Patron Saint – St Francis

BACKGROUND & LIFE:
Francesco- which can be translated to Frenchman, was the son of a rich cloth merchant. He was born to Pietro Bernadone and his wife, in Assisi, Umbria, Italy, in 1181. Francis enjoyed an easy life throughout his formative years. He was renowned as a cheerful, charming and a natural-born leader among his friends. He grew up to love business, just like his father. Moreover, obsessed with self- gratification, Francis wanted to be a noble, a knight. Thus, when Assisi declared war with their longtime rival, Perugia, the battlegrounds were the perfect place to seek glory and prestige. However, he was eventually captured and only released a year later when his ransom was paid. Nevertheless, this did not change his perspective of life.

Notably, during the fourth Crusade Francis prepared for battle once again, though this time, God intervened in a dream. God told him he had a misconception about life and told him to return to home where he was met with grave disappointment, dishonor, laughter, and contempt from the nation. Francis continued to encounter God on numerous occasions, for example, in the street with a leper. Though repelled by his appearance, Francis jumped down from his horse and kissed his hand. He rejoiced when his kiss of peace was returned. This he considered his first test. His second message came at the ancient church at San Damiano, where Christ on the crucifix communicated to him, “Francis, repair my church”. Initially believing God meant the literal church, he sold his father’s cloth for money to rebuild the church. When his father discovered the act, he demanded that Francis return the money and renounce all rights as his heir. The Bishop comforted him and said that God would provide. This gave Francis the encouragement to not only return the money but to also strip himself of all garments.

He was finally free to say, “Our Father who art in heaven….” Even afterward, when confronted by robbers and a beating, he climbed out of the ditch and went off singing again. He begged for stones and material and rebuilt the church with his hands.

Subsequently, Francis began preaching conversion to God and obedience to the Church. As his message continued to spread, he slowly gained companions. Thus, he understood that he needed a structure. He did something that was considered obsolete during those times, living by the Bible literally. He opened the Bible in three places; the command to the rich man to sell 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. His companions went out to preach about God’s love in twos. Though persons were hostile toward them at first, their interest grew as these barefoot beggars wearing sacks always seemed to be filled with constant joy. The Franciscans’ lifestyle also had the evangelical lifestyle streamlining within it, focusing on the goodness of God in all things, seeing everything as a gift from God.

When the Bishop heard about the friars’ values, he questioned the difficulties they willingly accepted. However, Francis reconciled, what could you do to a man who owns nothing? You can’t starve a fasting man, you can’t steal from someone who has no money, and you can’t ruin someone who hates prestige. They are truly free. His companions were diversified; they came from fields and towns, nobility and common people, universities, the Church and the merchant class. Francis practiced genuine equality by showing them all respect, honour, and love. With regard to nature, Francis was convinced that all of God’s creations were part of his brotherhood. There is even a story relating to Francis preaching to hundreds of birds.

Notably, Francis never wanted to establish a religious order nor become a priest (though he was ordained a deacon under duress). He simply saw his work as expressing God’s brotherhood. Moreover, when Francis wanted approval for his brotherhood, he went to visit Pope Innocent III in Rome. At first, the Pope threw him out, perplexed at the beggar. However, when he had a dream that this tiny man in rags held up the tilting Lateran Basilica, he quickly permitted him to preach.

Finally, Francis’s life was filled with prayer, suffering, humiliation, and supplication. Years of poverty and wandering had made him ill, till the point of blindness.

He responded to these sufferings in his ‘Canticle of the Sun’, that expressed his brotherhood with creation in praising God.

Francis received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet, and side on his own body. He died on October 4, 1226, at the age of 45.

PATRONAGE:
• Ecologists, ecology
• Animals & animal welfare societies
• birds
• Environment, environmentalism, environmentalists
• Families
• Assisi Ital
• Peace
• Merchants
• Tapestry workers
• Zoo

CANONIZED: 1228, BY Pope Gregory IX.

REPRESENTATION: Birds, Deer, Fish, Skull, Stigmata & Wolf

ST FRANCIS PRAYER:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.