man of business, a cloth merchant like himself. He renamed his son Francesco (or Francis in English) which meant Frenchman. 

Since Francis's father was so rich along with the fact that he was so incredibly lovable, he had a relatively easy life. He was always happy, charming, handsome, and a leader. People would excuse him if he was in a bad mood or grumpy. If he got sick, people would rush to be the ones to help him. Nobody tried to control or teach him anything because he was Francis.

Francis became the leader of young men who would party all night crazily. Francis even admitted that he lived in sin during that time. He fell in love with France, loving the songs, the romance, and the troubadours (French medieval poets who composing and sang in Provencal in the 11th and 13th centuries). He was a born business man but wanted more than wealth. He wanted to be a knight and win the glory he wanted. When Assisi declared war on the nearby town Perugia, Francis jumped at the opportunity, took up a sword, and went. 

Most of the Assisi troops were killed or the wealthy ones taken to be ransomed. Francis was one of them, chained in a dark and harsh dungeon. Many accounts say he never lost his happy manner and finally after a year, he was ransomed. This experience, however, didn't change him at all. He was partying with as much joy as he had before. He left again for the Fourth Crusade. 

Within a day, Francis had a dream where God told him he was going the wrong way and  to return home. Francis was humiliated, laughed at, and called a coward. After all, he was a deserter. His father was furious because of how much money he spent to give Francis good armor. 

Francis went to a cave and cried over all that he had done against God. Francis passed a leper on the side of the raod. He jumped off his horse and kissed the hand of the leper and although the leper was surprised because Francis was the one who hated deformity and loved beauty, kissed him back. Francis, joyful about what had happened, leaped back on his horse and rode off, looking back but saw nothing. He always believed it to be a test of God's. 

Francis was praying in an ancient church at San Damiano when he heard Jesus speak to him through the crucifix. He said," Francis, rebuild my church." Francis interpreted it as rebuilding the crumbling church in the shape of a "C" that he was in. Francis took fabric from his father's shop and sold it so he could repair the church God ordered him to. His father, furious, dragged him before the bishop and demanded him to give it back because it was an act of stealing in front of the whole town. 

The bishop said that he needed to return the money but that God would provide. Francis gave back all the money as well as his clothes that his father paid for until he was only wearing a hair shirt. Francis said," Pietro Berardone is no longer my father. From now on I can say with complete freedom,' Our Father who art in heaven'." and then ran into the woods singing. When robbers beat him and took his clothes, he climbed out and went off singing again. 

Francis begged for stones and rebuilt San Damiano. He eventually realized that God mean for him to rebuild the Roman Catholic Church. He began to preach, though not a priest, and talked about returning to God and obedience. Slowly, people joined Francis because they felt the call to his lifestyle of sleeping in the open and begging for food to eat. Three parts of the Bible touched him deeply and explained his how he lived which were the young man selling all his goods and give to the poor, the order to the apostles to take nothing on their journey, and the demand to take up the cross daily. 

Francis never planned founding a religious order because it sounded to military to him and just saw it as God's brotherhood. Francis spent all the time he could in nature and felt it as his own family.