The Life of Saint Francis

Francis of Assisi was born in Assisi, Italy, between the year 1181/1182. After a dissipated youth, he converted and from him originated the Order of the Minor Brothers, commonly known as Franciscans. Soon a young woman, Clare of Assisi, wanted to share her way of life and from her was born the Order of the Poor Sisters, later they were called Poor Clares. He also inspired the birth of the Third Franciscan Order, today known as the Secular Franciscan Order. In 1219/1220 Francis went to Egypt, where he met the Sultan; This meeting inspired the origin of the Custody of the Holy Land, which is the name of the community of friars who maintain the ancient Franciscan presence in Jerusalem and in the holy places. Francis received the stigmata in 1224 on La Verna Mountain, and the following year he composed the Canticle of Brother Sun, a poem of prayer and praise to God, the Creator of all that exists. In 1979, this prayer and his attitude of reverence towards all created things led him to be proclaimed “heavenly Patron of the cultivators of ecology.” Francis died on October 4, 1226 in Assisi and was declared a saint in 1228.

The Rule 

Testament 

Prayer

The History of San Francisco

• 1181He was born in Assisi, baptized as Juan, but his father, Pedro Bernardone, called him Francisco.
• 1199 – 1200 Civil war in Assisi. Many noble families took refuge in Perugia.
• 1202 (November) War between Perugia and Assisi. Victory of Perugia in Collestrada. Francisco spends a year in prison (he gets sick) until he is rescued by his father.
• 1204 Lives a long period of illness and convalescence.
• 1205 Francis leaves to join Brienne's army. He returns after a vision-message he had in Spoleto. He begins a gradual period of conversion.
• 1205 (Autumn) Message from the Crucifix of San Damiano. Conflict with his father.
• 1206 (January or February) On trial before the Bishop of Assisi.
• 1206 (Spring) Francis cares for the lepers.
• 1206 (Summer) Returns to Assisi and begins to rebuild San Damiano; “Finishes” his conversion process.
• 1206 (Summer until January/February) Repairs San Damiano, San Pedro de la Espina and Santa María de los Ángeles, “Porziuncola”.
• 1208 (February 24) Francis listens to the Gospel of the feast of Saint Matthew.
• 1208 (April 16) Bernardo de Quintavalle and the priest Pedro Cattani joined him, as others will do.
• 1208-1209 (Autumn and Winter) Francis receives the certainty of the forgiveness of his sins and the growth of his brotherhood. They will go two by two to preach.
• 1209 They return to the Porziuncula and Francis writes a brief Rule for himself and his eleven companions. In Rome they receive the approval of Pope Innocent III. They return to Rivotorto and then to the Porziuncula.
• 1212 (Palm Sunday Night) Reception of Saint Clare in the Porziuncula. After a period with the Benedictines, Clara goes to live in San Damiano.
• 1215 Francis is in Rome for the IV Lateran Council.
• 1216 In Perugia Francis receives the Indulgence of the Porziuncola from Pope Honorius.
• 1217 (May 5, Pentecost) General Chapter of all the brothers in the Porziuncula. The first missions outside Italy begin.
• 1219 (May 26) The first missionaries leave for Morocco.
• 1219 (June 24) Francis travels to the Holy Land.
• 1219 (Autumn) Francis meets the Sultan of Egypt.
• 1220 Francis resigns as Minister General, and Brother Pedro Cattani takes his place.
• 1220 Cardinal Hugolino is appointed Protector of the Order.
• 1220 First Franciscan martyrs killed in Morocco.
• 1221 During the Chapter Pedro Cattani dies and Brother Elías becomes Vicar.
• 1221-1222 Francis preaches in various regions of Italy.
• 1223 Francis goes to Fonte Colombo to write the definitive Rule for the Order of Minor Brothers. This Rule is discussed and modified in Chapter, and finally approved by Pope Honorius III in the month of November.
• 1223 The first nativity scene is held during midnight mass in Greccio.
• 1224 Francis lives an extensive time of retreat on Mount Alverna where he receives the stigmata.
• 1225 The problem in his eyes worsens and he spends a little time in San Damiano with Saint Clare and the Sisters. At the insistence of Brother Elías, he undergoes medical care, although without positive results. The almost blind man composes most of the “Canticle of the Creatures.”
• 1225-1226 Francisco goes to Fonte Colombo, where the doctors perform cauterization on him, without obtaining positive results. Finding himself in Siena, his health deteriorates and he dictates his will.
• 1226 (September) While in the house of the Bishop of Assisi, Francis feels death close and asks to be taken to the Porziuncola.
• 1226 (October 3) He died in the Porziuncula on the afternoon of the same Saturday.
• 1226 (October 4) He is buried in the church of San Jorge.
• 1228 (July 16) Is canonized at Assisi by his friend Cardinal Hugolin, now Pope Gregory IX.
• 1230 (May 25) The saint's body is moved to the new papal basilica of Assisi dedicated to Saint Francis.

From luxury to poverty

Shortly after, in the spring of 1206, Saint Francis had his first vision. In the small temple of San Damiano, half abandoned and destroyed, he listened before a Romanesque image of Jesus Christa voice that spoke to him in the silence of his silent and loving contemplation: "Go, Francisco, repair my church. You see: it is a ruin." Young Francisco did not hesitate: he ran to his father's house, took a few rolls of cloth from the warehouse and went to sell them in Foligno; Then he gave the money thus obtained to the priest of San Damiano for the restoration of the temple. This action unleashed the anger of his father; If he had previously censured in his son a certain tendency towards luxury and pomp, Pietro di Bernardone now saw in that donation a blind prodigality to the detriment of the patrimony that had cost him so much sweat. Therefore he took his son before the bishop of Assisi so that he could formally renounce any inheritance. Francisco's response was to strip off his own clothing and restore it to his mother, thereby renouncing, for the love of God, for any earthly good. At the age of twenty-five, with no other assets than his poverty, he left his hometown and went to Gubbio, where he worked selflessly in a leper hospital; Then he returned to Assisi and dedicated himself to restoring with his own hands, asking for materials and help from passers-by, the churches of San Damiano, San Pietro In Merullo and Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Porziuncola. Despite this activity, those years were of solitude and prayer; He only appeared before the world to beg with the poor and share his table. asking for materials and help from passers-by, the churches of San Damiano, San Pietro In Merullo and Santa María de los Ángeles in the Porziuncola. Despite this activity, those years were of solitude and prayer; He only appeared before the world to beg with the poor and share his table. asking for materials and help from passers-by, the churches of San Damiano, San Pietro In Merullo and Santa María de los Ángeles in the Porziuncola. Despite this activity, those years were of solitude and prayer; He only appeared before the world to beg with the poor and share his table.

The call to preach

On February 24, 1209, in the small church of the Porziuncola and while listening to the reading of the Gospel, Francis heard a call that told him to go out into the world to do good: the hermit became an apostle and, barefoot and without further ado, The attire of a tunic tied with a rope soon attracted a whole circle of active and devout souls around him. The first (April 1209) were Bernardo de Quintavalle and Pedro Cattani, who were joined, touched by grace, by the priest Silvestre; shortly after, Egidio arrived. Saint Francis of Assisi preached poverty as a value and proposed a simple way of life based on the ideals of the Gospels. It must be remembered that, at that time, other groups that advocated a return to Christianityprimitive had been declared heretical, which is why Francis wanted to have papal authorization. Around 1210, after receiving Francis and a group of eleven of his companions, Pope Innocent III orally approved his model of religious life, granted him permission to preach, and ordained him a deacon.

Saint Francis of Assisi (oil by Zurbarán) Over time, the number of his followers increased and Francis began to form a religious order, currently called Franciscan or Franciscans, in which Saint Anthony of Padua would soon join . Furthermore, with the collaboration of Santa Clara, founded the female branch of the order, the Poor Ladies, better known as the Poor Clares. Years later, in 1221, the third order would be created in order to welcome those who could not abandon their family obligations. By 1215, the Franciscan congregation had already spread throughout Italy, France and Spain; That same year the Lateran Council canonically recognized the order, then called the Minor Brothers. During those years Saint Francis tried to take evangelization beyond Christian lands, but various circumstances frustrated his trips to Syria and Morocco; finally, between 1219 and 1220, possibly after an encounter with Saint Domingo de Guzmán, preached in Syria and Egypt; Although he did not achieve his conversion, Sultan Al-Kamil was so impressed that he allowed him to visit the Holy Places.

Last years

Upon his return, at the request of Pope Honorius III, compiled the Franciscan rule in writing, of which he wrote two versions (one in 1221 and another more schematic in 1223, approved that same year by the pope) and handed over the direction of the community to Pedro Cattani. The leadership of the Franciscan order soon passed to more practical members, such as Cardinal Ugolino (the future Pope Gregory IX) and Brother Elias, and Saint Francis was able to devote himself entirely to the contemplative life. During this retreat, Saint Francis from Assisi he received the stigmata (Christ's wounds on his own body); According to the testimony of the saint himself, this occurred in September 1224, after a long period of fasting and prayer, on a rock next to the Tiber and Arno rivers. Suffering from blindness and severe suffering, he spent his last two years in Assisi, surrounded by the fervor of his followers.Canticle of the Creatures or Canticle of Brother Sun , which influenced much of later Spanish ascetic and mystical poetry ( Fray Luis de León , Santa Teresa de Jesús and San Juan de la Cruz ). Saint Francis of Assisi died on October 3, 1226. In 1228, just two years later, he was canonized by Pope Gregory IX , who laid the first stone of the Assisi church dedicated to the saint. The festival of Saint Francis of Assisi is celebrated on October 4.

Works of Saint Francis of Assisi

Deprived of chronological data, the works of Saint Francis of Assisi document, not the life of the saint, but the Franciscan spirit and ideal. Much of these writings have been lost, including many epistles and the first of the three rules of the Franciscan order (composed in 1209 or 1210), which received the oral approval of Innocent III. The so-called Rule I is preserved ( actually second), composed in 1221 with the collaboration, as it refers to biblical texts, of Fray Cesario de Spira. This rule (called unsealedbecause it was not approved with the papal seal) consists of twenty-three chapters, of which the last is a prayer of thanksgiving and supplication to the Lord, and brings together the norms, admonitions and exhortations that Saint Francis addressed to his brothers, the most times on the occasion of the chapters of the order.

Saint Francis of Assisi (oil painting by Cigoli) Rule II , actually third (and called sealed , since it received pontifical approval on November 29, 1223), consists of only twelve chapters and is nothing more than a more concise and ordered from the preceding one, with respect to which it does not present (as some researchers have wanted to affirm) substantial novelties. It is the one that continues in force in the Franciscan order. In the Testament , written on the eve of his death and imposed as an integral part of the rule, Saint Francis bequeaths to his companions in order, as the greatest spiritual treasure, MadonnaPoverty. In the first complete edition of the works of Saint Francis of Assisi (Wadding's), there were seventeen epistles considered authentic, but their number was greatly reduced in subsequent critical editions. The exhortation to penitence and virtue, the importance of poverty and love of God and the precepts of the order are some of the recurring themes of his epistolary. A few religious poems in Latin are also preserved. Other notable works are the Admonitiones , which contain indications from Saint Francis for the correct interpretation of the rule, and De religious habitatione in eremo , addressed to friars wishing to lead a heremitic life. The AdmonitionsThey show their moral ideas in practical warnings given to their brothers, the result of a continuous analysis of their own inner life. Founded on the Gospels and the Epistles of Saint Paul , this morality is completely centered on the first precept, that of love for God for himself and as the only good, from which all others come and which is placed above all. things: whoever loves the Lord in this way already possesses Him internally to the extent that he understands that, without Him, the reason for our life would sink into darkness and nothingness.

The Canticle of the Creatures

To these works, all of them of high spiritual significance, we must add one that is also of great literary importance: the Canticle of Creatures (also called Laudes creaturarum or Canticle of Brother Sol ), probably written a year before his death. According to legend, the writing of this poem was a gift and the remedy for his advanced blindness. It is a prayer to God, written in Umbrian dialect and composed of 33 verses that do not have a regular meter. The rhyme repeats the same stylistic model of medieval Latin prose and biblical poetry, especially that of the Song of Songs.The prayer, whose slow rhythm is reminiscent of morning prayers, is of extraordinary beauty. She begins by praising the greatness of God and continues with the beauty and goodness of the sun and the stars, which she praises as brothers; For the humility of man she demands forgiveness and the dignity of death. The poetic mastery with which the Franciscan ideal was expressed in this composition had important literary and religious consequences. We must not forget that his spiritual movement was made up mostly of townspeople who used the vulgar language; The songs of this multitude of followers who toured fields and towns were called laudes , and were later collected in laudariums .or prayer books from the brotherhoods of devotees. The influence of Saint Francis' poem and its derived literature would become visible in the ascetic and mystical poetry of the Renaissance.